NASA: Planetary Exploration, Or Better Coffee 154
6EQUJ5 writes: "I sighed bitterly when I read the headline at MSNBC_SpaceNews_Front: "NASA voices 2020 vision for Mars" (OK, let's hope I live that long!) Bitterness gave way to sheer comedy when I read the next headline: NASA craft to watch coffee crop. Dan Goldin has the worst sense of priorities if he thinks 20 years is an acceptable time frame for a manned (and/or womanned) Mars mission -- in the meantime NASA picks up odd jobs like watching coffee grow." While these stories make a funny contrast, a) I'm sure there's a lot to learn (and plan) before sending a mission to Mars and b) if NASA's going to test cool new tech, like that solar wing, perhaps giving it a practical earthside purpose is a good idea.
Timeframe (Score:1)
Manned space flight is a waste of taxdollars (Score:1)
$13.6 billion total. The breakdown: $5.5 billion for human space flight, $2.5 billion is for mission support. (I don't know how much of that is indirectly/directly supporting human space flight.) and $5.5 billion for "Space Aeronautics and Technology"
In comparison, the entire National Science Foundation budget is $3.8 billion.
Don't get me wrong, I think space flight is just as cool as the next person, but the return just doesn't justify the expense.
And don't give me some crappy argument about how we will never develop better technology for manned space flight unless we go ahead and just do it *now*. This is pure nonsense. Did we gain anything by going to the moon in 1969 instead of 1999? Nope. Rocket technology would have still advanced just as much over the last 30 years as it did (Think of all the commercal satellites launches). And it would have been a lot cheaper(as a percentage of GDP) if we had gone in 1999 instead of 1969, and we could have brought along a lot better equipment to analyze the moon with than with we did in the early 70's. We would be ahead scientifically, that's for certain.
In general, we can get nearly equivalent science with sophisticated AI unmanned probes as we can with people and for fraction the price.
Which is better: spending several billion a year on a manned Mars mission or spending that same money on researching and building advanced aeronatics spacecraft which will make it much cheaper for to get into space in the first place?
This puts it a much different perspective, doesn't it?
Sorry, it doesn't make much sense to go to Mars just yet. Let's spend our money on the underlying technologies (material sciences, aeronautics, computers) which will make it easier to get us there when we do go. This is the much faster route for space colonization that attempting to got to Mars now.
Re:Earthside practicality (Score:1)
We would have ended up with much cooler stuff if we had invested those enourmous sums of money into other areas. Instead of spending money going to the moon, we could have spent the same money on semiconductor research in the 1960's and 1970's and have jumpstarted the computer industry by 10 years.
Think about it: you would have a computer 64 times faster than the one you have now (Moore's law over 10 years).
Re:Earthside practicality (Score:1)
This is just isn't true.
IF you have to choose between the two, it's much better to choose technically challenging goals that accomplish sometthing worthwile, than it is to choose goals (like going to Mars) which have little direct benefit.
Take the Human Genome Project. We get something very useful out of it (The human genome map) and we have devoloped several useful technologies along the way (better gene sequencers).
Given that there are countless useful, technically challenging goals we can shoot for, sending people to Mars just for the sheer challenge of it displays a lack of imagination and feel for what are the important scientific and engineering problems we have right now.
What About the Moon? (Score:2)
Once the ISS is fully populated, we'll know enough about living in space (not to mention have our best launching platform for inter-planetary travel) to be able to establish a colony on the moon. The information gained from this exercise could allow us to easily begin population of Mars, without sending (wo)manned missions that have to return after a few months because they run out of food.
Much better to take the risk of things going wrong on the moon, where anything going wrong won't lose so much time.
Manned missions (Score:4)
In light of this, I can understand the careful planning. But I'm not sure that sending people to Mars is at all a good solution - it is expensive, dangerous (both in the human life and the PR senses) and takes more time.
Developing and sending better remote-controlled and semiautomated equipment would be a better investment, since a) it's cheaper and b) developments in robotics and AI will have added positive side-effects.
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Hans Petter
Re:Wise Agent Smith (Score:3)
I can guarentee that if some big preadator (like Lions or something) suddenly discovered an easy and effective way to hunt, their population would explode until the prey supply was exausted, then they would starve to death if they don't move on to another area. Humans are the only animals on the planet that actually make a concious effort to not eradicate certain speices some of the time, even when its in our power.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
Re:Earthside practicality (Score:2)
The vacuum tube was invented to improve the phone system, and the transistor to replace the unreliable, hot vacuum tube. The initial market was largely military, until Japanese companies like Sony developed the transistor radio. NASA didn't have a whole lot to do with it.
Re:NASA Gets It (Score:1)
In a way, a lot of you don't get it. Goldin picked twenty years because in twenty years, people will have forgotten that Goldin made a promise about getting to Mars and we still aren't there yet. I remember when the space station was supposed to be done in ten years; I also remember when the shuttle really was supposed to be economical.
Re:Earthside practicality (Score:1)
I would argue that JFK's "goal" of reaching the moon was, in fact, motivated by war. The Cold War was in full swing in the early sixties. NASA was a logical extention of the DOD's missile development programs. The USSR's space program even moreso. When we shot a missile into space with a human aboard, we were demonstrating our technical acumen. We were demonstating that we can go faster, higher, farther...just like with the U2 spy planes. JFK's goal was as much to avoid a "Red Moon" as it was to land a man there.
This leads one to conclude that war (hot or cold) was the primary driving force in technology during that period. Now, we could probably argue that technological developments, while still progressing rapidly in military arenas, are now largely dominated by hardware/software improvements in the private sector. And these are brought about solely by the almighty buck.
That said, going to Mar...or even going back to the Moon, is not going to be a priority in the near future. We don't have to beat the "ruskies" there, and there is no profit in it. The only goal is to fulfill some Star Trek fantasies...and why bother, Hollywood does this for the greater mass of the population...$8 for a movie ticket, or $25 billion for a interplanetary mission?
