Remembering NASA Disasters With an Eye Toward the Future 273
mattnyc99 writes "This next week marks the anniversary of three sad days in NASA's history: three astronauts died in a capsule fire testing for Apollo 1 exactly 42 years ago today, then the Challenger went down 23 years ago tomorrow, followed by the Columbia disaster six years ago this Super Bowl Sunday. Amidst all this sadness, though, too many average Americans take our space program for granted. Amidst reconsiderations of NASA priorities from the Obama camp as the Shuttle nears retirement, then, the brilliant writer Chris Jones offers a great first-hand account in the new issue of Esquire — an impassioned argument against the impending end of our manned space program. In which camp do you fall: mourner or rocketeer?"
Re:I was thinking about this the other day... (Score:3, Informative)
You are currently using one of the fruits of the space program: a computer.
You don't understand much about it. (Score:3, Informative)
Materials science is just one area that has been improved dramatically by the space program.
Do you use anything with teflon in it? Wait... let me rephrase that: do you use much of anything that does NOT have teflon in it? As a coating or a slider or a bearing...
This is barely the tip of the iceberg. If you think all the space program has brought you is freeze-dried fruit, then I respectfully suggest you pick up a book now and then and look into it a bit more deeply.
teflon? (Score:4, Informative)
Teflon was invented by accident in 1938. The space program had nothing to do with it.
Re:Rocketeer (Score:3, Informative)
There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics.
Re:Lesson 1 - Mod parent up :) (Score:3, Informative)
I also work around environmental policy, and strongly feel we'd be better off working on surviving on this planet, instead of ruining it, then going off looking for others to ruin.
We know how to survive on Earth, whether we chose to do so is a different story. For example, the Millennium Development Goals only exist because irresponsible countries have failed to implement those goals long before. Successful ways to run societies and countries have been known for centuries. Second, as someone who claims to work in space science, you surely must be aware that there's some locations in space that simply cannot be ruined, for example, the Moon.
What? (Score:2, Informative)
I also work around environmental policy, and strongly feel we'd be better off working on surviving on this planet, instead of ruining it, then going off looking for others to ruin.
Nobody said anything about "ruining" earth. Destruction of earth's biosphere is not a necessary condition for space colonization--in fact, environmental preservation and space expansion can complement each other. The technologies you use to achieve the first can feed back into the second, and vice-versa.
Those of us who support pushing out into space in terms of survival aren't talking about "let's strip-mine the earth" or "oh, it's too ruined now, let's go trash something else". We're talking about off-site backups from global threats like large asteroids, virulent pandemics, biological warfare, etc., as well as providing room for expansion.
Re:I was thinking about this the other day... (Score:3, Informative)
Stroke and heart disease: Usually the same issue with atherosclerosis. The problem has already been solved! ie change of diet and more exercise. That alone reduces heart disease and stroke deaths due to prevention. The thing is, you can't force people to do healthy things.
Cancer: The top 3 cancer killers are, in order: 1) lung, 2) colon, 3) breast (for women)/prostate (for men). Again, the solution is 1) stop smoking, 2) get your colonoscopy after age 50, 3) go see your doctor regularly. And again, we can't force people to do healthy things if they don't want to.
Diabetes: Most are due to type 2 and most of these people are overweight/obese. See solution for heart disease/stroke above.
In other words, most of the deaths that you've listed can be attributed to lifestyle choices. And you can't force people to change if they don't want to.
Re:I was thinking about this the other day... (Score:3, Informative)
What that page barely mentions is the massive change in computing that occurred during the 60's and early 70's. It gets all of two sentences: "Vacuum tube electronics were largely replaced in the 1960s by transistor-based electronics, which are smaller, faster, cheaper to produce, require less power, and are more reliable. In the 1970s, integrated circuit technology and the subsequent creation of microprocessors, such as the Intel 4004, further decreased size and cost and further increased speed and reliability of computers." Which is certainly true as far as it goes ... but neglects to mention that this advance was largely driven by demand from NASA.
At the beginning of the Apollo program, computers were no more than giant calculators. By the end, they were recognizably on track to becoming today's machines. And it was because of the computational demands of sending men to the Moon that this happened.
False economy. (Score:3, Informative)
Nice try, but you're forgetting about volume. Even if only 53% of a US car may actually be made in the US, there are 7+million made each year. Compare that to the twenty satellites made every year. Each one would have to cost a million times as much as a car to inject the same amount of money into the economy. There are few 30 billion dollar satellites. A communications satellite can be built and put in orbit for less than $100million.
Re:ROI is a red herring. (Score:3, Informative)
My point was that the "robots with human dexterity, controlled by a human" won't work at distances past the Moon.
What? (Score:3, Informative)