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Space Science

Going Back to the Moon and Mars 265

Posted by michael from the manifest-destiny dept.
An anonymous reader writes "An interesting three-part interview with author Dr. Andrew Chaikin discusses whether humans or machines could best explore the moon or Mars and even whether a crew could get along with each other for three years on an extended mission. His Mars planning draws on Apollo mission transcripts, and he cites mishaps with the Apollo 15 lunar rover almost sliding catastrophically down a mountain, an astronaut argument as to who took the most famous earthrise picture and what after 14 months in space, the Russian record-holder uses to recover his land legs: 'One vodka, one sauna'."
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Going Back to the Moon and Mars More

Going Back to the Moon and Mars

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  • My favorite quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @01:52PM (#9028927) Homepage
    We're stayin we're goin' make up your mind... I vote we all stay and die.

  • Humans in space is just PR (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BuddieFox ( 771947 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @01:56PM (#9028957)
    Bringing humans into space is just PR, humans are fragile, require massive resources (living quarters, food, oxygen, water etc), and are error-prone. Humans in space is just pure national-ego and PR.
    Of course remote-controlling stuff is very slow, but it still requires less resources and time than to put actual people into space.
    I think our best bet at exploring other planets "from the ground" is still machines, even more so if we can improve their AI:s and self-sustainability and adaptability in different conditions.

    But then again, who wouldnt love going into space anyway? :)

    • Re:Humans in space is just PR (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jrl87 ( 669651 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:03PM (#9029008)
      Bringing humans into space is just PR, humans are fragile, require massive resources (living quarters, food, oxygen, water etc), and are error-prone. Humans in space is just pure national-ego and PR.

      I agree completely ....

      however, is it really going to matter if people go into space or people control machines going into space? Both will have similar control/ego dilemas except instead of haveing the small team of astronauts having to deal with this, you will have a large room filled with the ever so bright people from NASA (or whoever ends up sending them)

    • Re:Humans in space is just PR (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lord_Slepnir ( 585350 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:06PM (#9029034) Journal
      It's not just PR:
      1. by putting humans into space, by setting up space colonies, you can advance mankind.
      2. Eventually we'll need more room and more resources, and other planets in the solar system are just the place to get them.
      3. If I recall correctly, one of the greatest benefits of the moon landings was the spin-off technology we gained from developing a system to get us to the moon and back.
      4. If something ever happens to this rock we're on, human kind is finished. If we can get off this rock and spread mankind throughout the universe, so much the better for us.

      • Re:Humans in space is just PR (Score:5, Funny)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:14PM (#9029087) Journal
        ventually we'll need more room and more resources.....If something ever happens to this rock we're on, human kind is finished. If we can get off this rock and spread mankind throughout the universe, so much the better for us.

        Our destiny is to be a pernicious space virus, known as "humans".

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:37PM (#9029233)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Humans in space is just PR (Score:5, Insightful)

          by AJWM ( 19027 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:49PM (#9029325) Homepage
          There's a very valid psychological component to the "more room" argument.

          Emigration from Europe to the "New World" was never enough to offset population growth either, but there was a psychological benefit for all, and it certainly gave the restless and discontented somewhere to go instead of stirring up trouble at home.

          We could use that again, about now.

          (For other benefits, see the chapter "Rocket to the Renaissance" in Arthur C. Clarke's Profiles of the Future.)

          • Please stop flogging this stupid analogy (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @03:29PM (#9029588)
            Crossing the ocean and crossing the cosmos are not the same thing. Scale matters in science. Added to which the sea can actually keep you alive if you use it wisely - the dangers of transoceanic journeys hence do not compare with interstellar travel.

            • Re:Please stop flogging this stupid analogy (Score:5, Insightful)

              by AJWM ( 19027 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @07:35PM (#9031040) Homepage
              First, nobody said anything about interstellar travel. Or did you think the Moon and Mars were stars?

              Second, crossing the ocean with the technology of the 1500s was just as dangerous -- maybe moreso -- than crossing interplanetary space with current technology. Hell, in those days they had no idea where they were going or even where they were (no good way to measure longitude). They knew very little about using the sea to keep them alive, certainly not how to get fresh water from it, and the incidence of scurvey and other diseases of malnourishment was frightening.
            • The only "stupidity" in the analogy is your involvement. Read some books for a change.

              For the purposes of this article, I'm limiting my points to intrasolar space, probably out into the inner Oort.

