Manned missions into space -- a waste?

I'm with epepke on this issue. It's an issue I feel very strongly about. As a kid I always wanted to be an astronaut. I got as far as becoming a pilot, but my uncorrected vision disqualified me from going any further.

I don't find any merit at all in the opinions expressed by the Kevin Lowe's of the world.
 
Epepke is dead on in my view of the situation. I read his posts and found myself nodding my head.

I posted this in another thread, but after reading this one, it seems more then appropriate for a re-post here. . .



"I think that the problem is that humans have become weak and timid. The slightest mention of danger or possible loss of life sends people running. Look at the ENOURMOUS risks of the true explorers from humankinds' past.


The Polynesians who got into a CANOE and rowed their way without a rudder or a sail hundreds/thousands of miles with only a hope that they'd find anything.

Columbus, etc who took big, complex ships not designed to go into deep, open seas into the big unknown to find a faster route to Asia.

The explorers of the New World, running into new and sometimes hostile cultures.

The men who maped the seas, the oceans, the continents and the islands of the world inthe 1500-1700's.

The brave and hardy fellows who trekked across the wasteland of Antarctica JUST to do it first.


And WHY? George Mallory, who 1st climbed Mt. Everest said it best. "Because it is there."



Thousands of lives risked and lost, but with great purpose. Without men and women like that, we'd know NOTHING about the planet we live on, the people in it, or much of anything else. I can't stand the attitude of 'Why bother?' or the 'But what about the risks' mentality we have nowadays hamstringing innovaton and discovery."


Humans are stagnating with the kinds of attitudes that some of you have. The fatalistic notion that 'we're never getting off this rock' seems both ignorant and insane to me. WE ALREADY HAVE gotten off 'this rock'. Now, the next step to to find a way to STAY off of it. Get some people living on Mars.

Not only do i want to be alive to watch the 1st person walk on Mars, but I want to live to see the 1st baby BORN on Mars. I want to watch the first soccer game played on Mars.

The timid, repressed, blaise, cost-conscious attitude that I see in people nowadays scares me, because it shows that many of us feel that we as a species have 'peaked'. I dread that thought.
 
Larspeart said:
Epepke is dead on in my view of the situation. I read his posts and found myself nodding my head.

I posted this in another thread, but after reading this one, it seems more then appropriate for a re-post here. . .



"I think that the problem is that humans have become weak and timid. The slightest mention of danger or possible loss of life sends people running. Look at the ENOURMOUS risks of the true explorers from humankinds' past.
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I don't see it this way. It's not an issue of timidity. I do think that with the advancement of civilization and societal structures, life has become more stable and predictable, and hence the perceived value of life has gone up, at least in some parts of the world.
The Polynesians who got into a CANOE and rowed their way without a rudder or a sail hundreds/thousands of miles with only a hope that they'd find anything.

Columbus, etc who took big, complex ships not designed to go into deep, open seas into the big unknown to find a faster route to Asia.

The explorers of the New World, running into new and sometimes hostile cultures.

The men who maped the seas, the oceans, the continents and the islands of the world inthe 1500-1700's.

The brave and hardy fellows who trekked across the wasteland of Antarctica JUST to do it first.
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All those people went places that could readily support human life -- you know, in the warm and loving Earth atmosphere.
And WHY? George Mallory, who 1st climbed Mt. Everest said it best. "Because it is there."



Thousands of lives risked and lost, but with great purpose. Without men and women like that, we'd know NOTHING about the planet we live on, the people in it, or much of anything else. I can't stand the attitude of 'Why bother?' or the 'But what about the risks' mentality we have nowadays hamstringing innovaton and discovery."


Humans are stagnating with the kinds of attitudes that some of you have. The fatalistic notion that 'we're never getting off this rock' seems both ignorant and insane to me. WE ALREADY HAVE gotten off 'this rock'. Now, the next step to to find a way to STAY off of it. Get some people living on Mars.

Not only do i want to be alive to watch the 1st person walk on Mars, but I want to live to see the 1st baby BORN on Mars. I want to watch the first soccer game played on Mars.

The timid, repressed, blaise, cost-conscious attitude that I see in people nowadays scares me, because it shows that many of us feel that we as a species have 'peaked'. I dread that thought.
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I see no evidence of this human stagnation and timidity of which you speak. By your formulation, it would seem that if you can dream it, but our society is not geared up to meet the challenge, then we're timid.

All the dreaming and non-necessary exploring that you and I both love are luxuries afforded by the accomplishment of civilization in allowing that not every human must be occupied full time with basic survival. And they do contribute even more to civilized advancement. But that doesn't make every dream realistic or valid. Soccer games on Mars are not realistic. And expenditures on that goal are going to take away so many possibilities for real space exploration.
 
