Geopolitical Effects on Global S.T.E.M Co-Operation

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Geopolitical Effects on Global S.T.E.M Co-Operation

 

I have noticed several comments that question co-operation with various countries. Some of the comments generally have a political nature for the composition.

 

That is quite normal and many members have different views of how society can or cannot co-operate on STEM initiatives.

 

I have opened this topic to create a place where we can debate this issue, in a civil manner, following all Neowin guidelines and try to get a grasp of the reasons that prevent all countries from working co-operatively for the betterment of mankind.

 

This thread is not intended to be a "bash country X", but a thread to dissect the rational for choices for/against  working with others in partnership.

 

This topic will be started by removing some comments from this thread and carrying forward in any fashion a member wishes, as long as it pertains to STEM...

 

 

Starting with this article...

 

The Second Meeting of the U.S.-China Space Dialogue

 

Quote

Pursuant to their shared goal of advancing civil space cooperation, as agreed upon in the Strategic Track of the U.S. - China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in June 2015 and reaffirmed in June 2016, the United States and China convened their second Civil Space Dialogue on October 20, 2016, in Washington, DC.
 
This ongoing Civil Space Dialogue enhances cooperation between the two countries, promotes responsible behavior in space, and encourages greater transparency and openness on a variety of space-related issues.
 
The Department of State led the meeting for the United States and the China National Space Administration represented China. Also supporting this meeting were U.S. Government representatives from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, including Administrator Charles Bolden, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Department of Defense.
 
At the meeting, U.S. and Chinese officials exchanged information on space policies and programs, and conducted discussions on further collaboration related to: Earth and space science; space and terrestrial weather; space debris and spaceflight safety; and the long-term sustainability of outer space activities.
 
Both sides agreed to hold the third meeting of the Dialogue in China in 2017.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2016/10/263499.htm

 

Comments on this....moved here from the CNSA thread.....copy and paste for now until I get this silly editor working for me, .....

 

Unobscured Vision

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Sweet! Hopefully this leads to China being able to participate in ISS activities, including Crew rotations and so forth. No reason not to have Taikonauts on board.

Beittil

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Well, thats never going to happen unless Congress unbans China from the ISS first =/

DocM

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The ban was applied for reasons.
 
1) the godawful 1990's technology transfers to China by Clinton, the last (1999) a week after a review stating earlier transfers led to them having accurate and MIRV nuclear warheads (due to a transfer of precision ball beating tech, allowing the creation of the deployment bus.)
 
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/11/world/clinton-approves-technology-transfer-to-china.html
 
2) cooperation also won't happen until Chinese hackers, operating from their military facilities, quit hacking into US companies - stealing IP's, and govt facilities. Their latest fighters are clearly using stolen US tech.

Unobscured Vision

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Oh right, yep. Forgot about the nearly-constant hammering of the Chinese Military Hackers stealing any and all IP they can find.

DocM

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Look up the Intelsat 708 incident and the Cox Commission report.

I think that this will be a fun thread and hopefully we can agree to disagree, but get an overall better view of the world's science programs...

 

I will be back shortly with a rebuttal....busy day...

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Being that this is late, I'm tired and am trying to not offend anyone...I will start this with a few of my opinions based on engineering experience and contacts with associates from diverse backgrounds.

repeat... my opinions, a few, to start...

 

1) STEM...or if you will, more generally, science, knows no borders....unless someone here knows of a politician or religion that can change the laws of physics. (if so...i'm all ears.....)

 

2) The best and brightest of all fields are distributed all over the world. 

 

3) For Science, we use the metric system and English as the global standards. Meaning all facets can be carried out in any measure system or language one wishes, but will be translated and reported to internationally sanctioned bodies in the standard just stated.

 

4) There are many collaborations taking place in many countries at the present moment.

 

5) Anyone or any company/government agency that has important intellectual property or a very important state secret, on a machine connected to the internet, in any fashion, deserves to be hacked and have their name submitted for the village idiot awards...period. Do these people not understand what comprises the internet.