NASA will continue to be a hard sell. I don't necessarily like the situation, but the conclusions are pretty inescapable.
Not that outlandish (Score:2)
Re:Why Mars? (Score:2)
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Re:Og: Travel to Neighboring Valley Waste of Time (Score:2)
Re:Mars by 1977 (Score:1)
Or a smaller spaceship in two parts connected by a tether, rotating about the centre of the tether.
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Java? (Score:3)
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Re:Mars by 1977 (Score:2)
Compare that to the slightly cramped, but well-equipped communcation-and-entertainment-equipment-laden (oh dear, it might take as much as *twenty minutes or so* for email to get through . . .) Mars explorer of the future, with a highly-trained and motivated crew knowing that immortality and fortune awaits on their return to Earth.
Draw your own conclusions.
Go you big red fire engine!
Re:We'll be very lucky to do it in twenty (Score:3)
Mir. If the Russians can manage to keep people alive for months at a time with their inadequate budgets, why can't a Mars ship? I don't doubt there are considerable problems, but I can't see that the life-support issues are the intractable ones.
Assembling things in orbit is an extremely slow and expensive proposition. It's much easier to screw bits together on Earth, where you can just get a technician to hit things with a hammer if they won't fit together :)
Seriously, having to design things to screw together in orbit adds significantly to the cost and complexity - though I suppose that the US, Europe and Russia are spending $60 billion or so to make their mistakes with the ISS.
As soon as the crew launches, you have a single point of failure - what if the shuttle/launch vehicle blows up? Seriously though, it might be a good idea to do that. Why not put the Earth Return Vehicles a couple of hundred kilometres apart, and equip the lander with a couple of cars with enough range to travel to either one? That way, you get the redundancy, and an extra bonus of another base you can use for exploration purposes.
As I understand it, the way the orbital mechanics work out, you can't do much better than a 180-day trip, regardless of the power source, until you can get something that can maintain a continuous acceleration for the whole trip (which would require fusion power or something similarly exotic). Of course, if you can do that, the whole gravity question becomes irrelevant :)
Finally, food? Are you serious? Ever heard of that remarkably complex technology known as "the freezer"? Ever seen the freeze-dried food bushwalkers eat (devised during the Apollo program, if I recall correctly)? Sure, they'll take along a few seeds to see whether the can make them grow in the Mars "soil", but they'll definitely be bringing their food with them using a combination of 19th-century and 1960's technology.
Compared with the difficulty of 100% reliably intercepting ICBM's with another missile, Mars is easy. The greatest problem, in my view, is one you *haven't* touched on, the risk of a solar storm.
Go you big red fire engine!
Deja vu (Score:2)
Mars in 2020? Under the current political mood it would be impossible. Under the current administrative terms NASA rules it is not only impossible but also no less fantastic than a Heinlein's novel.
Today is 14 of May 2001. So we are twenty years from Goldin's dream. Today ISS flies with technologies that Russia created some 20 years ago. USA & Russia flies ships that were projected 30 years ago and have been flying for nearly 20 years. Today most rockets work on ideas that are as old as our fathers. And the large majority of engines preserve the same designs of 30 years ago. Apart from this, we have several interplanetary probes that work on designs projected on the 70s and most of the probes sent to Mars failed.
And today we scrapped nearly all interplanetary projects, except Mars. We also nailed into the coffin tens of projects to modernise and develope the present fleet of ships. The most flagrant, the desmise of the new Space Shuttle design (truly, the US Air Force took patronage of it but they are also not living their best days)
This is the status of our Space Conquer, exactly 40 years after Gagarin... Mars-2020? Give me a break.
Priorities are set by Congress. (Score:3)
Meanwhile NASA operational costs are eaten up by a ridiculously expensive launch vehicle and a circular-reasoning space station that, while it has its benefits, doesn't really deliver for the dollar. Science and exploration suffer. NASA is frustrated, but Congress's point of view is that back in 1970 they promised a shuttle that would do A through Z for a dollar, and NASA delivered a shuttle that does A through maybe G for ten dollars.
Short answer: Congress does not trust NASA with money.
The $4B accounting overages in the station program this year are just one more example.
Again, I'm not a Goldin fan, but he does show creativity, as when he persuaded the Italians to maybe come on board the station program as full partners, not just as part of the ESA, by building the US a habitat module, maybe even the CRV. We'll see how that works in terms of actual funding.
For those who aren't aware, there's a nifty Mars explroation proposal called Mars Direct [nw.net], which would cost a fraction of the NASA proposal -- perhaps $20 to 40 billion. NASA modified it into a $50-100 billion proposal dubbed Mars Semi-Direct. In any case, Congress still thinks a lower figure is a lowball figure and the taxpayer will get screwed in the end.
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lake effect [lakefx.nu] weblog
Re:Why Mars? (Score:1)
Hmmm, I was thinking more of this [imdb.com], but yours works too :)
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Re:Why Mars? (Score:1)
That was humor, too. :) See?
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Re:Why Mars? (Score:2)
And before we even get that far, we'd have all the same people making the fuss about genetically modified food and cloning joining forces with all the people making the fuss about NASA wanting to use nuclear power plants in its probes (and thus causing them instead to rely on overly complex solar arrays that probably contributed nontrivially to the recent Mars probe failures) to try to block the development of said bacteria. It's not natural! What if it goes off-course and crashes here on earth?! (Yeah, sure, in reality probably nothing would happen, but try telling that to someone worked up into (Self-)Righteous Indignation with their emotions firmly behind the wheel. They tried explaining that with the nuclear power plant in that outer-solar-system probe a few years back, as chronicled in the first chapter of that e-book about Australian hackers [underground-book.com] that was mentioned here in Slashdot [slashdot.org] a while back, and it didn't work then, no reason it would work for bacteria now or any time soon.) How dare we play God, Frankenstein, other classic movie monsters, etc. etc.
People are all starry-eyed about doing all these science fiction things exactly until it seems likely that they could actually become reality. Then all of a sudden all the (tiny) real and (mostly) imaginary risks cause them to scream bloody murder. Gregory Benford had a great column about this sort of thing in F&SF Magazine in September of last year.
