Manned missions into space -- a waste?

[hgc]

No, clearly not; I mentioned the value of science and the value of learning as well. There's plenty of stuff to do on Earth; basic physics, sea exploration, archaeology.

But I don't see manned space exploration traded as an--ahem--practical matter to enhance those endeavours either.

Rather, I see space exploration, both manned and unmanned, denigrated as part and parcel of denigrating all those other things as well. Because, of course, anything truly human is "romantic" and to be denigrated, not like the real, practical stuff.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I spent almost four billion years getting this far; I'm not going to turn back now. You do what you like.

I understand that the luddites don't want to spend money on anything but farm subsidies.

I am a huge supporter of space exploration. I think it's more than just practical, it's a critical to scientific advancement. I am also just as inspired by the mystery and the awe, even of manned space exploration, as you are. But I've made a hard choice here that in my opinion, it's more of a drain on the overall space exploration project than it's a contributor.

 

[epepke]

According to every NASA official I have heard, this small-step, deliberate, careful way of going about it will get us all there faster. We can take much greater chances and send many, many more missions doing these unmanned flights first as opposed to high-risk, very expensive manned missions where we are much more limited to how much we can try and how far we can travel.

Well, ya know, I'm old. I clearly remember the "faster, cheaper, better" plan and how it resulted in a lot of crap that didn't work. Yet NASA was sure at the time that was the right way to go about things.

Nor do I have anything against robotic missions, which, if nothing else, will advance the state of robotics and AI, which I consider good.

Nor do I assert that manned missions are always the right way.

I do know that at some point we have to have people on the Moon permanently, baking oxygen out of the regolith, constructing domes, mining materials.

I don't know if that is a feasible goal today, or how long it will take to become feasible. I am pretty sure that if we hadn't developed cultural ennui a quarter of a century ago, we'd be a quarter of a century closer.

I don't have illusions about economics. But nor do I hold with elevating bean-counting to godhood. I can deal with responses such as yours, easily. I have a much harder time dealing with the other ("How romantic.") responses. They seem to me to be symptoms of a sickness of the soul. Not the soul of religion, but the soul very much like what B.B. King plays.

I see what people in NASA say, and for all the words, it all seems to me to be rationalizations around "Hee hee hee! We'll try to stay under the radar, and so maybe we can do something instead of nothing."

I still see a risk of the soul being lost under rationalization, bean-counting, two-bit politicking, and estimations of a zero-sum game.

I remember what happened in physics, when physicists thought they were clever by holding back on trying to get grants on the zero-sum estimation that the money would go toward the superconducting supercollider. Now they don't have that, nor do they have what they gave up.

I am well aware that for every one person who wants to do something, ten thousand will say it is impossible. The ten thousand will always be with us; what scares me is losing the one.

 

[Ignatius]

epepke,

I like the way you think!

thanks,

Ignatius

 

[epepke]

I am a huge supporter of space exploration. I think it's more than just practical, it's a critical to scientific advancement. I am also just as inspired by the mystery and the awe, even of manned space exploration, as you are.

And yet, still, the first thing you say is "How romantic," like a line from Beavis and Butthead. Perhaps you are as inspired, but perhaps also you forget it from time to time.

C.f. my other response.

But I've made a hard choice here that in my opinion, it's more of a drain on the overall space exploration project than it's a contributor.

That's a zero-sum game estimation. The trouble with treating something as a zero-sum game is that it inevitably becomes a negative-sum game. The beans get fewer and fewer.

 

[patnray]

Well, ya know, I'm old. I clearly remember the "faster, cheaper, better" plan and how it resulted in a lot of crap that didn't work. Yet NASA was sure at the time that was the right way to go about things.

Of course, NASA was forced into that philosophy because 90% of its resources were gobbled up by the shuttle and the ISS.

Dozens of exciting missions to the planets, asteroids, and comets were canceled or delayed for years because the manned program ate up most of the money.