 

6) Hacking or whatever one wants to call it, as it pertains to intellectual property, is low level espionage, at best, and is carried out in one form or another by every major power on this planet.....unless someone knows a country of "angels"...please do tell... review item #5. 

 

7) Many engineering product forms are due to the constraints of physics for an efficient shape....not because someone copied another's idea.

 

8) Mainstream media is biased....everywhere, in one shape or form as it conforms to the society at hand. Never rely on one's own MSM. There are 100's of news outlets available online for one to get a better grasp of the events at hand. 

 

9) Many countries have a "body", which applies pressure towards it's government officials, to influence or control matters in it's own best interest, not that of it's citizens.    Does  military/industrial/financial conglomerates come to mind here...?

 

10) I am from Canada..if anyone has not noticed. In my country, I know people who have a problem with Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran..well, any ME country. This comprises more than 50% of the worlds 7.5 billion people, for which I ask the question..."WHO" has the real problem when they can't get along with half the planet?

 

The above are my opinions only and start the basis for why I would like everyone, in some form or other, to at least get along and collaborate on scientific ventures for the betterment of mankind.   Am I naive...guilty as charged, but I can at least hope for some improvement and am more than willing to call out silly assumptions.

 

I will be back here later to explain why the scientific super powers need to "get along".

 

Teflon suit on and buckled up...fire away!

 

[DocM]

ITAR is US law, and it evolved the way it is for damned good reasons. How Canadians feel about it is irrelevant save for transfers between it and the US, or 3-way transfers inclding China..

 

Chinese intrusions went way beyond just the typical peeking and became large scale IP thievery. Further, space cooperation ended when US encryption boards were stolen after a "failed" Chinese launch of a US satellite. Many on this side think that failure wasn't an accident.

 

Trust takes a long time to rebuild, and so long as China is involved in organised IP theft US mistrust won't change.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Sorry about the delay...I've been finishing up a project, and am back. I expected a blank thread or a whole slew of "nastygrams" due to the opening posts...which were meant to have a bit of shock value to gauge response.

 

Thank you for the reply Doc, for which I will have a response for shortly. First I would like to open with a blurb as to why, at this time, this is even an issue.

 

The science community, in reference to LEO operations and beyond, have had many issues dealing with constraints that limit the scope and breadth of mission coverage. This has been going on for decades but recently major changes have come into play that will introduce new approaches to scientific endeavors, on a global scale. We have our "newspace" players and are soon to be witness to, can I say, "newscience", as it is not a stretch.

 

I will start this out with the old problems that have been issues for decades and luckily, we have a post in the science section here that covers part of it, located here...

 

The Crisis in Astrophysics and Planetary Science:

How Commercial Space and Program Design Principles will let us Escape.

Article...

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1609/1609.09428.pdf

 

This is a 12 page US institutional"submitted paper" that covers some of the issues and we shall talk of others as we progress. If you can afford the time, well worth reading, but I will summarize the main points and add others.

 

 Commercial Space will reduce mission costs
1) Launch Cost per kilogram
2) Relaxed Mass Constraints on Spacecraft and Science Payload Design
3) Low Cost On-orbit Science Payload Testing in LEO
4) Affordable On-orbit Servicing in LEO
5) Commercial Lunar Landers
 
 Prudent Program Design Principles
1) Single-point failure
2) Scientific Program Requirements
3) Single viewpoint failure
4) Balancing Ambitious, Achievable and Affordable
5) Community Challenges
6) Agency and Government Buy-in

 

In a nutshell, it boils down to Launch costs/booking delays, the extreme costs of generational projects for which limited funding is available and no full spectrum coverage.

 

As we are fully aware, launch costs are plummeting and will continue due to prudent design, reusability and a global surge of launch providers in multiple lift capacities and quick turn around times.

 

For human rated lifters, we have Roscosmos, CNSA (China), and shortly SpaceX, Boeing, with soon to follow Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, SNC and ISRO, all progressing in various capacities.

 

Presently, we have 2 spacestations with ISS and Tiangong-2. The ISS is still committed to 2024 with a possible extension to 2028 as well as commercial involvement. CNSA will begin lifting parts for their main station early 2017 and hope to have it running by 2020. Russia has always had a backup plan dependant on the outcome of the ISS. Commercial interests may also see an independant station in orbit. The future still holds promise for a cislunar station as well.

