Van Allen Questions Human Spaceflight 1096
An anonymous reader writes "James van Allen - the discoverer of the Van Allen radiation belt - has called into question the motivations and expectations of space exploration and research, particularly manned space exploration. Van Allen comments that 'the only surviving motivation for continuing human spaceflight is the ideology of adventure.'"
adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
Good enough for me.
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
But eth final sentence really got me.
"Let us not obfuscate the issue with false analogies to Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and Lewis and Clark, or with visions of establishing a pleasant tourist resort on the planet Mars," van Allen suggests.
Why on earth would these be considered obfuscations? Especially the explorers! You can learn a lot via robot, but there are some things you just won't learn that way. Especially if we run across any form of life much more advanced than a simple, single-cell form.
With all due respect, perhaps Mr. Van Allen is simply getting too old. Typically, age brings less concern for adventure and more concern for safety and.... dare I say it? things not changing. I'm not saying this is all that's at work behind his arguments, but I suspect it is a factor.
yes, with age also comes (hopefully) wisdom. But with age we can also have ossification. The best results usually arrive when we have a balance of maturity, wisdom and caution with adventuresomeness, exhuberance and boldness.
Re:adventure (Score:3, Interesting)
Such as...?
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:adventure (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason we are able to get any useful data from any of the Mars landers is because of the human ingenuity that has gone into working around problems from millions of miles away. Many of those problems nearly weren't solvable without having a person there, and most of them could have been solved much more quickly if a person had simply been able to flip the pod over or replace the problematic hardware. For every problem we solved, there was at least one more that we weren't able to solve, many of which could also have been easily solved by people.
Anyone who says that people are an unnecessary part of space flight has an agenda. Maybe that agenda is safety, maybe it is fear, maybe it is making the Bush administration look stupid (as if that were somehow difficult...), but clearly there's an agenda.
As for my rock crushing arm, no, if I didn't prepare for a mission and needed to crush rock, I couldn't do it with my arm. However, I probably could unbolt the handle from the refrigerator and use it as a hammer. Core sample foot? A spare piece of metal tubing from the repair kit. Microscopic vision eye? Take the sample, seal it in a container, and examine it back on Earth. See, there's the other big advantage of manned flight. You always have to have a mechanism to bring them home. While it's a disadvantage in terms of cost, it's a major advantage in terms of analysis. You don't have to do everything in one neat little cubic meter package....
Never underestimate the importance of human involvement in true space exploration and study. That said, we should be more careful to reserve human involvement for situations where their presence is useful. Having people for exploring Mars is useful. Colonizing Mars is useful. (The word here is "backup".) Having people present for repairing Hubble may be useful. Direct human involvement in orbital research projects is probably not useful. The ISS is probably not useful except as a jumping-off point, but thanks to safety concerns over the volatility of fuel, it isn't even useful for that anymore....
No, the best thing we can do as far as manned vs. unmanned space flight is concerned is not to increase or decrease the number of manned space flights, but rather to do more interesting things with those manned flights and leave the mundane stuff to the robots that were designed to handle them. Just my $0.02.
Re:adventure (Score:4, Insightful)
Only if you're taking a minimalist approach. If your goal is to spend the absolute minimum just to get anything done whatsoever, then yes, a robot is cheaper. But try reversing the question: For the amount of resources you'd have to spend to get a real live person there, what sort of robots could you get? Would they be any better than what we're sending now? Would we get anything else out of them? I doubt it. But people could accomplish ever so much more.
Unmanned spaceflight has a lower minimum expense, sure, but it has a correspondingly lower 'maximum amount of stuff you can do', as well.
Moot point, anyways. There's one overriding reason for manned spaceflight: Survival. As long as the human race is stuck on this rock, our civilization and likely our species are, in the long run, doomed to extinction. 99.99999...% of all species that ever lived are gone, many of them wiped out by things we ourselves could not prevent today. The only way to ensure our survival is to spread as far and wide as we can.