  • 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. [/B][/QUOTE]

So you dredged up one proponent. So what. No. I have never read any O'Niell. It seems his work is kind of old don't you think. Did he mention that the closest star is 3 light years away and the possibility that there is a habitable planet there is less than one in a billion. Did he account for the fact that we cannot ever approach the speed of light?
Go fire up your DVD and watch another Star Wars movie again, dork.
 
woo woo
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dork
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What's with the attitudes around here? We should behave like Federation envoys, not Klingons! Captain Picard would not approve, regardless of your views on boldly going etc. Whether or not whe're sharing a whole planet or sharing a three-year ride in a metal can, I think we need a little civility.:)
 
While I applaud epepke's statement, and the wonderful way he expressed it, I've got to say that I don't think humanity is in any danger of losing its explorers. When Columbus sailed the ocean blue, Mallory climbed that big rock that was in his way, and, yes, when Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon had that bit of trouble on Apollo 13, the vast majority of people on this earth were more likely to have said something like what Kevin Lowe has expressed (probably in the same harsh terms). There will always be people who oppose change.

And there will always be costs associated with change. Yes, manned exploration is currently costly. And how are reductions in cost acheived? Through economies of scale. The first, and second, and tenth manned mission will always be costly, whether it's done now or a millenium from now. It is only by repeatedly sending missions that the cost will go down.

If I were asked to go on a Mars mission today, I would go, risk be damned. However, I think I'm with those that would like to see robotic missions become more effective and more cost-efficient before we try to force the technology onward to manned exploration. If Columbus had had the technology to send an unmanned ship around the world, just to confirm his suspicions that there was a route to India there, before going himself and risking his life and the life of his men, don't you think he would have? We have the technology to look before we leap - why not use it? That's not losing the spirit of exploration - that's just plain common sense.
 
Bluegill said:


What's with the attitudes around here? We should behave like Federation envoys, not Klingons! Captain Picard would not approve, regardless of your views on boldly going etc. Whether or not whe're sharing a whole planet or sharing a three-year ride in a metal can, I think we need a little civility.:)
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Thank you, Bluegill. The appropriate place for unmitigated insults is a lifegazer thread.
 
Morchella said:
So you dredged up one proponent. So what. No. I have never read any O'Niell. It seems his work is kind of old don't you think. Did he mention that the closest star is 3 light years away and the possibility that there is a habitable planet there is less than one in a billion. Did he account for the fact that we cannot ever approach the speed of light?
Go fire up your DVD and watch another Star Wars movie again, dork. [/B]
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Aren't you the unpleasant little person?

Here's a few more book sto be going on with, though I expect you're much too cool to actually read any of them:

# Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization by Robert Zubrin (Paperback)

# Spacefaring: The Human Dimension by Albert A. Harrison (Paperback)

# The Starflight Handbook : A Pioneer's Guide to Interstellar Travel by Eugene F. Mallove (Author), Gregory L. Matloff (Author) (Hardcover)

# The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System by Bradley C. Edwards, Eric A. Westling (Paperback)

# The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage, Arthur Charles Clarke (Introduction) (Paperback)

Btw, I fail to see how one could watch "another movie again", dork or otherwise.

Graham
 
Morchella: So you dredged up one proponent. So what. No. I have never read any O'Niell. It seems his work is kind of old don't you think.
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I cited O'Neill to show that serious investigations into the science, technology, and economics of space colonization predates Star Wars movies. But O'Neill certainly isn't the only one. Far from it. It was a hint to the wise to research the subject further and see what else has been said.

Go fire up your DVD and watch another Star Wars movie again, dork.
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And that pretty much sums up your intellectual contribution to this thead.
 
Diogenes said:

And no computer will ever need more than 640k of RAM...;)
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If I'd made that prediction, I'd take responsibility for it. As it stands, computers don't need anything. Humans need computers to have more RAM so they can play games. :)
 
hgc said:
If I'd made that prediction, I'd take responsibility for it. As it stands, computers don't need anything. Humans need computers to have more RAM so they can play games. :)
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And I have no doubt that you would.. ( take responsibility for it... )

I hope you got my point, that what may seem realistic or not today, could be realistic next week, or a joke to think that it wasn't ( realistic ) 20 years from now.. .. And the sooner we go to work on it, the sooner it will happen, whether you are talking about eradicating world hunger or going to Mars..

The solving of social problems does not seem to be as conducive to applied research as technological ones.. However, technological breakthroughs usually manage to favorably impact social problems when properly applied..