In a very real way, one of the greatest obstacles to our space program is not lack of budget, it's all the protesters who will picket Cape Canaveral at the drop of a nuclear isotope. This is the sort of thing that causes NASA to ditch observatory satellites with at least several months of service left in them just to avoid the one in a ka-zillion chance that someone might be hit by it when it comes down otherwise. This is the sort of thing that makes every space probe and satellite we create nowadays more complicated and thus more likely to failure even before it gets into space. This is the sort of thing that will continue to dog us the more advanced our space program gets. Human nature. Human fear. Human stupidity. Is there a cure? I doubt it. Probably not for at least another couple of generations, until most of the fearmongers have died out and the new youth are more open to that sort of thing--unless the fearmongers pass their fear on to their progeny, of course . . .
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Re:Why Mars? (Score:2)
Probably not, though.
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Re:NASA Gets It (Score:2)
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Re:Why Mars? (Score:2)
But people hear the word "nuclear" in almost any context and have their own nuclear meltdowns. To quote Gregory Benford again:
People are scared of it far out of proportion to the actual risks, largely due to reading all those science fiction stories of the previous century in which SF writers wanted to scare people and relied upon the most convenient bogeyman available--nuclear power. We're paying for it now.Look at Chapter One [sourceforge.net] of Underground, which chronicles the launch of the Galileo space probe, despite all the protestors trying to shut it down because there was an infinitessimal chance of something going wrong.
Nobody's saying we should just go ahead damning all risks. But the thing is, the scientists calculate the risks. The odds of Galileo inadvertantly re-entering the atmosphere were 1 in 2 million. The odds of something happening on launch were 1 in 2700. NASA was well aware of the risks, and had done everything it could to minimize them. But the anti-nuclear folks decided not to believe them, and went to court over it.
How infinitessimal a risk is "okay"? Should we not do something because of one in millions or one in thousands odds something might go wrong? Should we stick all our money in a sock under our mattresses because our bank might fail, taking all our livelihood with it? Should we take out mortgages on our houses and live it up, just because we might win the lottery and be able to pay it all back?
Perhaps we should stop using solar energy and look for an alternate power source, because the sun might blow up, destroying our entire planet.
Are these straw men? Perhaps. But then, it seems that most anti-nuclear arguments, like the one against the battery in Galileo, are founded on emotional appeals at their core--the fear of something that only might come to pass, at odds just about as infinitessimal as our bank failing or the lottery paying off, or, to use the old cliche, as being struck by lightning.
Heck, look at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the worst nuclear accidents of all time. I mean, really look at them. Here's another quote from that first Benford article upthread:
People are against nuclear power because they're scared of it. And in many cases, for no real reason other than what might happen.--
Speaking of Amusing Space Juxtapositions . . . (Score:3)
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Re:Why Mars? (Score:4)
Think there's anything in the world without risk?
Here are some excerpts from A Scientist's Notebook: Risk and Realities by Gregory Benford, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Sep 2000, Vol. 99 Issue 3, p112, 12p., retrieved from EBSCOhost via my public library's website. (Much as I'd like to, I can't paste the whole thing without stepping far outside the limits of Fair Use, so to obtain it with all context intact, go to your local library or equivalent website.)
. .Risk is always present. We can confine it to within acceptible levels and move forward, or we can try to make everything completely "safe" and stay frozen right where we are--because no matter what, someone is going to object to any attempt to introduce bold new techniques or technologies (ion or nuclear propulsion, anyone?) as too unsafe to try out, even under carefully restricted study and implementation. We can't just stagnate, or we'll never get humanity off this rock and safely ensconced on other planets before someone finally goes nuts and pushes The Button.
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Spinoffs (Score:2)
I would rather spend less of my tax money on unmanned probes. I think I will get far more "spinoff" per dollar that way, without sending some poor people into space to deteriorate physically at best and die at worst.
I think we'll get FAR more cost benefit from developing smart machines to explore Mars for us. We can turn right around and use these smart machines here, WITHOUT the expense of boosting a multi-year human habitat and life support all the way to Mars and back.
Silicon survives in space better than people, after all. The only benefit of sending people instead of a probe is so that we can put footprints in Marsdirt.
Re:Take the time to do it right. (Score:2)
But what will that do to FOX, and their cadre of "ex-spurts" and investigative reporters? If it is done well, in a sustainable manner, how can FOX run, "Did We Really Go To Mars" in 2051?
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Re:Mars by 1977 (Score:2)
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Re:NASA Gets It (Score:1)
Yeah, I hope it doesn't have an "[a]" in it somewhere.
Re:Why Mars? (Score:1)
Risks can be managed. The risks from nuclear thermal generator power plants in satellites are vanishingly TRIVIAL compared to, say, getting into your bathtub with wet feet.
Re:What About the Moon? (Score:1)
Re:Sense of Priorities... (Score:2)
The problem has nothing to do with technology, and everything to do with motivation. The American public is not sufficiently well-versed in history to realize that all exploratory endeavors like this pay back many times their cost. I'm making a purely economic argument...one which I believe is trivial compared to the sociological one. Humans are defined by the frontiers they conquer. Our lack of a frontier spirit shows up on the front page of every newspaper on Earth. Mars (and space exploration in general) provides an excellent goal. Why are we wasting 20 years to get to it? I've seen mission plans that cost 1/10 what NASA plans to spend, which allow us to set foot on Mars less than seven years from TODAY. Unfortunately, NASA is more concerned about preserving their monopoly on American heavy-lift rockets (a task for which the Space Shuttle is staggeringly ill-suited) and building Battlestar Galactica (er, I mean the ISS) to actually pick an EFFICIENT plan to go to Mars.
I want to go so bad I can taste it, but it looks like NASA is doing everything possible to thwart the dream...
Re:Earthside practicality (Score:2)
The tax revenues from the communications satellite industry alone have more than paid NASA's funding. Never mind all the amazing technology (like, uh, the transistor...maybe you've heard of it...) that you use every day.
