Affirmative Lecture Notes - Tallungan - ENDI 2011
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Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its
exploration and/or development of space beyond the earth’s mesosphere.
Affirmative Areas/Ideas
A couple brief caveats before I start (1) Keep in mind this is a very preliminary look at aff’s on the topic and I am sure there
are affs on here that may not come to fruition once more research is done because they
may not be the most strategic and there are probably affs that will be created that are not
on this list.
Great thing about debate - as debaters get good at research and your creativity develops
in line with your strategic thinking, you can create your own affs that I may not have
thought of.
(2) I am not an astrophysicist and I do not have a science background. I have an M.A. in
Communication Studies and my undergraduate degrees were Communication Studies and
Political Science with a minor in Cinema-TV. As a result, I am coming at this topic more
with a policy perspective (not as in policy debate, but as in gov’t policy).
Questions I will be more effective answering will be centered on policy then, not
questions like, “what is dark matter?” I am not sure right now and would need to do
research to answer such a question.
Herndon broke it up into the following topic areas =
A. Military
B. Explore
C. Energy
D. Weapons
E. Science
I am actually going to break it up a little differently: Tech Development/Exploration,
Human Development/Exploration, Education/Forces, E.T.’s, and Kritik Affs
Technological Development
Pros of Tech Development:
(1) Big impacts
(2) Many solvency advocates arguing we should increase technology
(3) Little immediate risk to human life in testing/deployment of technology
Cons of Tech Development:
(1) Speculative
(2) Long term impacts on some of these affs
(3) Expensive - Political lightening rod
Affirmative Lecture Notes - Tallungan - ENDI 2011
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Affirmatives:
Solar Power Satellites - Dept. of Commerce/Dept. of Energy
Solar Sails - Dept. of Commerce/Dept. of Energy
Nuclear Propulsion - NASA (Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) - part of NASA)
Space Weapons - DoD/Air Force Space Command
Space National Missile Defense (NMD)
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM)
Rods from God
Mars Rovers/Probes - NASA
Earth Monitoring - Dept. of Commerce (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration)
Hubble Telescope and Webb Telescope (Scheduled to launch post-2015) - NASA
Space Elevators - NASA
Human Development/Exploration
Pros of Human Space Exploration:
(1) Necessary to some doomsday projects like colonization - extinction
(2) Necessary for some coop advantages
Cons of Human Space Exploration:
(1) Politically Risky, e.g., Challenger disaster and hiatus in space program
(2) Unnecessary
(3) Limits exploration and can make projects more cost prohibitive
Affirmatives:
Reinstate the Constellation/Space Shuttle program - NASA
Good inherency = good uniqueness debates
ISS exploration/space - Medical research - NASA
Asteroid Mining - NASA
Colonization - NASA
Space Tourism - Dept. of Commerce/NASA
Affirmative Lecture Notes - Tallungan - ENDI 2011
Education/Forces
Pros of Education/Forces:
(1) Cheap relative to technical and human-based space exploration
(2) Immediate impacts
(3) Good solvency advocates
Cons of Education/Forces:
(1) Effectually topical and there are good arguments for arguing it should be limited out
Affirmatives:
Math and Science Education Programs for Space Exploration - Congressional
funding
US Space Force - DoD
Space Situational Awareness (SSA)/Space Guard - DoD
Extraterrestrials (E.T.’s)
Pros of E.T. Affs:
(1) Lots of random advantages
(2) Lots of random evidence can mean lots of random tricks in the literature
Cons of E.T. Affs:
(1) Wade through the crazies - need lots of prodites for authors
(2) Speculative
Affirmatives:
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
Alien Communication - CIA/FBI/DoD/NASA
Alien Energy - Dept. of Energy/DoD
Kritik Affs
Pros of Kritik Affs:
(1) Do not have to prove technology will be successful/exploration; minimizes technical
nature of the space debate
(2) Strategically focuses affirmative 2AC; you will be able to repeat the same argument
in many different ways in response to their DA’s and CP’s
Cons of Kritik Affs:
(1) Good kritiks of idea that humans should explore or develop space that may solve
advantages better
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Affirmative Lecture Notes - Tallungan - ENDI 2011
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(2) Need strong links from affirmative plan to prevent easily counterplan-able advantages
Affirmatives:
Star Wars Performance Aff - Just kidding; not even sure what this would be
besides people acting like they are getting in light saber
Alien as symbol - Plan to generally recognize E.T.’s in space as a metaphor for
accepting the “Other” in the United States; there is good literature examining the
alien as a symbol for the “Other” in society
Science Fiction Good - Narrative or acceptance of science fiction as a good for
some reason. This aff would read some sort of science fiction about space - it may
propose a fantastical plan and then say that embracing the fantastical is good for
some reason.