The 4 space telescopes have been huge successes and greatly enhanced our knowledge of the universe. One of the Voyager probes was successful, even though the high speed data antenna failed, because ground controllers were able to completely reprogram the system to store data and transmit latter on the low speed antenna. There is a window of opportunity now for a mission to Pluto (and perhaps the Kuiper belt) that we could miss while we burn money on useless facilities like the ISS.

So Spirit is being tested very slowly. Why the rush? There is no guarantee that a team of astronauts, after 9 months in space, would be any faster. It would take them several days to acclimate to Mars' gravity. Then they'd have to set up their living quarters and laboratories before they could start exploring. They would have to proceed just as carefully: there are no ERs on Mars...

Not only would it be 1000 times more expensive, but 99% of the mission would be devoted to life support, not science.

Furthermore, any realistic plan for a manned mission to Mars would require reliable and accurate robotic craft to deliver equipment and supplies at precise locations before the astronauts arrived and while they are there (they'd have to stay on Mars about 9 months before the planets were aligned for a return).

So it makes sense to put significant effort into developing the automated craft and machinery that would be required because it would be useful whether we ever send men to Mars or not. But such sophisticated robots could do almost anything a man could, including bringing back samples, without risking human life.

I do see one significant scientific mission for a manned base on the moon: constructing and operating a huge radio telescope on the far side of the moon (where it would be shielded from earth noise). With low gravity and no wind, we could build an awesome facility...

There is some value to manned space exploration. Certainly the Hubble has benefited from servicing in orbit (but we could probably have replaced it for less than it cost to service it...) But I think we spend too much on the manned effort and not nearly enough on automated craft.

 

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by epepke [/i]

>>Manned space exploration is valuable because I want to go. If I don't get to go, I want someone to go.

>>The reason I want to go is that I am a human.

>>Gorillas feed their community. Jackdaws gather toys. Cats mark their territories. Every creature lives, breathes, eats, eliminates, reproduces, dies.

And humans prey on their neighbors, with guns and jails hired out by their agencies of coercion (government) to extract the necessary funds to support all those noble endeavors. Why can't you high minded philosphers use your own money to support your dreams and leave the rest of us to use our own funds as we see fit? Some of us Great Unwashed think putting food on the table, a house over our heads, perhaps a college education for our children and health and retirement funding is a little more important than a trilliion dollar Martian boondoggle where the end product payoff is not much more than kicking through a bunch of Martian sand.


>>I'm one of those creatures, but I'm also a human, and we explore. That's what we do. "We choose to do these things, not becuase they are easy, but because they are hard."


You choose these things because you can make others pay for them, whether they like it or not. I say, pay for it yourself. Leave the rest of us alone.


-- Rouser

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

does giving a penny to NASA hurt you that bad?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Ahem. If the habitability of Earth is really threatened, then we'd better devote everything to fixing that problem. We've got zero alternatives on the horizon. None.

You do realize the earth will be uninhabital someday, no matter what we do, don't you?

Does the fact that it may be far removed from your lifetime, make it a non-issue for you?

 

[Morchella]

Is a manned mission a waste? Maybe not but if anyone thinks we are ever going to colonize space, they have been watching too much Star Trek and smoking too much green. We are going extinct right here on this planet just like 99% of all the species that ever lived. If this forum is supposed to be populated with skeptics, I sure see a lot of posters believing in pipe dreams. Get real. I like the idea of space exploration and a basic budget for NASA but if it is supposed to lead to ultimate colonization then dream on woo woos.

 

[shecky]

You do realize the earth will be uninhabital someday, no matter what we do, don't you?

Does the fact that it may be far removed from your lifetime, make it a non-issue for you?

That it is so far removed from my lifetime makes it a non issue for me. The forseeable point at which our planet will be uninhabitable is so far off that we could probably put off space exploration for a awfully long time, and still make it in time for the end of the world.

Even so, while I have a great personal desire to survive all calamity, I have no woo woo feelings that humanity in general must outlive the planet. I find it's just as well humans become extinct along with the planet that begat them.

Even if we had a Mars colony right now, and somehow a rogue comet struck the Earth, destroying the planet entirely, why would I care that a few astronauts got to view the event from afar? I suspect that unless the planet were somehow terraformed to be exactly like earth, that colony would likely be a awfully grim place to exist.