              The ocean is a desert, which anyone with a basic oceanographic education could tell you. It took considerable skill and resources to cross it alive, and even more such in health. And the loss of your ship meant the loss of your life almost as surely as if you were in space.

              You can survive space transits by being as skilled in the enterprise. In space , you have direct access to sunlight, which provides power (even propulsion if you choose the solar-sail option ... but that 1/r^2 sure is a bitch). Just like ocean crossing, finding an island every so often was a god-send ... similarly so with space travel, provided you have the skills and equipment to make use of the materials on the asteroids or comets you happen across. And the wise man doesn't leave such encounters to chance ... he AIMS for the next convenient port-of-call.

              Crossing the oceans proved to be an exercise in ENGINEERING. So it is with space travel. It's just that the Western civilization is resoundingly spoiled with a very mature transportation infrastructure, and no longer commonly understands that before you can go anywhere, you must build some sort of road. This includes fuel and repair depots. Just because these are not in space right now, doesn't mean that they cannot be there.

              The ocean-crossing analogy has salient points that apply. Just because you can open your sailboat hatch and not decompress, doesn't make for a bad analogy.
          • Emigration from Europe to the "New World" was never enough to offset population growth either, but there was a psychological benefit for all, and it certainly gave the restless and discontented somewhere to go instead of stirring up trouble at home.

            We could use that again, about now.

            Oh, really? So the people whom I will hesitate to call religious nuts who came to the "New World" wasn't to "offset population"? What was it for? To rape, pillage, and infect those who were already here? To steal the land and
            • The history of peoples all over the world -- including the various tribes of Asian-Americans who got here before the Euro-Americans -- is one of "stealing the land" of others. If you don't think that those who were "already here" did it to each other long before Europeans (who were also doing it to each other) arrived, you need to study your history.

              At least with the Moon and Mars we can be reasonably confident that there are no indigenes or autochthons to "steal" from.
            • So the people whom I will hesitate to call religious nuts who came to the "New World" wasn't to "offset population"?

              No. Indeed, whether or not you hesitate to call them "religious nuts", for many of them their contemporaries had no such hesitation, and they came to escape religious persecution. Did you sleep through history class?
        • Yes certainly, because we'll never get better at getting things and people out of earths gravity well. In fact it's pure luck we've actually got somthing better than what c. columbus and co. left europe with. I see no reason to expect better than appollo capsules to start a new colony with.

          Mycroft

      • Re:Humans in space is just PR (Score:4, Insightful)

        by FatBobSmith ( 555928 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @04:08PM (#9029807)
        Eventually we'll need more room

        The water on mars is most likely going to be very salty as a result of the high mineral concentration. Rather than pioneer that technology in space and ship people off to Mars, why not:

        a) Make desalinazation plants and huge pipes from the ocean into the sahara and turn the desert into more usable land.
        b) Build undersea colonies, using the same desalinization technology. You don't even have to pipe the water very far.
        c) Build heated and covered colonies in the arctic and antarctic.

        Any of these would be cheaper than Mars, require less resources and are closer to where people actually live. Mars is neat, but the technologies we need could be used much more efficiently on earth before we fire ourselves off into space.

    • I disagree. A machine in space can only be as good as its designer. Humans will always be more intuitive and flexible than any machine we can design. If the human race seriously want to colonise the solar system then Human exploration is the only way. Having said that, if all you care about is finding out about how the solar system was formed then you wont mind waiting for machines to find out. If it takes 50 years...
    • The problem with putting machines in space is that machines cannot adapt to changing situations. While it would be much cheaper and easier to send robots into space, the amount accomplish/money spent ratio would be much smaller than that of a human mission.

      If there had been a human along on all the crashed Mars missions, who knows, he could have steered clear of whatever it is they crashed into.

      Just my two bits worth.

    • Re:Humans in space is just PR (Score:4, Insightful)

      by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:34PM (#9029222)
      But then again, who wouldnt love going into space anyway?

      This is what it's all about. There is no other practical reason. It's really just a glorified "E" ticket. Doing it for the "romance of space" is ridiculous in the extreme, considering that it is so expensive and the burden is on the taxpayer.

      The mods took a cheap shot by using "overrated" because they know it doesn't show up in metamod. If they really thought your post is bad (rather than simply disagreeing with it) they should have modded differently.

