Blue Collar Space

February 15, 2010 by J Paul Douglas
Filed under: Commercial Space Flight

Many articles on spacewalking astronauts for the International Space Station, including the most recent from the AP covering Expedition XXII, describe how astronauts become plumbers… or electricians, or what have you. Here’s a thought: instead of training astronauts to become plumbers, why not train plumbers to perform their profession in space? Call me crazy, but it would cost the taxpayers a great deal less, they’d get a plumber to do a plumbers job and plumbers everywhere would have a new source of potential jobs. And I have a sneaking suspicion there are more than a few plumbers out there who would jump at the chance to do what they do best in space.

The current culture supports a paradigm in which billions of dollars are spent training a PhD-centric astronaut corps (pronounced “core,” er hem) to do the work to which blue collar folks have dedicated themselves as their chosen vocation, one which has earned them a title just as noble as PhD: that of craftsman. The culture is changing, and so our paradigms should be re-examined, including this one.

The time for blue collar space jobs has arrived. As we see orbital operations shifting from NASA to the private sector over the next few years, these jobs will begin to appear. Call it a prognostication.

This image provided by NASA TV shows astronauts Robert Behnken, top, and Nicholas Patrick installing the Tranquility room to the International Space Station early Friday Feb. 12, 2010. The new room, named Tranquility, and domed lookout represent $400 million in home improvements. The lookout, with its seven windows, including the largest ever sent into space, already has astronauts salivating over the anticipated views of Earth. (AP Photo/NASA)

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