Contention 1 is Inherency – The National Ocean Policy is a failure. Budget and coordination efforts hamstring holistic strategy for exploration



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China DA

US/China Coop Resilient

Too many areas of cooperation prevent a relations collapse. China wants to work with us on science.


U.S. Department of State 12 (United States Department of State: Office of the Spokesperson, “U.S.-China Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region”; July 12, 2012; http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/07/194891.htm, RJ)

On the occasion of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the United States and China underscored the benefits to the United States and China, the Asia-Pacific region, and the international community of building a U.S.-China cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit and fostering a new type of relationship between major countries. Toward this end, through regular and substantive dialogue and consultation, the United States and China are developing cooperative activities throughout the Asia-Pacific region. At this year’s ARF, the two countries pledged to enhance and initiate collaborative efforts in the region, including in the areas of science and technology, climate change, disaster warning and response, energy policy, forest management, fisheries management, disease detection and control, and wildlife protection and conservation. Recent accomplishments in U.S.-China cooperation in the Asia-Pacific include: Disaster relief: The United States and China co-hosted the ASEAN Regional Forum Seminar on the Laws and Regulations on Participation in International Disaster Relief by Armed Forces in Beijing, June 10-12, 2012. Disaster response: The United States and China jointly funded and participated in an urban search and rescue (USAR) training exercise aimed at improving USAR capacity of Indonesia and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states. The International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) Asia Pacific Regional Earthquake Response Exercise, jointly funded by USAID and the China Earthquake Administration, was hosted by the Government of Indonesia National Search and Rescue Agency and held in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, May 29-June 1, 2012. Disaster warning: The United States and China decided to sign a Letter of Intent for a Collaborative Oceanographic Scientific Research Pilot Project for the Development of South Sea Real-Time Tsunami Forecasting Capabilities between the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and China’s National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center in the State Oceanic Administration (SOA). Science and technology: The United States and China signed the Framework Plan for Ocean and Fishery Science and Technology Cooperation between NOAA and SOA. Climate change: The United States and China are developing the Indian Ocean Southern Climate Observation, Reanalysis, and Prediction (ISOCORE) Program. Energy policy: The United States and China are participating as partners in the Asia-Pacific Energy Regulatory Forum (APERF) to facilitate sharing of information on energy regulatory and policy practice and experience in the Asia-Pacific Region, with China to attend the U.S.-hosted APERF meeting in Washington, D.C., in August 2012. Wildlife protection: The United States and China participated in a Special Investigations Group meeting led by the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) in Nanning, China, in June 2012. Forest management: The United States and China are strengthening cooperation and exchange through the Asia-Pacific Network for Sustainable Forest Management and Rehabilitation (APFnet). Wildlife conservation: The United States and China are collaborating on wild tiger conservation, including in the Asia-Pacific. Disease detection and control: The United States and China intend to expand collaboration between the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and China’s CDC to strengthen disease detection and control capabilities and networks in the Asia-Pacific. Fisheries management: The United States and China reaffirmed their commitment to expand cooperation on fisheries management and jointly support the creation of the North Pacific Fisheries Commission.

NASA Tradeoff DA

Turn – Mission

Turn – NASA is wasteful spending. Prioritizing OSEA solves space benefits more efficiently.


Conathan 13 (Michael Conathan is the Director of Ocean Policy at American Progress. Prior to joining American Progress, Mike spent five years staffing the Senate Committee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard. He holds a master in marine affairs from the University of Rhode Island and a BA in English Literature from Georgetown University. “Space Exploration Dollars Dwarf Ocean Spending,” 6/25/2014. The Reference Shelf. http://people.stfx.ca/rscrosat/trs14.pdf Nyy)