    • Re:Humans in space is just PR (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rijrunner ( 263757 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:46PM (#9029302)
      Yes, I applaude the way our ancestors settled America using unmanned prairie probes..

      It is common knowledge that Neanderthals also used unmanned probes to locate food and heat sources while the less technically proficient homo sapiens had to risk life and limb to explore for resources for their basic survival..

      The point isn't exploration for just exploration sake. Everything we do in terms of exploration has a core fundamental human motive that is only partially satisfied in exploration by proxie. And, a lot of that motivation is that people want to *go*. How many people go to a movie and see some great feat or life and say "I want to be an actor and play at that" as opposed to having a desire awakened for what is depicted?

      The whole argument about manned vs unmanned usually misses the point that all of it is manned. Every single part is made, manufactured, assembled, monitored, and other wise overseen by humans whether the hardware is for an probe that will be working remotely, or for basic life support of a manned mission. The core underlying drive is a human desire to explore and there are limits to how much of that can be done by proxie because the unmanned vehicles will *never* answer the core human need to actually go and see new sights, or live on new worlds.

      • Re:Humans in space is just PR (Score:4, Interesting)

        by lurker412 ( 706164 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @03:54PM (#9029736)
        Isn't the real question how we should best go about our exploration? Sure, we want to be there, and hopefully someday we will. But for the time being, it makes more sense to continue gathering insights with less expensive un-manned missions. Ultimately, we will get to other worlds more quickly if we are rational about the process. Right now, the cost of manned space flight is, well, astronomical. Better to spend that money developing new technologies (space elevators, scram jets, etc.) that will lower the long term cost.
    • well, since us fragile humans were the ones to DESIGN, CONCIEVE of, and BUILD those friggin lil computer circuit boards, i don't think it is too much to ask that we, the ones doing everything, eventually send one of our own into space.
    • A lot of putting humans into space is PR, that's for sure, but I think a case can be made for at least a manned mission to orbit mars.

      Robotics missions are limited by the long communications delays between humans and the landers. I've read that this is a 20 minute delay, but this delay would vary depending on the relative positions of earth and mars. Instead of actually placing a man on the surface of the planet, having a manned orbiting space station around mars would provide the ability to interactively

      • I disagree with your premise that it would not be feasable to put somebody on the surface of mars with current technologies, but I want to hit on the Martian Orbit-only manned presence.

        I think this is a worthy goal, with perhaps a "landing" on Phobos to establish a fixed and stable point to begin human activities in and around Mars. A rotating permanent team of 10-20 astronauts in some sort of international laboratory with replacements both coming from and going to the Earth, as appropriate orbital window
    • NASA will be barred from doing any more R&D in new launch systems. Re-usable launch vehicles, X-plane program, space plane research, the SCRAMJET stuff that was tested recently, are all going to be the domain of government [defense] contractors.

      The space program is going to be run like a Pentagon defense project, and the big defense contractors are going to get a large slice of the space budget pie.

      This is funding that will be cut from Universities and other similar institutions. There are many people

  • Here's how you fund a Mars mission (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 01, 2004 @01:57PM (#9028970)
    You make it a REALITY SERIES.

    "Three astronauts, picked to live in a spaceship and have their mission taped to find out what happens when people take a trip to Mars and start being real. The Real Mars."

    If it takes 3 years, great! Imagine the ratings for each episode as they get closer to Mars, and the ratings for the finale? WOW!

    ABC/Disney needs something big to combat Survivor and the Apprentice. I believe this is it.

  • Simple solution (Score:5, Funny)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @01:58PM (#9028973) Homepage Journal
    even whether a crew could get along with each other for three years

    It seems we could solve two problems here. Since food for a bunch of astronauts is a problem on a three year mission, basically include enough for all but one, and at some point in the mission plan on the majority voting for one fellow astronaut who gets eaten, solving food problems and getting rid of the most annoying astronaut in one fell swoop! Film it for transmission back to earth and you could get TV funding too.

    • I'm not sure that we would want to send people into space who volunteer for a mission knowing there is a 1/3 chance they will be consumed, and a 2/3 chance they will end up consuming manflesh. Maybe that dude from Germany who filmed him eating an anonymous lover would go, but would that be the best representitve of Earth? I hope not....

    • Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Funny)

      by Patrik_AKA_RedX ( 624423 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:36PM (#9029230) Journal
      Easy to get not chosen to be eaten, just follow these guidelines:

      * Don't wash yourself. Ever.
      * Start each day with showing everyone your most unshowable parts.
      * Mention how much bad cholesterol you have.
      * Use publicly medication for any veneral decease you can think of.