 

Lunar Village will happen in one form or another and will probably be a collaberation as several countries have expressed a keen interest.

 

The big ticket, in my opinion is Mars. As we are fully aware of, SpaceX's prime goal is a Martian colony. SpaceX is primarily a "transport" company and will remain as such. They have also recently stated that they will be involved with the initial consumable production, power systems and habitation installation. This is extremely important as it provides a starting point and then offers a cost effective 2 way transport system after the fact.

 

A Lunar or Martian settlement have the same strategic starting point. Any start has to be in one point and expanded from that point due to infrastucture costs. This is where global community involvement comes into play. Once the initial settlement is established, use of a cost effective transport system allows governments, agencies and private ventures to bring in their expertise for all manner of niches. We need expanded fuel, water, oxygen, food, power, habitats, commercial plants, science installations and sub posts, vehicles, communication systems, medical, repair shops, parts manufacture, mining, clothing and numerous other needs with an emphasis on insitu production leading towards self sufficiency in many areas. The best results will be achieved by a global pool of experts in their fields, working in a co-operative effort to ensure the colony thrives and in so doing, create the first truly global community, a Martian one.

 

For LEO and beyond, through co-operative efforts, we need to reduce expensive generational projects and begin a more comprehensive coverage of the RF spectrum and the beginning of a new gravitational spectrum.

 

Launch cost and transportation avenues allow us to increase payload lift mass for larger power supplies to enable multiple redundancy systems.These systems will be able to get away from expensive one-off builds and in some cases use tough industrial grade components, reduced radiation hardened and shield enclosures instead. We can begin to use more bandwidth and drastically improve communication.

 

The small satellite revolution (comprising of many sizes) will continue and become a large player for science aquisition. Numerous private vendors are entering the market with all manner of cubesat accessories.The cubesats are an ideal platform which can be compounded into 1U, 2U, 3U and 6 U units.

 

These satellites can be simplistic or very complex with sensors, propulsion system, deorbit mechanisms, image capture and communications. These units can be used in swarm or formation flying and relay data to a mother carrier for transmission back to Earth. The largest issue with cubesats is reliability and that is being addressed at many levels. These units are ideal for low cost, short duration data aquisition. 

 

By using first principles, a cubic yard is 10U x 10U x 10U, 1000 units to use in any combination. If these units are used for a sole purpose, numbers of these can be released for fault tolerance, and many groups all covering different science aquisitions. These units can communicate to a properly designed, fault tolerant high throughput communication transciever or relay probe.

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Great advancements have been made in transport, communications, satellite designs and scientific discovery. The overall costs can be reduced but are still too high for a single entity to go it alone. A combined global effort in any manner will result in a much larger achievment, the more in collaberation, the larger the gain. Individual entities will still have their own programs, but better spectrum coverage can be achieved through proper planning with other agencies as well as collaberative efforts. 

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Co-operation

For the most part of the last half century, the vast majority of countries have stayed within their own borders with technological material and most have done reconnaissance to see the levels achieved by their competitors.

 

Technology has changed that for the better. Global commerce and partnerships have made high technology products available to the masses, for an affordable price. The internet is a global communication infrastructure consisting of many discreet communication mediums. This has allowed us to communicate and collaberate with anyone regardless of the source and destination borders. International co-operation between governments has grown, but the largest global co-operative effort has always been scientific or STEM research.

The International Space Station (ISS) has been a very successful venture between the US, Russia, ESA, JAXA and Canada.

 

ESA, representing the European Union, involves itself in many collaberative projects, as does the US, Russia, India, and particularly China of late, who have been involved in numerous partnerships, particularly with ESA, Russia and the UN as of late. Many smaller countries have also entered into various ventures. Agreements of principle have begun which may lead, in 10 years time, astronauts from ESA, Russia and even Canada may be aboard the next CNSA space station during the 2020's.