Note, that the technology already exists to end world hunger, has for some time, and it hasn't happened..
Why should one expect that delaying manned space exploration for any length of time, will in some way facillitate a more rapid solution to social problems...
 
While it is true that manned expeditions require a lot of life support whereas unmanned ones do not, it is not quite true to say that the life support is a waste.

Advances in life support systems for hostile environments benefit many different fields, such as: ecology, recycling, biology, energy efficiency, medicine, nutrition, psychology, etc.

There are things which can be learned only by humans placed in an environment, supported by technology designed to suit them. Ecologically, we could potentially learn a lot from a human colony on the Moon or Mars.
 
Diogenes said:


And I have no doubt that you would.. ( take responsibility for it... )

I hope you got my point, that what may seem realistic or not today, could be realistic next week, or a joke to think that it wasn't ( realistic ) 20 years from now.. .. And the sooner we go to work on it, the sooner it will happen, whether you are talking about eradicating world hunger or going to Mars..

...
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Yes I did. But then I don't think that all claims about what will one day be possible/practical are equally reasonable. I think that it's unreasonable to think that we'll be able to colonize space without supplying the colonizers with almost all their supplies from Earth.

But then I've not read any of the literature other than that by O'Neill. I've got more to learn, and this new initiative will push me to read the other sources mentioned in this thread. In the meantime, I remain skeptical of the viability of the plan.
 
Wile E. Coyote said:
While it is true that manned expeditions require a lot of life support whereas unmanned ones do not, it is not quite true to say that the life support is a waste.

Advances in life support systems for hostile environments benefit many different fields, such as: ecology, recycling, biology, energy efficiency, medicine, nutrition, psychology, etc.

There are things which can be learned only by humans placed in an environment, supported by technology designed to suit them. Ecologically, we could potentially learn a lot from a human colony on the Moon or Mars.
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I agree we could learn a lot of value. I would prefer to start with successful bio-dome type experiments here on Earth.

edited to add: and then we can send Paulie Shore off planet.
 
Wile E. Coyote said:
While it is true that manned expeditions require a lot of life support whereas unmanned ones do not, it is not quite true to say that the life support is a waste.

Advances in life support systems for hostile environments benefit many different fields, such as: ecology, recycling, biology, energy efficiency, medicine, nutrition, psychology, etc.

There are things which can be learned only by humans placed in an environment, supported by technology designed to suit them. Ecologically, we could potentially learn a lot from a human colony on the Moon or Mars.
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Name one thing that we could learn from humans on Mars we couldn't learn from robots.

"Ecologically" we could learn as much, or more, from a colony on the moon or a larger space station as we could from a colony on Mars...

Also, any realistic plan for a manned mission to Mars requires a slew of sophisticated robot spacecraft, rovers, and chemical processing systems. Since they are necessary, shouldn't developing them be a priority?

But once they are develooped, we come back to my question: what could humans accomplish that they couldn't?
 
Correa Neto said:
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.
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When the high gain (high speed) antenna system failed in one of the Voyager spacecraft (due to the failure of a single capacitor), ground controllers completely reprogrammed the systems, devised a more compact image compression scheme, invented new ways to aim and focus the cameras, changed mission parameters to make more memory available for storing images, and used a much slower transmission system to return the images to earth. The key is designing robust, flexible, and redundant systems.

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.
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That day will come when we focus our attention on it. And such sophisticated machines will be absolutely necessary to support manned missions to Mars.


Name a goal that could be better achieved with a manned ship...
 
hgc said:
I'm a big fan of space exploration and research, but I'm starting to question the value and viability of manned missions.

So much of what we do in space can be accomplished robotically. Is it worth the extra effort to support human life out there? If we were able to devote those same resources to replacing direct human activity with remote controlled or programmed robotic activity, might we reap more benefits?
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I imagine so. Yes I agree that manned missions are not worth it.

If the end-game is to establish a brighter future for mankind when the Earth becomes too crowded or otherwise unlivable, I say get your head out of the sci-fi clouds and face reality: we've go no other home than the surface of this planet, and that's probably forever.
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I don't agree with this. I think that earth like planets might be relatively common in the Universe. Perhaps there is another "earth" within 20 light years which we could inhabit, providing there is no other intelligent life forms living there comparable or exceeding our own intelligence (a reasonable supposition). I think that some of us could get to such a planet within the next 1000 years :)
 
patnray: Name one thing that we could learn from humans on Mars we couldn't learn from robots.
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What it's like to live there. Sometimes humans want to experience things first hand. For example, I certainly wouldn't send a dildo in to do a man's job.


Edited to add: I see Coyote beat me to it. :)
 
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