      Although they would all vote to kick you out the nearest airlock in a swimsuit, none of them would consider eating you.
  • The way I see it is, if you have to depend on someone completely to live, you'll be friendly.

  • STOP. FUCKING. AROUND. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) * on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:05PM (#9029023)
    To anyone with any authority in the Federal government in general and/or NASA in specific (which means probably not SlashDotters, but hey, a geek can dream...):

    1) Stop debating it. Stop doing cost-benefit analysis. I DON'T CARE IF WE DO LOSE A FEW LIVES. We NEED to proceed in our exploration of space.
    2) Those who would be at risk to have their lives lost (read: astronauts) are willing to die in the line of duty anyhow, so who the hell are you to care?
    3) We made it to the moon in fucking 1969. It's 2004 now, and we're still fucking around in orbit. In fact, we're barely doing that, and we're chicken-shitting out at every possible opportunity. (e.g. <voice timbre="Principal McVicker">Ohh, oh noo, we can't go back to fix Hubble again, someone might d-d-die...uhhhhh....<voice>) Where the fuck did we go wrong? Was this whole "space exploration" thing just the World's Biggest PR Stunt To Piss Off The Commies?
    4) A decent space station is the first logical way station in our long-term trip to the stars. Stop slicing the budget of ISS. Actually, better yet, completely forget about ISS (after taking the guys there down...) and build a space station that doesn't suck, and that we won't do a half-assed job on completing. Mir, and the older Russian stations, and especially the American Skylab, were much more impressive in their day than ISS. This is fucking ridiculous. Our computers are 10,000 times faster than when we first went to the moon, and our space station technology is practically back-pedalling?
    5) A moon base (yes, a permanent manned structure on the moon) is the second logical way station. We were supposed to have a moon base by the 1990s, right? That's what America was promised in the 1960s...right?
    6) Only far-fringe lunatics care if you use nuclear bombs in space as a way to propel space vehicles (read: not as a weapon). Speaking as a very liberal child of hippies, I say: Use them. Use the bombs! If it's the quickest way to make a spacecraft that can travel at appreciable fractions of c, go for it! (Use them together; use them in peace...)
    7) Even if we haven't completed (5) or (6): MANNED MISSION TO MARS. FUCKING NOW. IT'S 2004. WE'VE BEEN WAITING SINCE 1969.
    8) WHY do we need to continue to explore space? Eventually, we'll lose Earth. Either we'll blow it up (highly likely), we'll wreck its climate (highly likely in the short-to-mid-term future), or an asteroid will hit it (unlikely in the near-term future but virtually ineviable in the long-term future). We have all of our eggs in one basket, and evidently we don't give a damn. What use is your short-term, corporate-style thinking if we're all going to die eventually? Take a lesson from the Japanese and start thinking long-term. Japanese firms regularly embark on projects that won't be finished until all of the founders are dead. They think long-term. America should emulate Japan in that respect.
    9) (OT) Do not let Hubble die!!! [savethehubble.org]
    • Was this whole "space exploration" thing just the World's Biggest PR Stunt To Piss Off The Commies?

      In a nutshell - yes.

  • one vodka? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:05PM (#9029026)
    One vodka?

    So is that one shot of vodka, or a 750ml/1000ml bottle?

    Being russian, I'd only hope it were the 2nd or 3rd. Not a hell of a lot that a vodka shot is going to do for a man.

    • Re:one vodka? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Trurl's Machine ( 651488 )
      So is that one shot of vodka, or a 750ml/1000ml bottle? Being russian, I'd only hope it were the 2nd or 3rd.

      Well, from my experience with Russian bars & restaurants, if you say to the waiter or the bartender "vodku, pozhaluista" ("vodka, please"), he will understand this order not as a single shot or a single bottle, but as an unlimited refill until you drop unconsciously on the floor. I think this is the case - especially that if you drink vodka in a sauna, you can actually drop unconscious after j

    • Better make it a double. (Score:5, Funny)

      by dexter riley ( 556126 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:30PM (#9029195)
      I remember reading that at the Chernobyl accident, the doctors gave the reactor workers vodka for its "anti-radiation" properties.

      If the cosmonaut's quote is any indication, Soviet space medicine has advanced beyond Soviet nuclear medicine, if only by the addition of the sauna.

