International Space Station: New Uses in Marketplace of Ideas

Abstract

Education and public outreach are recognized functions of the International Space Station (ISS). In this paper let us consider how those functions may be enhanced as ISS becomes fully operational and can support new uses and new users. We shall focus on the International Space University (ISO) as the primary vehicle for a future advanced education program using ISS extending the achievements of present outreach efforts. In 1987 the founders of ISU visualized a three-step process: first, peripatetic ten-week summer sessions; second, a year-round Master of Space Studies curriculum at a central campus; and third, a campus off-Earth. Their goal was to build a worldwide network of leaders whose shared, intense educational experience would raise lasting friendships. The first two steps have now been splendidly achieved, with 1350 ISU alumni already making their mark in space enterprises. Not only was ISU an idea whose time had come; the felicitous growth of the Internet greatly aided it in building an intercultural academic community that now includes 25 affiliate universities in 14 countries. Arthur C. Clarke, ISU's Chancellor, regards ISU as a modern analogue of the great universities of the renaissance and enlightenment, when transocean voyaging coincided with an outburst of new institutions and ideas. Permanently occupied space stations in low Earth orbit can be thought of as the coastal trading vessels of a future where people regard ventures farther into space as a practical reality. The commercial success of space fiction entertainments shows that the public is ready to believe in such a future. However, for the notions of space tourism, revived lunar and martian exploration and lunar settlement to become reality, there must be public acceptance of a large and sustained investment in real as distinct from fictional off-Earth living. Use of off-Earth resources is essential. In such a large shift of public opinion education will be the key; self-serving agency propaganda will not do. A broad segment of the world public needs to share true knowledge and a rational belief about the long-term value of human space voyaging and, more fundamentally, of the elevation of human values that can accompany it. Existing; commitments to education and public outreach provide a model for the early stages. Once the ISS becomes permanently occupied a more diverse and unpredictable education activity can start to grow. Diverse, because more educational experiments will be possible; unpredictable, because people both on Earth and in orbit will invent new teaching and learning concepts. A worldwide information system already exists and the first experiments are in progress for using it to support spaceborne education. However, many questions as to policy, economics and above all content remain unanswered. ISU is the right institution and this symposium is the right venue for starting the needed discussion. In this paper we examine possible paths of evolution from today's programs and plans to a time when there is in space an educational, research and public-service enterprise strong and durable enough; to be called an affiliate campus of the International Space University.