What you can't learn via robot (Score:4, Insightful)
You also won't get a variety of things that matter at the human level. What does the sand of Mars feel like bewteen the fingers? To walk on? What does the air feel and taste like? How does a human react to this environment?
You can write these off as irrelevant. If you're a soulless robot, you will. And that would be foolish, even at the purely logical level of a Vulcan. The feel of the sand between your fingers might be exactly the trigger to some insight that yields a new application, process or product that revolutionizes an industry.
(Frankly, whether it yields new products or not, I still want to feel it!)
Never discount the human presence or capabilities in these things.
Re:adventure (Score:3, Insightful)
So a single person gets to experience that, hundreds of millions of taxpayers have to invest billions of dollars. And when the guy who jumped around dies, what is left to humanity? No scientific evidence that is of any use, only a log entry saying "Dude, it's cool to jump around on the moon!".
I'm ok for adventure as long as the guy doing the adventure is also paying for it.
Re:adventure (Score:3, Insightful)
Computers are great example, first only minority had access to these pieces of technology, now almost everyone can be using computer.
Re:adventure (Score:4, Interesting)
Get a reality check dude, NASa spending is tiny and bugger all compared to the other utter waste, but any way Phisbut, money isnt real, its all fake and printed out of thin air via credit using our fractional reserved banking techniqueues, ie lend out at 10:1 ration of what you have, so 90% of your cash is just a 'printed' version made just like counterfeit.
Us TAX payers on the other hand are really only paying for the government DEBTS, and not government expenditure, (note: public tax income reciepts are near equal government interest payments, ie to bonds etc...). The rest of the money comes from taxes from taxing companies and goods and services at the sales stage.
Part of that adventure is also the 20000 people that helped to make it happen and also the newly designed/cool technology which can be used royalty free by the companies that made it on commercial products in the public world.
Just imagine if nasa invented a qantam communications gadget that would allow zero lag communications at high speeds over infinite distances with zero delay and zero signal loss an d be 100% secure. Great for space probes etc.. but cool aswell in mobile phones with unlimited distance comms.
He is right on analogies (Score:5, Insightful)
This is apart from the issue of distance. In the real universe, scale matters. You cannot compare travel to another galaxy to travelling across the Pacific.
Re:He is right on analogies (Score:3, Funny)
Sure, as long as they don't drink the water or drown in it!
Re:He is right on analogies (Score:5, Interesting)
Space travel is easy until you try and implement it. In my spare time, I've been working on a rocket simulator. Even considering "parts" as pretty large elements (for example, I have "engines" (comprising the nozzle, combustion chambers, any linings, any gimballing pivots (but not actuators), any ignition sources and flame holders, etc, but not any turbopumps or compressors, or actuators for gimballing) as a single "part"), the craft is already up to about 2,000 parts. Every time you add something, it seems, you need to add 5 more parts, which each need their own parts...
For an example, lets say you're doing a reusable landing vehicle, and want to add a single aileron. Ignoring the fact that machining this aileron will be an incredible pain (needs to be both light and strong at high temperatures, and not leave any gaps when the craft is reentering the atmosphere (which would act like a blowtorch)), you need power for it. Ok, so you put in a couple hydraulic actuators. Ok, now these hydraulic actuators need flow control valves and valves to limit the flow, and you need oil lines, a hydraulic pump (and backup), an oil pump (and backup), and a power system for the pumps, along with breakers, which should probably have sensors on them and control lines to flip them should they toggle unecessarily. We'll assume you've already got a power system as a whole installed. Ok, you're set now, right? Nope. It can easily get too cold in space for both the hydraulic system and the oil lines, so you need heaters on the tanks, along with temperature sensors; likewise, on the lines themselves (either that or you need constant circulation), and on the actuators themselves. Of course, the actuators need position sensors so the computer will know if something jammed. Each of the heaters needs power and breakers similar to those described above. Each of the breakers, pumps, valves, and heaters needs computer control, which has to be carefully tested for failure conditions. Now, additional hydraulics don't need too many additional resevoirs (and their associated heaters and pumps), but the lines and actuators still need the heaters, pumps, breakers, and controls. Note that I'm not even getting into what you need to mount and insulate (thermally and electrically) all of these components and to hinge moving components properly.