  • Wasted Trip (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:06PM (#9029032)
    The primary goal at this point regarding manned spaceflight should be developing new better safer more efficient ways of getting into orbit, rather than blow massive resources on something with little payoff. We will never be able to colonize space with out a major advancement in this area.

  • No problem! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:08PM (#9029048) Journal
    mishaps with the Apollo 15 lunar rover almost sliding catastrophically down a mountain

    That's okay. I saw an AAA bumper sticker in one closeup.

  • Send Parents of Difficult Children (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 74Carlton ( 129842 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:08PM (#9029049)
    I suggest that the pool of astronauts considered for a trip to Mars be limited to those who have successfully parented difficult children. It is an experience that teaches one incredible patience in working out solutions when one's emotional forebearance is stretched beyond what one would consider possible. This common shared experience of such a team would provide a bond that would likely transcend the difficulties of the mission. Additionally, such candidates would be very happy to get off this planet.
    • You know, that's a pretty damn good idea since any long-range space exploration is going to require that human nature and human faults be dealt with en route to the mission objectives.

      Maybe you should be in the group that's writing up pre-requisites for astronaut entrance. :-)

  • Science and exploration? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:11PM (#9029066)
    WTF do they have to do with colonisation of space?

    Space is there to be taken, the way America was taken; land, money, resources, power, independance, freedom.

  • The bravery to take the first few steps... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bishmasterb ( 536143 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:13PM (#9029085)
    I'm glad we didn't have governments a million years ago, we'd all still be up in a tree in Africa somewhere deciding whether or not it was safe enough, or practical enough to go down to the ground.
  • Transhumanism should come first. At first it's perhaps the brain and spinal cord hooked up to wires. Then we'll start replacing parts of the brain (we've already built an artificial hippocampus). At some point we'll know just what makes consciousness, and will have a machine do that as well. The end person would be just as sentient as a human (or dog, or chimp). After that, you can drop youself in a neutron star shell and explore the sun for all you want.

  • What I'm wondering is... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KewlPC ( 245768 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @02:30PM (#9029193) Homepage Journal
    I'm wondering what personal pet project of his Dr Chaikin would rather see the money saved from not sending humans into space go towards.

    Are we really content to just sit here on Earth and send machines off to see the rest of the universe? Are we content to say, "Well, yeah, we could've gone to Mars, but it wasn't safe"?

    I think the answer to anyone who says we should stop sending people into space should be, "Well, when people stop wanting to go, we'll stop sending them." I mean, I'd be the first one to volunteer to go to Mars.

    When it comes to actually landing on a planet and having a look around, a human (equipped with the necessary scientific instruments) could do a much better job than a robotic probe. The Spirit rover spent, what, a week just sitting there after landing because the JPL guys had to decide the best way to get it off the landing pad without it getting stuck? A human on Mars would have no such trouble.

    And, of course, having humans on Mars would settle once and for all whether or not NASA's coloration of the Mars Rover images was accurate or not ;)
    • I think the answer to anyone who says we should stop sending people into space should be, "Well, when people stop wanting to go, we'll stop sending them." I mean, I'd be the first one to volunteer to go to Mars.

      You have missed the point. The point is opportunity cost. People have pointed out that NASA's current budget won't support this new manned space exploration agenda. Even with the budget increases planned, what programs will be cut to finance human exploration?

      The question you should be asking is,
  • ...that they can't have hot space sex [independent.co.uk].

  • Vodka? (Score:2, Funny)

    by jabbadabbadoo ( 599681 )
    "...the Russian record-holder uses to recover his land legs: 'One vodka, one sauna'." "

    Pretty much sounds like Linus Torvalds releasing another Linux kernel.

  • Probably wouldn't have been catastrophic (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SnappingTurtle ( 688331 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @03:05PM (#9029424) Homepage
    The mission planners always kept the astronauts in walking distance back to LM. They never trusted the lives of the astronauts to the rover's robustness. The rover definitely allowed the explorers to cover more ground and get more varied samples, but it's unlikely that the astronauts would have died if the rover had gone missing.

    Of course, those were the plans. Plans and reality do have a way of disagreeing.