Human feet walking the surface of other planets does nothing to enhance my sense of worth or humanity. That such events would for some sounds way too much like religion to me.

 

[BTox]

Is a manned mission a waste? Maybe not but if anyone thinks we are ever going to colonize space, they have been watching too much Star Trek and smoking too much green. We are going extinct right here on this planet just like 99% of all the species that ever lived. If this forum is supposed to be populated with skeptics, I sure see a lot of posters believing in pipe dreams. Get real. I like the idea of space exploration and a basic budget for NASA but if it is supposed to lead to ultimate colonization then dream on woo woos.

So you think even hundreds of years in the future we will not have the technology to move off this planet? That sounds pretty woowoo to me...

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

And humans prey on their neighbors, with guns and jails hired out by their agencies of coercion (government) to extract the necessary funds to support all those noble endeavors.

So is this what haappened in Dealy Plaza? Remember you claim there where 27 (or some such number) assassins.

Why can't you high minded philosphers use your own money to support your dreams and leave the rest of us to use our own funds as we see fit?

Ah, sounds like the trailer needs a coat of paint?

Some of us Great Unwashed think putting food on the table, a house over our heads, perhaps a college education for our children and health and retirement funding is a little more important than a trilliion dollar Martian boondoggle where the end product payoff is not much more than kicking through a bunch of Martian sand.

Then that is what you should do. And perhaps you can use your share of the money to find JFK's real Killers!!!

Oh, and by the way, now that we are on the subject, and given that you are on the record as believing that the moon landing was a hoax, answer this question:

Do we currently have an American space vehicle on the surface of Mars?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I guess I disagree with just about everybody.

Manned space exploration is valuable because I want to go. If I don't get to go, I want someone to go.

The reason I want to go is that I am a human.

Implying that anyone who thinks the idea is stupid is somehow inhuman or subhuman, I take it?

Nice.

Gorillas feed their community. Jackdaws gather toys. Cats mark their territories. Every creature lives, breathes, eats, eliminates, reproduces, dies.

I'm one of those creatures, but I'm also a human, and we explore. That's what we do. "We choose to do these things, not becuase they are easy, but because they are hard."

This is kind of like the naturalistic fallacy (that what is natural is good) except taken to a horrible extreme. If we had evolved from cats would it be smart to go to Pluto just so one of us can wee on it?

Please let's do things for a better reason than "We are monkeys! Monkeys poke sticks in holes!".

I think there's a great deal of danger these days in losing our humanity.

Humanity is what it is. We can't lose it unless we stop being human. Which we will in a couple of hundred years unless something bad happens to us all, but that's beside the point.

There are always nitwits who are ready to dehumanise their fellow humans, however. You might think that you are the second coming of Nietszche, and that anyone who watches Friends is a subhuman clod. You might think that you have somehow divined the One True Destiny of humanity, and that anyone who doesn't share your sci-fi vision is thus your inferior. I personally think this is self-satisfied posing and nothing more.

When we decide that the only value of science is make some pill to give someone two more years of life watching Friends reruns, or we decide that the only value of space exploration is to fill up a disc with data as cheaply as possible, or we decide that the only value of learning is to get a better job and put more cholesterol on the table, we cut off bits of ourselves and throw them away. At the end of this process, we all may be healthy and long-lived and sane and sensible and comfortable. And we will be apes with cell phones, nothing more.

We're apes. Just as we always have been. You can put yourself on a pedestal and then you're an ape with delusions of grandeur, but it's no improvement.

We will be like Nietzsche's Last Man. We will neither live where it is too hot nor too cold. Work will be regulated, lest it become a burden, and so will leisure, lest it become like work. We will be content. So says the Last Man, and blinks.

I don't know about you all, but I didn't evolve the biggest neocortex in the history of the planet so that I could do that.

Do you think it possible that we might find something worthwhile to do here on Earth? Just for a few hundred years until we're technologically mature, anyway. There is plenty of time, cosmologically speaking, for us to become and do whatever we want.