“Star Trek” would have us believe that space is the final frontier, but with apologies to the armies of Trekkies, their oracle might be a tad off base. Though we know little about outer space, we still have plenty of frontiers to explore here on our home planet. And they’re losing the race of discovery. Hollywood giant James Cameron, director of mega-blockbusters such as “Titanic” and “Avatar,” brought this message to Capitol Hill last week, along with the single-seat submersible that he used to become the third human to journey to the deepest point of the world’s oceans—the Marianas Trench. By contrast, more than 500 people have journeyed into space—including Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), who sits on the committee before which Cameron testified—and 12 people have actually set foot on the surface of the moon. All it takes is a quick comparison of the budgets for NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, to understand why space exploration is outpacing its ocean counterpart by such a wide margin. In fiscal year 2013 NASA’s annual exploration budget was roughly $3.8 billion. That same year, total funding for everything NOAA does—fishery management, weather and climate forecasting, ocean research and management, among many other programs—was about $5 billion, and NOAA’s Office of Exploration and Research received just $23.7 million. Something is wrong with this picture. Space travel is certainly expensive. But as Cameron proved with his dive that cost approximately $8 million, deep-sea exploration is pricey as well. And that’s not the only similarity between space and ocean travel: Both are dark, cold, and completely inhospitable to human life. Yet space travel excites Americans’ imaginations in a way ocean exploration never has. To put this in terms Cameron may be familiar with, just think of how stories are told on screens both big and small: Space dominates, with “Star Trek,” “Star Wars,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,” and “2001 A Space Odyssey.” Then there are B-movies such as “Plan Nine From Outer Space” and every- thing ever mocked on “Mystery Science Theater 2000.” There are even parodies: “Spaceballs,” “Galaxy Quest,” and “Mars Attacks!” And let’s not forget Cameron’s own contributions: “Aliens” and “Avatar.” Part of this incongruity comes from access. No matter where we live, we can go outside on a clear night, look up into the sky, and wonder about what’s out there. We’re presented with a spectacular vista of stars, planets, meteorites, and even the occasional comet or aurora. We have all been wishing on stars since we were children. Only the lucky few can gaze out at the ocean from their doorstep, and even those who do cannot see all that lies beneath the waves. When it comes to the ocean, we have “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” “Sponge Bob Square Pants,” and Cameron’s somewhat lesser-known film “The Abyss.” And that’s about it. This imbalance in pop culture is illustrative of what plays out in real life. We rejoiced along with the NASA mission-control room when the Mars rover landed on the red planet late last year. One particularly exuberant scientist, known as “Mohawk Guy” for his audacious hairdo, became a minor celebrity and even fielded his share of spontaneous marriage proposals. But when Cameron bottomed out in the Challenger Deep more than 36,000 feet below the surface of the sea, it was met with resounding indifference from all but the dorkiest of ocean nerds such as myself. As a result, the facts about ocean exploration are pretty bleak. Humans have laid eyes on less than 5 percent of the ocean, and we have better maps of the surface of Mars than we do of America’s exclusive economic zone—the undersea territory reaching out 200 miles from our shores. Sure, space is sexy. But the oceans are too. To those intrigued by the quest for alien life, consider this: Scientists estimate that we still have not discovered 91 percent of the species that live in our oceans. And some of them look pretty outlandish. Go ahead and Google the deepsea hatchetfish, frill shark, or Bathynomus giganteus. In a time of shrinking budgets and increased scrutiny on the return for our investments, we should be taking a long, hard look at how we are prioritizing our exploration dollars. If the goal of government spending is to spur growth in the private sector, entrepreneurs are far more likely to find inspiration down in the depths of the ocean than up in the heavens. The ocean already provides us with about half the oxygen we breathe, our single largest source of protein, a wealth of mineral re- sources, key ingredients for pharmaceuticals, and marine biotechnology. Of course space exportation does have benefits beyond the “cool factor” of putting people on the moon and astronaut-bards playing David Bowie covers in space. Inventions created to facilitate space travel have become ubiquitous in our lives— cell-phone cameras, scratch-resistant lenses, and water-filtration systems, just to name a few—and research conducted in outer space has led to breakthroughs here on earth in the technological and medical fields. Yet despite far-fetched plans to mine asteroids for rare metals, the only tangible goods brought back from space to date remain a few piles of moon rocks. The deep seabed is much more likely source of so-called rare-earth metals than distant asteroids. Earlier this year the United Nations published its first plan for management of mineral resources beneath the high seas that are outside the jurisdiction of any individual country. The United States has not been able to participate in negotiations around this policy because we are not among the I85 nations that have ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs such activity. With or without the United States on board, the potential for economic development in the most remote places on the planet is vast and about to leap to the next level. Earlier this year Japan announced that it has discovered a massive supply of rare earth both within its exclusive economic zone and in international waters. This follows reports in 2011 that China sent at least one exploratory mission to the seabed beneath international waters in the Pacific Ocean. There is a real opportunity for our nation to lead in this area, but we must invest and join the rest of the world in creating the governance structure for these activities. Toward the end of last week's hearing, Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), who chairs the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard, hypothetically asked where we would be today if we had spent half as much money exploring the oceans as we have spent exploring space. Given the current financial climate in Congress, we won't find the answer to his question on Capitol Hill. But there may be another way. Cameron is currently in preproduction on the second and third "Avatar" films. He says the former will be set on an ocean planet. No one except he and his fellow producers at 20th Century Fox really know how much the first installment of the ' movie series cost, but estimates peg it at approximately $250 million-or I0 times NOAA’s Ocean Exploration program. Since the original "Avatar” grossed $2 billion at the box office worldwide, if NASA isn't willing to hand over a bit of its riches to help their oceanic co-explorers, maybe Cameron and his studio partners can chip a percent or two off the gross from "Avatar 2" to help fill the gap. Come to think of it, if the key to exploring the oceans hinges either on Hollywood giving up profits or Congress increasing spending, maybe we are more likely to mine asteroids after all.