  • What do you want to spend on? Science or comfort? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @03:26PM (#9029569)
    If you want to send humans into space, you will need to dedicate a huge amount of the budget on comforts to keep them alive. With robotic missions you can spend the money on science. People treat human exploration as a given since they tacitly assume humans must explore the cosmos. Yet most of these people understand little about space science what is already known about the deleterious affects space has on our bodies. We are already in our perfect environment, there is no natural impetus to leave.
  • Instead of Mars, with its attendant difficulties in distance and time spent in space, I propose an alternative for a manned space flight: Venus!

    I mean this only half in jest.

    The negatives:

    1. At 92 bars surface pressure, an inadequately protected capsule would be crushed like a can of spam.
    2. With a surface temperature of 464 C, Martian days at their balmiest would seem quite comfortable.

    Yet the positive is hard to deny: Venus, at its minimum distance to earth, is roughly (very roughly) half the distance
    • It's easy to imagine throwing asteroids and comets at Mars to terraform it... but I've never heard any ideas on how to modify Venus.

      How does one dump massive amounts of unwanted atmosphere?
    • Actually, if you were looking at Venus, you might want to consider a bouyant vehicle that could maintain the elevation where the atmospheric pressure is close to Earth's. Stage down to the surface from it.

      A number of the in situ fuel technologies developed for Mars would work quite well in the CO2 atmosphere of Venus and you could achieve a much higher launch altitude by the use of ballons than you could manage on Earth.

      There is a man named Mitch Clapp who made a very good case for an atmospheric colony a
    • Sorry, no.

      Distance really matters very little in spaceflight. Delta-V is what counts, and the amount needed to reach Venus from the Earth's surface isn't a lot different (within 20%) to that needed to reach Mars, or the Moon, because the vast majority is used up in getting to Earth orbit. It would take less time to reach Venus than Mars but you pretty much have to spend several months on-planet anyway to wait for them to be in the right orbital positions again for the return journey... and an extra 3 mo

  • ...even whether a crew could get along with each other for three years...

    Hasn't this been, like, achieved a zillion times before? polar, oceanic, military exploration has seen similar challenges all the time.

  • Not this debate again. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RayBender ( 525745 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @04:06PM (#9029794) Homepage
    I get so tired of this humans vs. robots debate. First of all, nobody ever changes their opinion one way or the other. Second, it's a stupid debate. The truth is that you ultimately need both; they complement each other in many ways. A one-sided approach will never get very far.

    Sure, humans are expensive and fragile. And sure, robots are improving, are cheaper, able to go p[laces humans can't, and they're of course expendible. But humans are much more adaptible and flexible, they can improvise, and they can think for themselves. Robots are DUMB. Take Mars as an example: cool as the robots are, they are lucky if they can move 100 meters in a day. And that's assuming they don't get confused by loose ground. Or have a flash formatting problem and just sit there for weeks...

    But above all, humans are essential not so much because of what they can do as because what they represent: the future. The whole idea of space exploration is that ultimately we want humanity to settle the stars. Not to relieve population pressure, and not because we want our vacations on Mars. But because that is what life itself does. In the end, if space exploration is just a question of going a few places, taking some pictures, and maybe doing some science, then sooner or later it will die out. People won't keep spending $G for blue-sky science indefitiely. If you don't believe me, ask a particle physicist how much public support they're getting these days. However, people do largely understand at a deep level that space is about the next frontier, and that is why NASA enjoys even the level of support it does.

    My colleages (I'm a scientist) have a tendency to forget the human side of the equation. They get carried away by their science (that what it takes to BE a scientist), and forget just how reliant they are on public support. It's easy to think "imagine what we could do if we spent 5 $G on robots", when the truth is that there would never be the same level of resources available for robots. And for good reason - if space exploration is merely a science, then it should compete on a level playing field with other, equally important sciences, like biology. Or particle theory. Or agricultural sciences, or medicine. Or mathematics. But of course, NASA gets a disproportionately large share of the "science" budget.

    That being said, I think that NASA's human spaceflight is a total clusterfsck. They need to actually accomplish something! Even something simple like figuring out how to -- or if it's possible -- to avoide bone loss in long-duration spaceflight.

    • Re:Not this debate again. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by the_twisted_pair ( 741815 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @09:06PM (#9031451)
      I have mod points, but prefer to amplify the central point you make.

      Humans may be fragile - but they are not expensive; remember Werner Von Braun's observation that people are the most sophisticated computer there is AND the only one we can mass-produce.