 

All countries have some form of governmental protections in place which protect their highest levels of intellectual property. This would be expected. Some policies are more severe than others and have had portions of regulation restricting some co-operative effort. That is their business as well, but the bottle neck is now beginning to show. China has made drastic policy changes, for which I see as a major win for many nations. The US has also had grumblings which question severity of policies.

 

What is the actual issue? There isn't one. The leading nations are continuing with their various programs, have engaged in some co-operative projects but the advances mentioned above such as launch costs, expensive generational projects and spectrum coverage have made many realize that achieving more for less is possible through global partnerships and co-ordination.This has been known for decades but it's only been recently that major changes have occurred that will now allow this new scientific approach to be realized.It's that simple. No one is forcing anyone to do anything. If one wants to prosper, than collaberate and co-ordinate. If one chooses not to, you're on your own to foot the full cost of your programs and hiarchy.

 

Did anyone in the US see these changes coming? They certainly did. After suffering decades of ridiculously high costs, lost project numbers and launch imposed project constraints, there is a way out....

 

One grumbling is even in this science forum....an article from 2012, which puts it on the table...

 

Government and Space: Lead, Follow, and Get Out of the Way

Article...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-tumlinson/government-and-space-lead_b_1556312.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications

 

quote from said article...

 

Start quote

Lead: Declare that our national goal in space is settlement and resource development. (Pass a new Space Settlement Act.) Implement pro-settlement laws and policies. (Take an aggressive stand on property and IP rights of U.S. citizens and companies in space.) Focus tax dollars on advanced science, astronomy, exploration, and research beyond the reach of commercial investment. Support the genius of American space enterprise. (For example, make space investment a tax-exempt activity.) Fund STEM initiatives.

 

Follow: Purchase goods and services from commercial vendors in every possible area of activity. (Buy the ride, not the rocket!) Don’t duplicate private research using tax dollars. Offer prizes and support activities and areas of advancement critical to knowledge and technology development but not yet in the realm of commercial investment. Become a solid customer for data and information acquisition from space.

 

Get out of the way: Rewrite the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and other laws blocking U.S. firms from interactions with international partners. (Lower the paperwork so small businesses can afford to work globally.) Drop the Federal Acquisition Regulation for contracts and get creative using shared-risk research and pay-for-delivery purchases. (Use common-sense commercial best practices for acquisition.) Move to the edge and build in commercial handoff from the beginning of exploration plans (e.g., practice for Mars on the Moon, then hand off the infrastructure needed to do so.)

End quote

 

Interesting, so far there are 3 people that think ITAR could use a little bit of work...the author of the article, myself and Elon Musk (South African-born Canadian-American)..and obviously many more out there too. 

 

In summary of this portion, no one is forcing anyone to do anything. Want more bang for your buck and a heck of a lot better science, you now know how to do it, as a co-ordinated and co-operative community...just like Mars will be in a few decades. 

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In response to Doc's post...

 

Start quote

"ITAR is US law, and it evolved the way it is for damned good reasons. How Canadians feel about it is irrelevant save for transfers between it and the US, or 3-way transfers inclding China.."

End quote

 

The ITAR information will be handy for any neewbe who happens to wander over this thread. 

 

Everyone is entitled to a personal opinion about anything they choose. The value of that opinion will be based on the formation of it through the use of sound scientific principles, verified facts and coherent logical progression. Anything less is a devaluation. Whether someone considers the opinion is entirely up to them. Why would one think that a discussion statement from one country about another country, would have any impact on someone else's laws?

 

Start quote
 
"Chinese intrusions went way beyond just the typical peeking and became large scale IP thievery. Further, space cooperation ended when US encryption boards were stolen after a "failed" Chinese launch of a US satellite. Many on this side think that failure wasn't an accident.
 
Trust takes a long time to rebuild, and so long as China is involved in organised IP theft US mistrust won't change."

End quote

 

The internet has been around and developed for 25+ years, numerous operating system revisions have passed and network design and it's equipment have continually improved, all with an emphasis on security.

 

Hacking is world wide, it won't stop tomorrow or 10 years from now...period. Find a hole, patch it, someone looks for a new hole, a never ending game. DDOS attacks, much the same.