This is just for an aileron. Need I get into the cabin?
Re:He is right on analogies (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want to talk about disease, we can go into the difficulties of making a hygenic zero-G toilet and waste disposal system.... you know, as opposed to just going over the edge of the ship. And potable water, *especially* on long trips (which involves recycling) is *one heck* of a lot harder than barrels filled with rain water.
Submarines, while extreme engineering, aren't as extreme of engineering as rockets - mainly because you can build them much bigger and far heavier for the same cost (which makes things a *lot* simpler), and they aren't exposed to nearly such intense G forces and vibrational loads (the combination of these things with light components at high temperature is particularly nasty).
There was an attempt to build a rocket like a ship once - it was called SEALAR. There's a reason why it failed
Re:He is right on analogies (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you vastly underestimate the challenge needed to build a tower hundreds of feet tall that will not topple in the first storm or park a submersible on the bottom of challenger deep, under 11 miles (17700 m) of water at a pressure exceeding 16000 pounds per square inch (1125 kg/cm^2).
To you they are trivial because they have already been bested by engineering. Space is the new challenge and it will still prove to be a hard master for many years to come but we will eventually, given the willingness to challenge it, advance in engineering powers to the point where it too is a routine endeavor.
On thing that I find odd, is that in the context of space exploration loss, and the resulting death is viewed as such a horrible risk that the attempt should not be made. Of course I do not want to see people lose their lives... but I would risk mine to try if I was given the opportunity. Yet still, compare this reaction to the loss in the context of other human endeavors... If we made a roll of all those lost at sea in the name of exploration it would read on for pages, no for volumns upon volumns. Heck it was not that long ago when the building of a skyscraper was considered well managed if fewer than 15 workers died during its construction, but in the exploration of space, any risks seems to great to those of us that would rather we just stay here, at home.
Yes we should acknowledge the danger and we should not take undue risk... but we should not let the fear of loss paralyze us into inaction.
Re:He is right on analogies (Score:3, Interesting)
G forces are one thing. But the shuttle only has to deal with a pressure differential of 1 atmosphere. The current generation of nuclear powered submarines has to deal with pressures at least 60 times greater. Plus the corrosive action of saltwater. Vibration is an issue as well. The SSTG (ship's service turbo-generators) spin at well over 20,000 RPM, with a finely machined series of reduction gears dropping it to about 100 RPM.
Not only do you have to nav
Re:He is right on analogies (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:He is right on analogies (Score:3, Interesting)
The space shuttle barely gets by on 0.144 inches of aluminum at most parts - aluminum that has to operate at about a third the normal strength it would on the ground at times of maximal stress (reentry) because of heat - after being subjected to many extreme heating and cooling cycles and high Gs and vibrational loads. And that's for a craft with a landing mass of 104 metric tons (and lets not even get into the wet mass....)
Mid-atlantic drop-off (Score:5, Insightful)
So say I was sailing to America from Europe and dropped you off in the North Atlantic 500+km offshore you'd be able to sustain yourself in the native ocean environment? Somehow I doubt it...even if you did survive the cold and could tread water to prevent drowning you would eventually need fresh water.
Its certainly faster with space and harder to protect yourself against it but we have come a long way technologically since we stuck a sail on a few planks of wood and set sail to conquer the oceans.
Re:Mid-atlantic drop-off (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm thinking the analogy is just fine.
Re:He is right on analogies (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course scale matters. You can't really compare travel into orbit with travel to another planet; you certainly can't compare travel to another planet with travel to another star; and you can't compare anything at all within reason to travel to another galaxy.
Re:He is right on analogies (Score:3, Insightful)
Travelling across the galaxy? Perhaps not. Travel to Mars? sure!
It took Magellan a couple-three years to go around the globe. It will take a couple-three years to make the first round-trip to Mars. I fail to see the difference.