      Cultural hang-ups over -maybe- sending people to their deaths are what inhibits space exploration. Presently the risk is about 1:50 for Shuttle passengers, and I'm sure each and every one of them discount the risk because it's something they really , really want to do and believe in.

      One day I hope the rest of us can leave the trees and follow. I'd rather my grandchildren have the choice, than still be holding this whole debate. I'll volunteer to test gear in space right now to this end - *please, let me go.*

      Meanwhile in here in the UK 5500 people are killed every year due to people travelling from A to B by car for mostly mundane reasons. Almost all these deaths, insofar as the reasons are mundane, are ultimately avoidable with either forethought, planning or better use of existing resources. In the US I believe the figure is roughly 7 times greater.

      So where's the fucking problem? We have become a world which knows the cost of everything, but the value of nothing.

  • Space yes. NASA no? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by code_rage ( 130128 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @04:40PM (#9030018)
    I think one of the false dichotomies that winds up being used is: if you're in favor of space exploration, then you must support NASA and everything it does.

    The problem is, I look at NASA's human spaceflight "program" and see failure. They have not built successively better capabilities towards a goal. In fact, it's hard to state with any seriousness that there has been a goal. "Permanent manned presense in space" is not a goal, it's... not even a tactic. What is it? I don't really see a whole lot of "the vision thing" in the current Moon-Mars proposal. Is there a goal? Why will the next 10-20 Congresses continue funding it, if there is not a tangible benefit?

    Contrast this with the JPL-led Mars exploration program. Unlike the manned "program", JPL really does have a program worthy of the name. They keep building on past successes. They exploit current assets to increase capability and reduce cost and risk (e.g. they use orbiting probes to relay telemetry from landers, just one example). Each time they go, they don't throw away what they learned last time.

    It's really hard for me to see how NASA will succeed in going to the Moon when they can't even find a way to take the risks needed to service Hubble. There has been a loss of technical competence, programmatic vision, and boldness (appropriately tempered by realistic assessment) that makes it hard to see this succeeding.

    But blah blah blah... why do I bother writing these things. No one pays any attention anyway.

  • Human Space Travel Isn't About Science (Score:4, Insightful)

    by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @05:44PM (#9030395)
    Arguing about whether humans or machines do science in space better is missing the point.

    Human space travel is just that: h-u-m-a-n space travel. It's about going from Here to There.

    Space travel offers a wonderful venue to pursue science. Likewise, much science needs to be done to support human space travel. But those are secondary motivations.

    We didn't populate the Earth because we wanted to "do" science. Ditto the rest of the place.

  • arguing about the wrong question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by alizard ( 107678 ) <alizard.ecis@com> on Saturday May 01, 2004 @05:51PM (#9030444) Homepage
    People are arguing about the best way to explore space in the interests of increasing scientific knowledge. Pure exploration is a high investment for an unknown payoff.

    The Solar System contains virtually unlimited resources in terms of energy materials with respect to the human population.

    Why aren't people arguing about the best way to exploit these resources?

    If America is going to be a dominant technological power with jobs for science and technology graduates, we have to make new science and new technology. This means somebody has to pay for it... and that's us. This is where our public sector R&D needs to be going.

    If we have a human industrial presence in space, the science will follow, and far more of it than anyone is discussing doing today, either robotically or using human explorers. If a university can get a research project done by sending a grad student to a space station or moonbase lab via commercial space flight, its going to be a lot cheaper to do this than to build a satellite payload and find a launch platform. Plus, if something unexpected happens, whether it's a design error or something interesting, it's a lot easier for a human to reconfigure his planning than to reconfigure the hardware configuration of a satellite already in orbit.

    Low hanging fruit: A profitable space power satellite network is probably achievable using more or less current technology based on Russian satellite launch prices. However, the time to profit would be a lot shorter with a Space Elevator or earth-to-orbit railgun as a launch platform.

    For more information, check the link in my sig.

  • Error in article (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bob Cat - NYMPHS ( 313647 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @06:00PM (#9030493) Homepage
    Having experienced free-floating as they departed the Earth's gravity, the moonwalkers had to adjust to the moon's one-sixth value compared to terrestrial gravity.

    Every science writer who makes this mistake should be made to leave Earth's gravity.

  • What do you mean... (Score:4, Funny)

    by soccerisgod ( 585710 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @06:15PM (#9030575)

    ...going back to the moon?

    What's that?
    Oh no!
    It's Buzz Aldrin!
    He's gonna punch me!