Critical Astropolitics - Book, “Politics of Space Security”
Major Topicality Debates Determining Tension on Affirmative Ground
Herndon went through some of these already and I wanted to elaborate on these debates
on their constraints on Topic Affirmatives Public vs. Private Funding
Public contracting the private sector for space missions is standard procedure. If the neg
limits out, contracting private development then there are VERY FEW affirmatives that
can be run if any since even if NASA is controlling significant projects, it is still
contracting various organizations to create parts of the projects.
Affirmatives can do both - destroying CP ground. Do not specify in your plan text since
that will make CP’s competitive. Be ready with a good CX response for this question
though.
US vs. International
Affirmatives can topically do this - it just requires the aff to argue that development that
belongs to the U.S. because the U.S. pays for it means that the development/exploration
is possessed by the United States. Since contracting is a pretty standard way that the U.S.
acquires tech, etc., this is not a far-fetched understanding of the resolution.
Exploration and/or Development of Space
Herndon brings up that Development is more limiting - I agree.
Affirmative Lecture Notes - Tallungan - ENDI 2011
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However, that there must be a development of space because of the grammatical structure
of the resolution, e.g., so you cannot run an education aff because that would be a direct
development of humans, not space, is somewhat arbitrary. Development of space
includes the development of technologies for space, should it not also include the
development of human brain necessary for space exploration and creation of such
technologies? What is development of material technology ok, but not of human
technology? Education is merely the development of space in the same way the creation
of a propulsion system is development of space.
Effects Topicality - Is it necessary on this topic?
Negative will be have to be well-versed in the meaning of the resolution and
understanding why effects T is not legit on this topic.
How do you determine effects topicality on this resolution? Does the topic mandate
effects topicality?
General Warning: Prepare for the randomness
Extra note on Qualification debates - Herndon emphasized this. PRACTICE your
qualifications debate/evidence comparison before the school year starts. Some great
articles are on 3NR for this - Scotty P has some on evidence comparison and Batterman
has some analysis of bad evidence that would be good for you to review to get an
example of what an evidence indite should sound like.
Go to Gordon-Tallungan’s Lab Wiki to see links to these articles.
Affirmative Lecture Notes - Tallungan - ENDI 2011
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Activity: Matching Your Advantage Areas
Several advantage areas were already discussed in Herndon’s lecture. I would like you to
play a little game and match some of the advantage areas to the Affirmative ideas. There
is more than one answer for all these affs.
Affirmative
Advantage
_________ 1. Fund creation of SBSP
A. U.S. space leadership
B. Aerospace competitiveness
C. Cosmopolitanism K
D. Security K
E. Disease Vaccines/Cures
F. Space Debris Containment
G. International Cooperation
H. U.S. hegemony (Hard power key)
I. Resource Shortages
J. Global Warming
K. Space Weaponization Bad
_________ 2. US Space Force
_________ 3. Funding for ISS Medical Research
_________ 4. Search for E.T. Intelligence
_________ 5. Alien as Symbol
_________ 6. Reinstate Constellation
_________ 7. Create and Deploy Rods from Gods
_________ 8. Space Missile Defense
_________ 9. Asteroid Mining
_________ 10. Space Situational Awareness (SSA)
With your assigned affirmative, write an explanation of how your affirmative could claim
the advantage area you chose for it. Be creative yet logical in your explanation.
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