Ocean Exploration is more beneficial than Space Exploration


Nnamani 11 (Sally Nnamani is Research Assistant at Ewald & Wasserman Research Consultants, LLC, previously International Development grad student at The New School. “Government Should Fund NOAA and Marine Research, Not NASA Space Research”. Policy.mic, October 31, 2011, http://mic.com/articles/2218/government-should-fund-noaa-and-marine-research-not-nasa-space-research, nyy)

In the midst of the ongoing debt and budget crises, politicians and voters continue to engage in the contentious debate regarding the faulty prioritization of U.S. government spending. Most Americans remain concerned with the recklessness of large government spending in what they consider lesser priority areas. Operating on a $3.7 trillion budget for fiscal year 2012, Congress awarded $18.7 billion to NASA, encouraging the administration to reinvigorate its traditional role of innovation, technological development, and scientific discovery. On the other hand, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) received $4.5 billion, $1 billion less than their requested amount. This large discrepancy between the dollars allocated to these agencies is a clear-cut example of the growing concern among Americans regarding profuse government spending. Given that 95% of the underwater world remains unexplored and the space program has experienced little to no progress in recent years, should the space program remain a priority? The last half of the 20th century was marked by the ideological and technological warfare between the U.S. and the Soviet bloc. The Cold War morphed itself in several arenas from proxy wars to political conflict to economic and technological competition such as the Space Race. The Space Race is synonymous with the arms race, where one of the main frontiers where the Cold War was waged. As a result, accomplishments and developments made in these areas not only enhanced American power, but were also received with a strong sense of national pride. However, the backbone of the Information Age lies in developing innovative science and technology that will enable us to explore new worlds and increase our understanding of the earth. Space exploration has contributed largely to this effort as a result of relentless government support and a strong lobbyist backing. Lawmakers from Alabama, Maryland, and Utah, where NASA and the corporations typically awarded its contracts operate, invest heavily in lobbyists and PACs to push their agendas forward in Washington. On the contrary, although oceans are exploited for economic activities such as mineral extraction, dumping, commercial transportation, fisheries, and aquaculture, oceanic exploration has lagged behind due to insufficient support from the U.S. government. According to NOAA, "one of every six jobs in the United States is marine-related and over one-third of the U.S. GNP originates in coastal areas, the ocean is key to transportation, recreation, and its resources may hold the cures to many diseases." Since its potential contribution to human sustainability stands at equal footing with space research, government should apportion the necessary capital needed to explore the deep-sea frontier. Moreover, since its establishment in 1957, NASA has always faced attack from social activists accusing the agency of wasting resources that could be used here on earth. Given the daunting issues in the country today such as poverty, unemployment, lack of access to health care, a broken education system, and many others, many believe that the large amount of money poured into space research could be used to tackle these issues. Moreover, due to our limited understanding of oceanic activities and processes, we continue to remain subject to the implications of natural disasters stemming from the ocean. Investing in oceanic research may help discover preventive mechanisms against catastrophic earthquakes, tsunamis, and oil spills. The historical link between the American military complex and the space program may be the reason behind continued government support to the space agency. Arguably, the War on Terror has recreated tension similar to the Cold War era, forcing government to pour investment towards maintaining military supremacy in its fight against terrorism. The pronounced favoritism towards space research could therefore be attributed to the U.S. government’s traditional preference for hard power politics over soft power politics. While there is no doubt about the contributions of the space program to technological developments in numerous areas, one cannot help but question its relevance in a post-Cold War world. Possessing jurisdiction over 3.4 million square miles of ocean, there lies enormous potential to realize the benefits of the ocean while ensuring its sustainability for future generations.