Re:Sense of Priorities... (Score:2)
Re:Why Mars? (Score:2)
As far as your argument about pollution, I must infer that you haven't the faintest idea how a nuclear thermal generator works. If you did, you wouldn't be drawing these ludicrous parallels between NTGs and fission piles. They're about as much in common with each other as a yo-yo has with a semi truck.
Here's a bit about NTGs. Machines with zero moving parts don't often fail.
http://starfire.ne.uiuc.edu/~ne201/1995/cerven/
Re:What About the Moon? (Score:2)
The moon is far more hostile and dangerous than Mars. Just because Mars happens to be farther away does not greatly compound the risks associated with the mission. Ready access to consumables, and a pre-made shield against cosmic radiation, are two major advantages for Mars over Luna. There are many more...I'll leave you to read about them.
I am in no way suggesting a "glory quest" flags and footprints Mars mission. That would be worse than useless! Just look at what such a strategy has gotten us WRT the moon...absolutely nowhere. We've been jacking around in low-earth orbit for the last 20 years, and all we've got to show for it is a very mediocre space station that is years away from being useful. With current technology, it is possible to have a long-duration (910 day total, 400+ day on Mars) mission, doable in 10 years, for a small fraction of NASA's current budget. Why is NASA not doing it this way? Because they're trying to justify the ISS as a necessary component of any further exploration of the solar system.
Read Zubrin's book, and think about every single successful exploratory expedition in human history. The best ones travel light and live off the land. It's possible to do much the same thing on Mars.
We've already crawled. We know how to walk. What NASA is currently telling us is that we need a PhD in walking theory in order to run. Any four year old can tell you that that's not true. I say that we can figure it out quite nicely without all the intermediate nonsense (like ISS).
Re:What About the Moon? (Score:3)
Supporting life on the moon is a pain in the ass. No air, no water, nothing interesting to anybody except geologists, whereas Mars has an excellent chance of supporting life, both human and indigenous varieties. It's not substantially more expensive to establish a base on Mars than on the Moon, but the return is far greater.
Re:On a more serious note (Score:1)
Besides, no one is forcing people to work on this specific plantation.
Re:Manned space flight is a waste of taxdollars (Score:1)
Re:Take the time to do it right. (Score:1)
Uh, not to mention the piles upon piles of research data. We have the Apollo program to thank for all sorts of advancements.
Political Reality of NASA (Score:2)
It's not 1969 anymore (Score:1)
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Re:NASA Gets It (Score:2)
Ha! You never know... Maybe it will start out that way, then go the route of Australia. Actually, that would be kind of cool if the penalty for violating the DMCA was deportation to Mars... Copyright violation, here I come.
Re:NASA Gets It (Score:2)
If he's not lying through his teeth, that's good enough for me.
NASA Gets It (Score:3)
I also find 6EQUJ5's whining about the 20-year plan to be misleading. Again quoting Goldin:In other words, if we put the same kind of effort and sacrifice into this that we did with the Apollo program, we'll be there in 10 years. Otherwise, 20 years. That's comparable to the timeline for the Apollo program, and it seems reasonable to me.
I wonder what the first human on Mars will say, and whether it will be as memorable as Neil Armstrong's famous words...
Re:Manned space flight is a waste of taxdollars (Score:2)
Re:Take the time to do it right. (Score:2)
Take the time to do it right. (Score:5)
Our trips to Mars should serve as the beginning to the eventual human expansion into space, and not some cheap theatrical stunt. They should be accomplished in a considered and sustainable manner.
All us dot-bombers know what happens when you throw together a grand plan in too little time. Think IBM, not eLaundryBasket.com.
Re:Mars by 1977 (Score:2)
Re:We'll be very lucky to do it in twenty (Score:2)
Cramped up in a 2-3 room house? Can you hear the sound of my teeth gritting? Sir, have you *ever* lived in an apartment? A poor-college-kid downtown studio 0-bedroom apartment?
Do you also have a Cadillac Escalade to go with your "cramped" 2-3 room house?
Three steps (Score:2)
Re:Manned space flight is a waste of taxdollars (Score:1)
Re:conspiracy theory (Score:1)
Re:yes, please. (Score:1)
I am not all that convinced that Mars is such a worthwile goal. Yes, it is a goal in itself. But apart from that, I think the benefits of people settling on Mars are exaggerated.
Even the part about growing semiconductor crystals in space and stuff proved quite useless (or at least not economically interesting), and that was a concrete plan. But for Mars, I haven't seen any ideas like that.
What will the first human on Mars say? (Score:3)
"FFP!!!!"
(As in, First Footprint!!!)
Re:NASA Gets It (Score:2)
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pause for the cause (Score:1)
Team up with Starbucks to hurry and send rockets to Mars, then have Starbucks help them hurry to deliver that horrible coffee they so often dispose on the public....
Honestly though, they should take as much time preparing to get it right. I would rather see them wanting to wait 19 more years at the cost of a couple billion tax payer dollars, then see them spend a couple billion per year in failed missions going there. If all else fails, they could always fake pictures of lannding on Mars (har har) or explore another planet. Whats the big fascination with Mars anyways, there are so many others involved. Are they leaking out something they don't want the public to know?
I've never heard any major stories surrounding any trips to other planets. Come to think about it, aside from Mars and the Moon, I've never even heard of any trips to places like Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, etc. Do they know something [antioffline.com] they don't want others to know?
Re:Earthside practicality (Score:2)
If there would have been any actual benefit, be it from exploiting the resources, the technological advances made, or just sheer happiness of the people, we wouldn't have stopped after less than a dozens trips to the Moon, all about three decades ago.
I cannot fathom one benefit from sending people to Mars. Sure, it would trigger some new technologies - but that's not Mars specific. After all, technology has advanced rapidly even after we stopped going to the moon, not to mention its progress the thousands of years before Kennedy's reactions on Gagarins first trip into space.