  • Going back to the moon...? Did we ever go there in the first place? Going back to the moon and Mars...? We went to Mars too? Where have I been!? ----- What if the moon missions were performed on a government sanctioned sound station? Perhaps in Area 51, or perhaps they just rented at Universal Studios... I mean, we couldn't possibly be left in the dust by the USSR! The Cold War was still being waged! It would have been what we call a "psychological victory" for the USSR. Just a thought. -Xeon

  • Think LONG term. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sbaker ( 47485 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @08:25PM (#9031274) Homepage
    There are two ideas here that are seemingly in conflict. Firstly that robots are cheaper and easier to get 'out there'. Secondly that humans need to get off this planet because we need multiple home worlds for reasons of risk-abatement.

    I agree with both of those views because they only conflict in the immediate short term.

    If you want to get people to Mars in large enough quantities to be meaningful, then you need to do the science on the planet first. If robots can achieve that Mars mission more effectively - then in the short term we should use robots in order to hasten the time when understand enough about the planet to go and live there.

    In the very long term, I predict we'll have either machines which are truely as intelligent as us - or a way to put our own thoughts and emotions into robotic bodies (after one generation, it matters very little which of those it is). Either way, sending them to colonise Mars will be just as valid as sending our 'bags of mostly water'. Beings whose thoughts are essentially just software can travel at low cost and at the speed of light with no inconveniences of any kind.

  • Stop sending athletes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by way2trivial ( 601132 ) on Saturday May 01, 2004 @10:03PM (#9031645) Homepage Journal
    send gamers.

    of course someone at the peak of physical fitness is going to go bonkers spending three years in a cubicl^h^h^h^h^h spacecraft with no place to go outside.. there are people who spend months playing with computers, who hate going outside, and don't have the energy to move around much.. send the video gamers, no to lan gamers, they like to get out too much
    send my wife, who spends entire days playing diablo with her perfect IK set, doing deliberate incomplete baal hell runs with 3-7 other people that would make me cry, and I can't stand to watch, she'll do it for 8 hours in a row... these are the people who can make the journey..

    course, they're useless when you get there....

  • Choosing the straight and narrow path... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Genda ( 560240 ) <mariet@nOspaM.got.net> on Saturday May 01, 2004 @10:24PM (#9031705) Journal
    It's really hard to have a meaningful conversation about future space exploration, when the key participants have hidden agendas, political considerations, and egotistical motives. There are only a few significant issues that should color the choices we make;

    1. Earth is a dangerous place, and the human race barely escaped extinction once already. We need to get life all over the place, and at the top of that list, human life. By spreading us all over, we preclude the largest list of possible extinction scenarios. That and the earth is only going to be a happy home for a finite time anyway... we should get our behinds out into the void and start having the kind of fun you can only get as a space faring race.

    We must move into space... it is our destiny.

    2. Making space habitable is very hard, and extremely expensive. We need to build smart machines that can build sustainable habitats on the moon, mars, a whole bunch of asteroids chock full of useful resources (including water), and the jovian moons. Once there are fully operational facillities in these places, supporting a growing and healthy population of people in space will be cake. The skyhook will reduce the cost of moving resources, and the development of smart self learning robots will have fantastic applications here on earth.

    We must move into space... it is our destiny, but we should do so thoughfully, and make sure that each new foothold supports the next. We must avoid stupid and pointless excess for the sole purpose of flaunting our egos, or controling the masses.

    3. Keep the military out of space, whatever you do. The only way we can afford to place weapons in space is if they're pointed away from the planet, designed to protect us from an external threat. Literally make them impossible to point at Earth. Any other scenario has one nation lording space based weapons over others and world politics dictate that this nation will be hated and despised. We want to protect ourselves from the small and fearful minds of angry men with little or no vision.

    The short term benefit for humanity is; wealth of resources, new technology, protection from potential extinction. The medium term benefit is abundant new housing off planet for a burgeoning population to move... the human adventure of space pioneering. The long term benefit is that life from our world has been preserved, we are allowed to evolve fully into whatever we will become, and the planet is preserved so that it remains a garden, allowing new and interesting life to evolve, mayhaps even joining us as we travel into space.

    In short, we must make our homes among the stars, and we need to do so, such that the entire race see's benefit, value, and is part of the process. If we can do this... our future will indeed be bright and boundless.

    Genda

    You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?" -- George Bernard Shaw

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