Why do space engineers make lousy business people?

05/12/05 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

Dan Schrimpsher of Space Pragmatism, commenting on the CDSVN stuff I'm presenting at ISDC 2005 next week, observed that, “in every other industry, it is easier to teach an engineer about business than an MBA about engineering. But as you say, not in space. Why do you think that is?”

I think it goes partially back to an article I wrote just after I setup Rocketforge: The Sad Legacy of the Apollo Space Program and Captain Kirk. The gist of that article is that science fiction and NASA haven't really done us any favors in the long run.

Can you imagine any other industry that grew up with a literary tradition as strong as science fiction and that existed before the industry was mature? Naval fiction has an extremely long history but it didn't predate the boat. It came after the industry and lifestyle were well established. And for all my respect for Heinlein's D.D. Harriman character, Heinlein probably did us a disservice by never writing about the actual business that D.D. did on a daily basis. Some current authors are attempting to change that with books such as The Rocket Company but even this book is not going to be read by science fiction buffs raised on Asimov and Apollo. You can't even find it on Amazon.

No, I think that in the long run our science fiction literary heritage has harmed us. Sure, it creates a “vision and inspiration to drive for”, but is it better to live vicariously on fictional vision or to build a world that allows vision to be physically realized by the visionary? Right now most of the potential space workers a vibrant space economy would be based on are living that lifestyle as voyeurs: reading about it in novels and watching a few government employees piddle around at it. Just enough voyeurism to channel what would have been the natural urges of any normal industry into a side industry of NASA lobbyists, space “advocacy” and science fiction conventions.

I'm still going to go see Star Wars this weekend, though. I'm even thinking about buying my own lightsaber


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