 

[Correa Neto]

I think a ballance should be achieved, a ballance that will change according to technological evolution.

Right now, unmanned probes are cheaper and involve very little risk of human lives being lost, but our robotic ships are not smart enough to make repairs, take last minute decisons, improvise, etc. Apollo 13 and Mir are examples of the differences a crew can make when it comes to save the day. An EVA can open a jammed antenna, fix leaking conduits, an astronaut can manually land the ship, correcting an imperial/metric system mistake, fix short-circuited wires, etc. A crewed ship can, if needed, make great changes on the mission profile, for example.
Sure, unmanned vessels are less complex, smaller, etc., but they are alo less flexible.

The day will come when our machines will be smart enough for all of this. But untill this day, some goals are better achieved with manned ships.

And one day, it will not be so costly to send manned ships to space, and the technology also will be more reliable, making the voyage safer. Still, unmanned probes will be needed, to reach targets that are very far away or too inhospitable.

We explore to spread, that´s what mankind do. Right now, where´s the space to spread (pun intended)?

Sooner or later, we will have lo leave Earth (assuming we have not gone too far in to the road to extinction by then). Better start getting used to space as soon as possible.

 

[SquishyDave]

I don't think you guys should take epepke's comments personally. To put it another way, what exactly was the point of climbing mount everest? Or going to the north and south poles? Very little science was done, so why did these people risk their lives to go? Probably because they wanted to, because no human had done it before. Same thing with Mars, it's there, so why not go to it?

Sure this is slightly different, because your tax dollars must foot the bill, and that I suspect is where we all get divided.

I am out in the cold on this one, my tax dollars don't go towards any grand scheme that has very little merit apart from showing what humans can do, and I wish they did. Your tax dollars do and you wish they don't.

I don't know it's too big for me, I will just quietly hope that someone foots the bill for greatest journey a human has ever been on, and then after that, someone foots the bill for the next greatest journey, and the one after that and so on. (Great meaning large or immense, I use it in the pejorative sense).

Maybe china will get to mars first, they probably have the resources to do it. I hope so.

 

[bjornart]

I think a ballance should be achieved, a ballance that will change according to technological evolution.

Right now, unmanned probes are cheaper and involve very little risk of human lives being lost, but our robotic ships are not smart enough to make repairs, take last minute decisons, improvise, etc. Apollo 13 and Mir are examples of the differences a crew can make when it comes to save the day. An EVA can open a jammed antenna, fix leaking conduits, an astronaut can manually land the ship, correcting an imperial/metric system mistake, fix short-circuited wires, etc. A crewed ship can, if needed, make great changes on the mission profile, for example.
Sure, unmanned vessels are less complex, smaller, etc., but they are alo less flexible.

The day will come when our machines will be smart enough for all of this. But untill this day, some goals are better achieved with manned ships.

Which goals? As has been pointed out, just replacing hubble instead of repairing it would have cost less, since we're not any closer to making life in space safe. Apollo 13 and Mir are examples of the crew saving the day for the crew, without a crew their problems wouldn't have existed.

I'm a recent convert to scaling back manned exploration for the moment. Humans in space is cool! But it currently has little value apart from that.
Repairing space-craft? It's cheaper to build and launch a replacement.
Exploration? Again, unmanned crafts are much cheaper. On a science per buck scale, not just in cost per launch.

I think manned exploration should be a _goal_. We should send a load of unmanned probes to the moon to test possible solutions for a moon base. Then we should send robotic factories to try out manufacturing processes. At that point we can start thinking of sending up people to supervise construction of a permanent base, but if we're really good we'll be able to start assembling our Mars mission without sending up people.

And with that technology we'll be able to prepare a Mars base for our explorers so they don't have to spend their first night on Mars fighting with unruly tent poles.

As long as it's so much costlier to send people we should acknowledge that doing so is just for show, and start spending our money on making it safer.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I don't think you guys should take epepke's comments personally. To put it another way, what exactly was the point of climbing mount everest? Or going to the north and south poles? Very little science was done, so why did these people risk their lives to go? Probably because they wanted to, because no human had done it before. Same thing with Mars, it's there, so why not go to it?