AT: Space Colonization Impact/Private Sector


*NOTE* - Don’t read this card if there is a Private Sector CP in the debate.

Tag 1 – No tradeoff. The private sector will fill in the gap for space exploration.

Tag 2 – Turn: Ocean exploration solves extinction better than space colonization.

Mangu-Ward 13 (Katherine Mangu-Ward is managing editor of Reason magazine and a Future Tense fellow at the New America Foundation, “Is the Ocean the Real Final Frontier?”. Future Tense, 9/2013, http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/09/sea_vs_space_which_is_the_real_final_frontier.html nyy)

“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of our exploring shall be to return where we started and know the place for the first time” That tidbit of T.S. Eliot is stolen from Graham Hawkes, a submarine designer who really, really loves the ocean. Hawkes is famous for hollering, “Your rockets are pointed in the wrong goddamn direction!” at anyone who suggests that space is the Final Frontier. The deep sea, he contends, is where we should be headed: The unexplored oceans hold mysteries more compelling, environments more challenging, and life-forms more bizarre than anything the vacuum of space has to offer. Plus, it’s cheaper to go down than up. (You can watch his appealingly arrogant TED talk on the subject here. Is Hawkes right? Should we all be crawling back into the seas from which we came? Ocean exploration is certainly the underdog, so to speak, in the sea vs. space face-off. There’s no doubt that the general public considers space the sexier realm. The occasional James Cameron joint aside, there’s much more cultural celebration of space travel, exploration, and colonization than there is of equivalent underwater adventures. In a celebrity death match between Captain Kirk and Jacques Cousteau, Kirk is going to kick butt every time. In fact, the rivalry can feel a bit lopsided—the chess club may consider the football program a competitor for funds and attention, but the jocks aren’t losing much sleep over the price of pawns and cheerleaders rarely turn out for chess tournaments. But somehow the debate rages on in dorm rooms, congressional committee rooms, and Internet chat rooms. Damp ocean boosters often aim to borrow from the rocket-fueled glamour of space. Submersible entrepreneur Marin Beck talks a big game when he says, “We can go to Mars, but the deep ocean really is our final frontier,” but he giggles when a reporter calls him the “Elon Musk of the deep sea,” an allusion to the founder of the for-profit company Space X who is rumored to be the real-life model for Iron Man’s Tony Stark. Even Hawkes admits that he “grew up dreaming of aircraft”—though he means planes, not spaceships—but “then I got to look at this subsea stuff and I saw this is where aviation was all those years ago. The whole field was completely backwards, and that’s why I jumped in.” 35,802 ft (10,912 m) At the deepest point of the trench (and the deepest point on earth) the pressure is over 8 tons per square inch, or the equivalent of an average-sized woman holding up 48 jumbo jets. At 35,802 feet, the deepest point of the trench (and the deepest point on earth), the pressure is more than 8 tons per square inch, or the equivalent of an average-sized woman holding up 48 jumbo jets. While many of the technologies for space and sky are the similar, right down to the goofy suits with bubble heads—the main difference is that in space, you’re looking to keep pressure inside your vehicle and underwater you’re looking to keep pressure out—there’s often a sense that that sea and space are competitors rather than compadres. They needn’t be, says Guillermo Söhnlein, a man who straddles both realms. Söhnlein is a serial space entrepreneur and the founder of the Space Angels Network. (Disclosure: My husband’s a member.) The network funds startups aimed for the stars, but his most recent venture is Blue Marble Exploration, which organizes expeditions in manned submersibles to exotic underwater locales. (Further disclosure: I have made a very small investment in Blue Marble, but am fiscally neutral in the sea vs. space fight, since I have a similar amount riding on a space company, Planetary Resources.) As usual, the fight probably comes down to money. The typical American believes that NASA is eating up a significant portion of the federal budget (one 2007 poll found that respondents pinned that figure at one-quarter of the federal budget), but the space agency is actually nibbling at a Jenny Craig–sized portion of the pie. At about $17 billion, government-funded space exploration accounts for about 0.5 percent of the federal budget. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—NASA’s soggy counterpart—gets much less, a bit more than $5 billion for a portfolio that, as the name suggests, is more diverse. But the way Söhnlein tells the story, this zero sum mind-set is the result of a relatively recent historical quirk: For most of the history of human exploration, private funding was the order of the day. Even some of the most famous examples of state-backed exploration—Christopher Columbus’ long petitioning of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, for instance, or Sir Edmund Hillary’s quest to climb to the top of Everest—were actually funded primarily by private investors or nonprofits. But that changed with the Cold War, when the race to the moon was fueled by government money and gushers of defense spending wound up channeled into submarine development and other oceangoing tech. “That does lead to an either/or mentality. That federal money is taxpayer money which has to be accounted for, and it is a finite pool that you have to draw from against competing needs, against health care, science, welfare,” says Söhnlein. “In the last 10 to 15 years, we are seeing a renaissance of private finding of exploration ventures. On the space side we call it New Space, on the ocean side we have similar ventures.” And the austerity of the current moment doesn’t hurt. “The private sector is stepping up as public falls down. We’re really returning to the way it always was.” And when it’s private dough, the whole thing stops being a competition. Instead, it depends on what individuals with deep pockets are pumped about—or what makes for a good sell on a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter. Looking for alien life forms? You probably think you’re a natural space nerd, but you’re wrong. If the eternal popularity of “Is There Life on Mars?” stories is any indication, an awful lot of people are just hoping for some company. We really have no idea what’s hanging out at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, but there are solid reasons to think the prospects for biological novelty (and perhaps even companionship for humanity) are better down there than they are in Mars’ Valles Marineris. Want a fallback plan for when that final environmental catastrophe occurs? Underwater or floating habitats may offer fewer challenges than space colonies if you’re looking to quickly build a self-sustaining place to live when things cool down, warm up, dry out, or otherwise return to fitness for human habitation. If you’re just looking for wide open spaces, the vastness of space may ultimately prove your final frontier, but Söhnlein has a very human take on the question: “For myself,” he says, “I’d probably go with the oceans. Humanity has millennia to explore the cosmos. But I have only decades or—depending on who you believe—centuries. And there’s plenty to discover down there to fill my lifetime.”