What did the manned trips to the Moon bring us that we wouldn't have had without them? Neither velcro nor teflon were mined on the Moon. And the handful of rocks that were brought back could have been brought back by unmanned flights as well.
-- Abigail
Re:yes, please. (Score:2)
You are referring to the time they mixed up metric and imperial measurements, right?
-- Abigail
Re: Gimme a break (Score:2)
Given Three Miles Island, Chernobyl, Sheffield and a handful of smaller incidents, it's clear that either we apparently don't have the proper procedures, standards or training, or that your claim is incorrect.
Nuclear reactors, when handled properly, aren't any more dangerous than any other large, complicated thing that gets hot.
It's not the temperature that makes nuclear reactors dangerous. It's the thing that causes the high temperatures that's dangerous.
-- Abigail
Re:Moon First, Mars Second (Score:2)
Eh, yeah, right. Care to calculate how many rockets are needed before the moon has a base advanced enough to create earth bound satellites solely from the resources found on the moon? Could you compare that, taking into account that a rocket needed to shoot something to the moon is bigger and heavier than one to shoot a satellite into orbit, to the number of launches needed for satellites? And, while you are at it, compare the number of satellite launches to the number of launches needed to sustain the moonbase?
-- Abigail
Re:It's not 1969 anymore (Score:3)
Most certainly do we have people like that. And lots more than in the late '60s, early '70s. The problem is that nowadays there are far more places such brilliant people want to work, and that are willing to pay such people lots of money. The problem certainly isn't the number of knowledgable people - the problem is hiring enough critical mass of brilliant people.
As for the referred to article, the existance of a black cow doesn't decrease the number of blue parrots. I've little knowledge about the stock market, French literature and Hindi gods. But that doesn't prove anything about the quality of stock traders, French literature buffs or Hindi priests. Nor does it say anything about my qualities; at best it says something about my interests.
-- Abigail
Re:I vote for the coffee monitor (Score:1)
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Why Mars? (Score:2)
Is it not unreasonable to believe that we could develop a bacteria that can survive extreme temperatures and pressures? They already exist on this planet, so who is not to say they cannot (with a few modifications) survive there?
too massive (Score:1)
You can't rotate quickly or everyone will get motion sickness. Studies I've heard of indicate a rule of thumb is one revolution per minute maximum.
Do the math. To provide 1 G of rotational accelleration at 1 RPM , you have to have a radius of about 900 meters.
w = (1 / 60) * 2 * 3.1416 = 0.105 radians / second
a = w^2 * r
1 G = 9.8 meters / second^2
9.8 = 0.105^2 * r
r = 894 meters
Re:Why Mars? (Score:1)
We'll be very lucky to do it in twenty (Score:3)
If we do go we will need:
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some form of artificial gravity. I don't see the big deal here - just spin the damn space craft. I've heard some comments that there are problems controling two body systems in a stable way, but there must be some way around it (rigidity, three-body systems, active feedback...?). All this endless talk about overcoming weightlessness (sp?) is stupid when such an obvious solution is at hand.
- Lots of redundency. We can't, for example rely on having a single ship (fueled by one of these proposed fuel `factories') at the other end ready to come back. It is too large a single point of failure. We'll need to send at least two of everything and three of some things.
- Size. The space craft will need to be large enough that the crew don't go mad and actually are comfortable. No spacecraft to date has been comfortable. NASA's approach seems to be: design something just big enough that the crew don't rip each others bodies apart inside a month and call it a success. It all seems motivated by wanting to fit the whole craft on a single, Saturn 5 style, launcher. Why? Surely a ship can be assembled in earth orbit.
- Cost. Its going to be expensive. It'll cost at least $150 bn and probably more like $1 trillion. All this stuff about Mars on a shoe string is balls. It might be possible, but it won't be safe and nothing good would come of it. The crew would be miserable and in constant danger. Mars rather than a tax cut anyone?
- Propulsion. It'll need to be done as quickly as possible, which means propulsion. This in turn means Nuclear (either directly or more likely powering a plasma drive or something). Nuclear means hard time winning over the public (even though it is so obviously the only choice and I am not generally a supporter of nuclear fission)
None of this is in place. No propulsion system, no power systems, no space suits, no large ships (could we just fit out the ISS and actually make it useful?), no reliable food source (what if crops fail?) and heres the crux of it: NO MONEY. It will happen when there is cheaper access to low earth orbit and all these technologies are more mature. Perhaps I'm too young to remember Apollo, but that was a series of (remarkably lucky and I mean no disrespect to the people who worked on making it as safe as it was) week long outings. This is an eighteen month voyage. It is like assuming you can stay under water for two hours just because you managed to hold your breath for two minutes."Most flavorful brew".....? (Score:2)
Okay, I agree that there are a lot of agricultural applications for this technology. But a couple of things just don't jive when we are talking about coffee. The article states:
First of all, the coffee cherries are not picked all at once, which is why coffee havesting is still done by hand. They ripen at different times and only the ripe ones are picked. Whether to pick or to leave a particular cherry on the tree is a human judgement call that can not be done by machine.
The only way I could see this technology being applied is to determine the optimal time to strip-harvest the entire plantation by machine. It might actually save labour costs to sort the ripe beans from the unripe ones after they are harvested. But isn't this a terrible waste of otherwise good coffee beens, which, left on the tree longer, would produce good beans? Premature beans that get picked have to be composted to be of any use at all. Anyway, I think that such labour savings would only be significant in the US (i.e., Hawaii). In the countries where most of the worlds coffee is grown, stripping the unripe cherries from the trees would be more costly (through reduced yield) than by reducing the already cheap labour.
From a flavour point of view, all this is moot anyway, since most of the worlds good coffee is a) improperly roasted, b) blended with inferior robusta beans and/or c) stale by the time it reaches the consumer. Never mind that most people don't even brew it properly.
That's why I roast my own arabicas at home.
Confessions of a Coffee Snob [hardfocus.net]
Re:Manned missions (Score:1)
But we already have cures for our heart conditions:
Get off the couch.