Sure this is slightly different, because your tax dollars must foot the bill, and that I suspect is where we all get divided.

Well, yes. Also I don't idolise the polar trekkers and mountaineers the way some people expect you to. They were the extreme sportmen of their day: they did dumb things for the fun of it and sometimes they got hurt or killed. I can appreciate the skill and effort involved without thinking for one second that the skill and effort is devoted to any remotely worthwhile end.

But spending billions on space exploration is just bizarre, to my mind. There just isn't anything up there we can get to that's worth the expense at the moment.

I'd like to think that in a few hundred years the energy expense involved in sending people to Mars will be peanuts to our successor species, but right now it's not.

I am out in the cold on this one, my tax dollars don't go towards any grand scheme that has very little merit apart from showing what humans can do, and I wish they did. Your tax dollars do and you wish they don't.

I'm another Australian. I still think it's silly even if I won't be paying for it.

 

[bjornart]

I don't think you guys should take epepke's comments personally. To put it another way, what exactly was the point of climbing mount everest? Or going to the north and south poles? Very little science was done, so why did these people risk their lives to go? Probably because they wanted to, because no human had done it before. Same thing with Mars, it's there, so why not go to it?

Sure this is slightly different, because your tax dollars must foot the bill, and that I suspect is where we all get divided.

I am out in the cold on this one, my tax dollars don't go towards any grand scheme that has very little merit apart from showing what humans can do, and I wish they did. Your tax dollars do and you wish they don't.

I don't know it's too big for me, I will just quietly hope that someone foots the bill for greatest journey a human has ever been on, and then after that, someone foots the bill for the next greatest journey, and the one after that and so on. (Great meaning large or immense, I use it in the pejorative sense).

Maybe china will get to mars first, they probably have the resources to do it. I hope so.

A tiny bit of my taxes go to ESA, which appears, for now, to be best at blowing things up one way or another. I think that is cool. (The contribution of money, not the blowing up every rocket.) I also think getting a permanent moon base, a mission to Mars, a trip to the Jovian moons, etc. are exiting and worthwhile goals. I just think that to achieve them we need more robots, and for a while, fewer astronauts.

 

[Bluegill]

I think a ballance should be achieved, a ballance that will change according to technological evolution.

I've thought about it more since yesterday, and I think this is the heart of the matter for me. If the President had said, "Let's start working on a space ship to Mars and have it ready to go in fifteen years," I'd think it was a very poor idea. But I do want people to live on the Moon and Mars, and I think it can be done.

I think I'd like to see a long-term drive to build the infrastructure for this sort of thing, which I guess is what Bush is proposing.

Has he said anything about researching the space elevator? It's such an intriguing idea. And more missions (manned or not) to the Moon to see what resources are available seems practical to me.


edited to add: Bjornart said pretty much everthing I wanted to say, but better, while I was composing this post and got distracted for twenty minutes.

 

[xouper]

Morchella: Is a manned mission a waste? Maybe not but if anyone thinks we are ever going to colonize space, they have been watching too much Star Trek and smoking too much green. We are going extinct right here on this planet just like 99% of all the species that ever lived. If this forum is supposed to be populated with skeptics, I sure see a lot of posters believing in pipe dreams. Get real. I like the idea of space exploration and a basic budget for NASA but if it is supposed to lead to ultimate colonization then dream on woo woos.

This kind of crap hardly merits a response, but I will anyway. Woowoo, my ass. Apparently you aren't aware of the many legitimate studies that have been done in this area. Apparently you never read anything like the following, for example:

• Gerald K. O'Neill, "The Colonization of Space", Physics Today September 1974, p. 32.
  
• Gerard K. O'Neill, "The High Frontier", William Morrow and Co., NY, 1977; Anchor Books (Doubleday) 1982.
  
• O'Neill, Gerard K.; Driggers, G.; and O'Leary, B.: New Routes to Manufacturing in Space. Astronautics and Aeronautics, vol. 18, October 1980, pp. 46-51.

That's not science fiction or pipe dreams, pal. And people like O'Neill are far from being woowoos.