No Link: Exp vs Test

NASA only uses the Ocean to test their space equipment – not exploration.


Wall 6/11 (Michael D. Wall is a Senior Writer for Space.com, “NASA 'Aquanauts' to Test Space Exploration Tech on Ocean Floor”, Space.com, 6/11/14, http://www.space.com/26201-nasa-aquanauts-neemo-space-tech-missions.html” nyy)

NASA is heading back to the ocean floor twice in the next three months to test out techniques and technologies that could improve astronauts' lives in orbit and help them explore an asteroid down the road. Teams of "aquanauts" will live and work at a research facility 62 feet (19 meters) beneath the waves off the coast of Florida in two missions staged by the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations program, or NEEMO. The first of the two stints, known as NEEMO 18, starts on July 21 and lasts for nine days. The seven-day NEEMO 19 mission begins on Sept. 7. "It is both challenging and exciting for our astronaut crews to participate in these undersea missions in preparation for spaceflight," Bill Todd, NEEMO project manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement. "It is critical that we perform science applicable to NASA’s exploration goals in a high-fidelity space operational context," he added. "The extreme environment of life undersea is as close to being in space as possible." NEEMO 18 will primarily investigate astronaut health issues and behavioral health and performance, while NEEMO 19 is designed to evaluate "telementoring" operations for the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA officials said. (In telementoring, an astronaut is given instructions via voice or video by an offsite expert.) Both missions will also include extravehicular activities (EVAs), simulated spacewalks that send the aquanauts out into the ocean for a variety of purposes. "These EVAs will focus on evaluating man-machine work systems and EVA tools and techniques for exploration tasks in varying levels of gravity ranging from that of asteroids to the gravity of Martian moons and Mars itself," NASA officials wrote in a description of the upcoming missions. Both NEEMO 18 and NEEMO 19 will be based at Florida International University’s Aquarius Reef Base, which lies 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) off the coast of Key Largo, Florida. Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide will command NEEMO 18, which also includes NASA astronauts Jeanette Epps and Mark Vande Hei and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet. NEEMO 19 will be led by NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik. Other crewmembers are Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen and Herve Stevenin, ESA’s head of extravehicular activity training at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne, Germany.


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