Use your legs once in a while.
Eat less KFC/MCD etc.
Eat more fruits & vegetables.
There, your heart condition is cured, let's go to mars. :)
Re:Manned missions (Score:2)
I'd bet that by now most NASA folks have a love hate relationship with manned missions.
They love manned missions for their ability to inspire enough people to get grassroots support from the public and from Congress to actually get enough money to do something.
But, the cost of these missions is a *lot more* than what you'd need for sending a robot in place and there's the risk of a Challenger-like incident to depress everybody.
I'd like to see funding increase for heavy use of increasingly sophisticated automated probes and remote+robotic construction to the moon, to Mars, etc.
Then, as we get some kind of remote infrastructure built up, go for sending a human, once you can reduce the complexities of providing a habitable environment into smaller pieces that can be done remotely and automatically. Eg, get an electric power generation capability first, then see if you can get a climate-controlled, pressurized environment sustained for a while, grow plants, etc.
I cannot know what great things we'll discover by doing these things, but I do know there will be amazing discoveries.
If you ask me to sell the unknown to a Congressman badgered by HereAndNow demands for funding, then I am at a loss.
Re:Why Mars? (Score:1)
Btw, people talking about taking risks, mainly it's just talk. They want OTHERS to take the risk, cough up the dough and eat the pollution.
- Steeltoe
Re:Manned space flight is a waste of taxdollars (Score:2)
Sense of Priorities... (Score:2)
What's wrong with it? I think it's an admirable goal. NASA's technically there already in terms of technology...they did plenty of research and development in the 70's, figuring out how to launch humans with the power of a nuclear rocket to Mars. There is only one problem: round trip is 1 year, 3 months time.
What NASA has to do is figure out how to extend the physical and mental stress environments in order to accompany humans through space for that long period of time. Easiest (conceptual) solution: create some means of artificial gravity (I said a conceptual solution, not realistical). Well, either that, or make a faster rocket...
They could do it in ten years...heck, I'm sure they could "do" it in five years, but for reasons of PR and government funding, they need the other 15 for research, development, and PR work.
Re:Sense of Priorities... (Score:3)
Yes, but the moon is much closer than Mars.
If we had rockets which could take us from earth to Mars in a couple days, we'd probably have men on Mars within a few years. When it takes at least 6 months to get to Mars -- which means at least 6 months for probes and equipment to get to Mars -- things are obviously going to go a bit slower.
Somehow I doubt we'll go from zero to Alpha Centauri in less than 8 years either.
Re:NASA Gets It (Score:3)
The problem is that we've been 10-20 years away from Mars. The problem is that 15 years from now, Goldin or his succesor will say "we could get to Mars in 10-20 years if we start working on it now".
At this rate, the first person on Mars' famous words will be, "it's too bad only the five of us could be saved before that comet smashed the Earth."
conspiracy theory (Score:2)
could be used for intelligence gatehring.
Re:Why Mars? (Score:2)
Well, d'uh. "probably nothing will happen" just isn't the kind of risk you take when a failure means tens of thousands of people getting a dose of Plutonium.
In a very real way, one of the greatest threats to the continued existance of the human race is not lack of scientific knowledge, it's all the morons who can't get it into their heads that doing stuff because we can do it isn't good enough a reason to risk people's lives and do things we can't really predict the consequences of.
Mars by 1977 (Score:5)
If this is ever tried, it either has to be a faster trip (which would require something other than chemical rockets) or a big spacecraft that rotates to provide gravity. Nuclear propulsion would work, but the political problems are tough.
Re:Earthside practicality (Score:3)
We would have ended up with much cooler stuff if we had invested those enourmous sums of money into other areas. Instead of spending money going to the moon, we could have spent the same money on semiconductor research in the 1960's and 1970's and have jumpstarted the computer industry by 10 years.
You seem to be assuming two things:
1. There are insuffcient resources to engage in both space exploration and semiconductor research with any degree of success.
2. That desireable avenues of research and exploration are trivial to identify and commit to.
Re 1: History suggests that this is not true. Generally, resource shortages have always been due more to bad resource management than a true scarcity of resources. We could conceivably have both "successful" space exploration and "successful" semiconducto research - at the same time.
Re 2: Isn't it a little anachronistic to demand that your predecessors have the same desires and goals as yourself? Just because you would have chosen semiconductor research over space exploration in the 60s and 70s - if you knew then what you know now - this doesn't mean they should have made the same choice. In fact, it looks like everybody - the goverment, the populace, the scientists, &c. - wanted space exploration. So that's the direction they went in.
Your argument is like saying the ancient Egyptians should have researched Existentialism instead of Pyramids, or that the ancient Greeks should have come up with a polio vaccine instead of the Socratic Method.
Your criteria for evaluating the prior achievements of a society are underspecified.
Og: Travel to Neighboring Valley Waste of Time (Score:5)
Yes, we have everything we need here in Olduvai, so we don't need to do anything like explore what's over the horizon.
Moon First, Mars Second (Score:3)
The key to major investment in the Mars program is potential profit. Mars is an untapped planet of ore, minerals, and *potentially* fossil fuels. While Congress might hesitate to fund a Mars mission for humanity's sake, they'd be happy to do it for Diamond's/Gold's/Oil's sake.
And while the concept of stripmining Mars may seem unpleasant, it's quite necessary, and is the only way we'll ever see real colonization attempts. (Such mining would be severely limited, anyhow, due to purely geographic reasons.) Just as the New World provided land and resource to 16th-century Europe, so would a new world to 21st-century America.
I imagine that such a massive endeavor is also going to require privatization. We've had the technology and resources to set foot on Mars for years. It's been a cf of silly alternate programs and disasters that have been the restraint. After the Martian rover wowed the American psyche, NASA should have intensified its efforts to get a manned expedition underway. A simple American flag on the surface would have been the catalyst for colonization.