 

Industrial/consumer espionage will never end. Every company wants to know their competition. There are many ways to safeguard front end data by proper network design, authentication and fully updated systems. Extremely valuable property should never be on a machine attached to the internet...hence...from above...

 

"5) Anyone or any company/government agency that has important intellectual property or a very important state secret, on a machine connected to the internet, in any fashion, deserves to be hacked and have their name submitted for the village idiot awards...period. Do these people not understand what comprises the internet."

 

I do not condone hacking, but it's a fact of life. I would be more concerned with a corporation or government front end that does get hacked where data gets released, or used, in which case, the fault squarely belongs to the type of security employed, or worse, data that had no business being there to begin with. The real outrage should be with the site owners, not the hackers. If it's a government institution, they have enough of the taxpayers money to ensure security, why was it not done. One doesn't complain about sqeaky barn door hinges when a firestorm is burning down the farm.

 

Any major espionage was likely through others means, and if so, address those issues. 

 

As far as giving examples of espionage ...that's a schoolyard level conversation where every time you mention one, I mention one back...this could go on for a long time (rich history) and serves no purpose and is therefore a game I will not play.

 

Spying in one form or another, whether it be consumer products or high level intellectual property, will always be present, hence the requirement for proper containments. The science community is generally a poor role model for Bond and most of their published papers or patents basically prove what they have been up to. There are many ways to institute containment with international science projects....we're talking data aquisition, not new ways to kill each other.

 

Russia, China, in fact practically most countries have an involvement in one form or another when it comes to spying. No one is innocent.This conversation is better left to another thread since it will only agitate others and detract from the topic of international science co-operation.

 

But never forget that the US has 16 intelligence agencies with a propensity to launch billion dollar spy sats like chicklets.The NSA has a larger budget than most countries military expenditures.This is pot meet kettle....serves no purpose.

 

Co-operation starts with finding common ground and putting in the effort....unless one has no interest in co-operation, and that is a choice each country will make. It ends up being "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it".

 

// 

Moving forward...with international science co-operation, in any fashion...

 

Are the above points valid, do you have a few of your own?

 

How do you see a co-operative settlement on the Moon, on Mars, space stations, types of planetary missions, etc.  

 

If anyone would like to comment on some of the idea's or add your own, please do...otherwise, I'll be talking to myself....

 

 

[BetaguyGZT]

Nah, no nasty-grams DD. More of the sad-face "you don't understand, bud" kind of feelings. We still luv ya.

 

We're all in agreement that things have to change. This whole business of Gov's hacking one another and spying on each other ... I agree, it's nasty. It shouldn't be happening. I'm all for "how about we have cookouts, drink a few brews and get along", and I know that the "other sides" feel the same way for the most part.

 

The problem is that there are countries in this world who do not feel that way. They need an enemy. They must have an enemy -- real or imaginary. So they will take advantage of goodwill and altruism in a negative way. That's what happened. The U.S. got burned, more than once, by being altruistic. Yes, we've made mistakes and really unfortunate miscalculations, along with some really poor decisions -- we're big enough to admit it -- but in the end, all we really wanted to do was to help. And we got knocked on our butts for it, scorned, used, taken advantage of, and outright played for fools. 

 

That's why ITAR is in place. Because countries didn't play by the rules, or morality, when we were being (or at least trying to be) moral and playing by the rules. And those who thought they could "get over on us" are going to find that they've only played themselves out of short-sightedness. That's what African Dictators do ... short-term gains, but in the long-term they find they've totally ###### themselves.

 

So until countries start playing by the rules, as well as good morality, ITAR stays where it is. That's the short of it. And yeah, we're still kinda P.O.'d about the whole thing.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Thanks for the polite reply...

 

We can agree to disagree.

 

This thread was started, not as a vision, but because it is already happening. Although "newspace" is in the limelight here, there is a lot more going on than what makes the local MSM.

 

If you have time later...reread the above carefully and realize ITAR is not significant to the overall global change in science, and at no time did anyone say for it to be removed.

 

This thread will be closed.