Dennis Tito has probably done more for the space program than he ever could have dreamed. I suspect that cash-strapped Russia will continue it's space tourism sideline. Eventually, it's going to allow a private commercial enterprise (no pun intended) to begin space flight and exploration. American industry will eagerly invest in such programs, (think of the profits and PR) pressuring the American government to allow similar commercial exploration (under the auspices of NASA, who would serve as an administrative body. NASA would undoubtedly continue it's scientific work as well.)
In his upcoming report of massive military overhaul, Secretary Rumsfeld also seems to be casting an eye towards space for military endeavour. (Beyond the missile defense shield.) Not to sound too Trekker, but Starfleet may be closer than we think.
GenChalupa
Earth-To-Mars Direct in under 10 years (Score:2)
----
Well, look at it this way.... (Score:4)
The road to Mars is paved with double cream, double sugar!
Dark Nexus
Re:yes, please. (Score:2)
I kind of agree. What will we accomplish by landing there? It isn't like in the movies, when we find all these killer bug-like creatures or are enlightened and attuned with the unverse by meeting up with some wispy gay Martian guy. It will be like the Moon Landing, but with better audio/video, and much more coverage. Or no coverage; hard to tell since the timelines are so long.
On the other hand, why not go to the moon? We sure spend our money on worse things, and relatively speaking, this would be a somewhat noble human conquest, turning all our heads skyward. NASA represents a lot of what is Noble about being an American, and a human being, too.
The real answer, of course, is that we Are in our birthplace, and our graveyard, and it's our job to take care of everything in between. If you want to talk priorities, think of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth. Now there's a good spin-off, IMO.
One more thing: I got the pleasure to hear Dan Goldin talk at a company meeting. Very dynamic fellow, and compelling as well. I'm sure he's from my hometown area New York! I can't imagine a neater job than to be steering the largest non-military space program in the world, albeit after the Challenger disaster. (Well, except for that last part, the job would be cool.)
Re:Manned space flight is a waste of taxdollars (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, I think space flight is just as cool as the next person, but the return just doesn't justify the expense
Well sure, Armstrong didnt find huge amounts of gold on the moon, so of course that trip itself was expensive.
What you seem to forget is that there are huge spinoff effects, both in science and other areas. Money spent is money earned, which is money made... the economical spiral.
The travel to the moon has had great impact on humanity, where would the world be today otherwise ? No satelites ?.. that would suck
You're argument is like saying : It would have been better if Christofer Columbus sailed to America in 2000, it was to expensive at the time."
Time is of absolute relevance to research, the earlier, the better!
yes, please. (Score:2)
While it is generally agreed that Columbus was not the first European to discover America, he was the first to generate any kind of commercial interest to be there. Just 100 years after that, serious settlement began. The same thing could happen on Mars, perhaps within a similar timeframe. You might think that's an outrageous, not to mention expensive proposition, but I'm sure that Europe had the same sentiment just 500 years ago.
Re:Moon First, Mars Second (Score:2)
Sounds good, but there are technologies needed for Mars that cannot be tested on the moon. Moon has no atmosphere - Mars does. Mars has more gravity than the moon - a differently engineered landing technique is needed.
At least one other poster has mentioned Robert Zubrin. His Book The Case For Mars explains how we could go to Mars cheaply and within 10 years starting from scratch. Remember Apollo was "zero to the moon" in about ten years. We are not starting from zero here (although nearly zero because of twenty years of stagnation).
Re:We'll be very lucky to do it in twenty (Score:2)
If we can get the nuclear propulsion (perhaps the Arthur C. Clarkesque fusion power, ejecting a propellant) that can be kept on for long enough - you don't have to even bother spinning the sucker. Just have it accelerate at a constant 5m/s per second - which will give you 0.5G gravity. Or if you have good enough propulsion systems, have it accelerate at 10m/s per sec. - that's 1G. At the halfway point, flip around and decelerate at the same rate.
Space mining (Score:2)
"It would probably be a wise move to attempt colonization of the Moon before colonization of Mars. The moon would serve as a shakedown field test for technology and techniques. If something goes wrong, it's a lot closer back to Earth."
We'll probably go back to the Moon sooner rather than later. NASA has a 'secret' wish list called the 'Decadal Plan', which examines what they would like to do in the decade following the completion of the International Space Station in 2006-07. Rumour has it that they are looking at 100-day missions outside lower Earth orbit, either extended stays of 2-3 months on the Moon, or (even cooler), missions outside Earth orbit entirely to passing asteroids. The ISS would serve as an assembly and staging post for such missions. I wish I had a link for this, but it han't been leaked in its entirety yet. Any obliging NASA employees out there?
"The key to major investment in the Mars program is potential profit. Mars is an untapped planet of ore, minerals, and *potentially* fossil fuels."
Leaving aside the extremely dubious possibility of fossil fuels, it is unlikely that bulk materials mined from Mars will ever become a commodity here on Earth. You'd have to boost them out of Mars' gravity well and on a trajectory back to Earth. We mine mineral ores here on Earth by the millions of kilograms, so unless we develop antigravity anytime soon, it's unlikely to be economically feasible.
Far more likely is the exploitation of mineral resources in Earth-crossing asteroids. A lot of them are essentially billion-ton lumps of high-grade metals. We could install big ion drives or other propulsion sources on their surfaces and slowly coax them over a period of years into a (high enough for public-opinion comfort) orbit around Earth. It would then be simple to use Earth's gravity well to deliver the mined materials direct to Earth's surface.
Even this is unlikely to ever happen. We just aren't that short of raw materials here at home, and recycling is likely to be far more economical for the forseeable future.
2020 vision for Mars (Score:2)
That's good. We don't want any blind planets around.
Somebody had to say it (Score:2)
Looks like NASA's finally responding to what the people want! [/me dodges thrown tomatoes]
Re:Moon First, Mars Second (Score:2)
Moon has no atmosphere. This means, it is a natural cleanroom for spacecraft building.
Secondly, a launch to low-Earth orbit requires much less energy when the starting point is Moon, not Earth. (This may sound a little odd, but you can check the physics.) The energy required is less than 20 per cent of that needed for the modern Earth-based launches.
Thirdly, the lack of atmosphere means that the satellites could be launched by a coilgun-like device from the lunar surface. So, there would be no need for messy and wasteful chemical rockets that ruin our atmosphere, especially the ozone layer. The energy for the coilgun would be solar electric power, which is abundant on Moon.
Fourthly, Solar cells can be made from Lunar ilmenite (a realitively abundant mineral), so manufacturing them up there would be relatively easy. This means not much material needs to be transported to the Moon from here to start Lunar development.
Finally, in Moon there are no (environ)mental NIMBY's.
To cut it short, Moon is a natural spaceport.
Re:We'll be very lucky to do it in twenty (Score:2)
To spin a spacecraft takes FAR to much power. You have to anchor a portion of the spacecraft so that it doesn't spin, and then spin another portion. One way of offsetting the spin is to spin two equally sized chunks, in opposite directions.. Also, spinning the shuttle wouldn't work. It would have to be hundreds of feet across to have a serious effect. If you spun the shuttle, you would have max gravity on the floor, and max negative gravity on the ceiling since the middle of the craft is still 'no gravity' and either size is pulling towards the outside of the spin. You craft would have to be large enough to put the entire human on one side of the craft. And it wouldn't be 'perfect' gravity since the higher you go the less gravity there is.
Their current plan to overcome weightlessness is to build an operating table sized bed. The astronaut lays on the bed, with their feet on two supports at the foot of the bed. The head of the bed is connected to a motor device. The whole bed spins in circles and causes weight on the astronaut who then exercises in a 'excessive gravity' environment. He can then go back to living in weightlessness without serious health concern. This system takes far less power and is easier to maintain and build.
Size. The space craft will need to be large enough that the crew don't go mad and actually are comfortable. No spacecraft to date has been comfortable. NASA's approach seems to be: design something just big enough that the crew don't rip each others bodies apart inside a month and call it a success. It all seems motivated by wanting to fit the whole craft on a single, Saturn 5 style, launcher. Why? Surely a ship can be assembled in earth orbit.
Or get people that like small spaces. I personally love being cramped up in a 2-3 room house.. With a little training and a lot of stuff to work on (Constant science projects there and back) I could handle it no problem. It's not for people that like large open spaces, but for those of us who like a tight area this works great. Also think though, the crew of a Sub stays in the tight sub space for 3 months (IIRC) so it's not a completely impossible option.
Propulsion. It'll need to be done as quickly as possible, which means propulsion. This in turn means Nuclear (either directly or more likely powering a plasma drive or something). Nuclear means hard time winning over the public (even though it is so obviously the only choice and I am not generally a supporter of nuclear fission)
Remember once you get it started it maintains its momentum really well. 6 months there and 6 months back really isn't that long of a trip. It's not short, but it's not 4 or 5 years. Current rocket based systems would still work. And a nuclear reactor? In space solar panels are FAR more effective than on earth. No sense in installing a reactor when they can pull lots of energy from the sun itself.
Re:Earthside practicality (Score:4)
My mention of war was because war is often the other great instigator of technology. The amount of technical development we've had from the two world wars alone is staggering, simply because the necessity arose.
I'd rather set a goal, then reach for it, than depend on market forces or the coming of some dire necessity.
Gezundheit.
Re:NASA Gets It (Score:2)
How true. The conditions on Mars are so harsh that it will make an outstanding location for a penal colony. Mars will be our prison!
What do "the people" really want? (Score:3)
Yes, I know I'm risking a science/culture/gov holy war here (so please DON'T GO THERE). I simply pose the question: What do the people want?
NASA is funded by YOUR tax dollars (at least, "your" applies to American
On the other side you've got the folks who are advocate pure research and "science for the sake of science." This crowd might as well start slapping "Mars or Bust" bumper stickers on their cars tomorrow.
I tend to go for a more middle-of-the road approach, as in "leverage *all* forms of space research, whether far from or close to home, for the direct benefit of all on Earth." Unfortunately, this requires more of the average citizen than is commonly found: the ability and interest in taking the time to *really* research what's actually happening in space tech, *really* research what's actually lacking in our societies as a whole, and merge the two into concrete objectives.
I'm as guilty of this as the next Joe, but it's generally a true statement the most people who are heavily involved in hard science and research aren't heavily involved in "human matters." Kind of a paradox, I suppose.
I'd appreciate comments on this (seeming) issue.
Less Talk, More Space Walk (Score:2)
That's nearly a direct quote from Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower [allscifi.com], a sci-fi story about a girl who fled her gated community when it was attacked by gangs and angry mobs. The dream that kept her going specifically was for humans to "take root among the stars."
I whine about "20 years" because NOBODY can be held accountable for that long if things go wrong. Even some murderers are released in less time. What if I promised I'll build you a huge, elegant mansion to live in.. but I won't be around when it's finished- how convenient! No earth can ever be broken on big, risky projects if people aren't held accountable. With a 5 or 10 year project, at least you'll have someone to blame when bad luck, incompetence, and cowardice all come together and the mission fails.
Helping coffee growers max out their yearly profits is absolutely ridiculous. It's a nice, safe mission, isn't it? I'm sure the iron men of the old NASA would be very proud. (lol)
Re:Earthside practicality (Score:3)
"You don't get advances by pumping money into something specific (better microprocessors), you get advances by pumping money into a *goal* (reaching mars)"
You said:
"This is just isn't true."
To back this up you used the following example:
"Take the Human Genome Project. We get something very useful out of it (The human genome map) and we have devoloped several useful technologies along the way (better gene sequencers)."
How does your example support your statement that what the guy you were replying to said was untrue? The goal was to map the human genome. To accomplish this goal, new technologies had to be developed.
Now, I know the point of your response was "choose worthwhile goals." But the "not because it is easy, but because it is hard" reason for sending people to Mars seemed to be a good enough reason for sending people to the Moon. Besides, how is sending people to Mars not a worthwhile goal? You must think humans eventually being able to colonize other worlds to be a total waste of time.