200 years ago, two months to cross the Atlantic wasn't unusual. That was 300 years after Columbus' passage, and 800 years
What? no Exploitable Native Inhabitants? (Score:5, Insightful)
The "but there is nothing there (to live on)" argument falls apart thusly:
1) There is something there. It isn't a lush tropical expanse of airable land. It is, however, "valuable realestate" for providing the raw materials we will need once we use up this planet.
2) There is
3) There is
4) There is
5) The actual pursuit will fund research and development in Medicine.
6)
7)
8)
N+1)
This debate puts me in mind of some song from the seventies (cant remember the title) that had a line like: "spent a billion dollars to go to the moon. Brought back a bag of rocks... Must be nice rocks..."
In this case, the trip itself is incredibly valuable to us here in terms of our own life and well-being.
In this case, the understanding of habitat necessary to create *artifical* habitat could revolutionize our own habatat here on earth (notice the repeating word) and coudl lead to ways to sustain and repair the one we are shitting all over down here.
The argument against seems to be "if there are no native inhabitants there to exploit, and the streets of the cities of those primitives are not lined with gold, we might as well forget it."
After all, you seem to say, if its work and the payoff isn't obvious in banannas and slaves to pick them, we might as well stay home.
(Yes, that last is a troll-like and unfair generalization of your position; but if you get to generalize away all the benefits of the pursuit because the travelers will not easily survive shipwreck; then I get to generalize *in* what you might demand of the trip in order to have the trip seem worthwile. 8-)
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh-huh. We've sent a dozed guys to a rock 300,000 km away, and sent out probes for 30 years, and we're determined that space is boring. There is clearly nowhere to go. We've mapped all of space. Sure.
Sorry to piss in your beer, Einstein, but space is kinda BIG. I highly doubt that we have ruled out the possibility of worthwhile destinations. To put it in 15th Century terms, it's kinda like Columbus having looked into his bed-pan in the morning and decided he'd explored all the oceans and there was clearly no reason to even get out of bed.
Re:adventure (Score:3, Insightful)
We haven't got a FREAKING CLUE what's out there. We haven't gota FREAKING CLUE what we will or won't learn, can or can't learn, by space exploration.
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
As already pointed out by another poster, the ocean through which the listed explorers travelled could provide sustenance. But much more importantly, wherever these explorers aimed for, they always had a hope that when they came to the end of their journey, the land that they arrived at could sustain them. A journey to the moon or to Mars would be the equivalent of Christopher Columbus setting off on a voyage to the gates of hell in the hope that future generations could somehow make hell hospitable and profit from it (perhaps the flames would provide a free energy source?). So, Van Allen is perfectly correct in calling these obfuscations.
You on the other hand are obfuscating the issue. An opinion is an opinion, and it doesnt matter whether the person voicing it is young or old. The matter should be considered on its merits and not with regard to the age of the speaker.
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
What if the life form lives in under 1000km of water at a temerature of 800K?
I guess when we find the "aliens" that you are looking for, the green skined orion chicks, then it would be good to be able to send Kirk to negotiate. But isn't it a little premature to send Kirk before we have found the hot alien babes? Why not spend the 80 billion on some remote sensing gear to find the earth like planets. Then send a robot to confirm the existense of the hot alien babes and then send Kirk?
Re:adventure (Score:3, Informative)
Re:adventure (Score:4, Insightful)
OTOH, he did leave out a lot of (very) long-term reasons, most of which have a whole lot to do with humanity surviving beyond whatever Fate has laid out for the planet we're grubbing around on now...
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
Jaysyn
Re:adventure (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.space.com/peopleinterviews/aldrin_cl
Re:adventure (Score:3, Insightful)
Likewise, we as a species like to push the boundaries of our physical existance - and for now, that comes as an attempt to rage against the bonds of our planet's gravity.
And I think its a good thing.
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is over there any better than where you are right now? It isn't really, but sooner or later you get an itch to move. Hell, even cats spend their lives deciding that it would be better to be sleeping on the sofa rather than on the chair.
Animals that don't move are called vegetables.
Nothing really pragmatic has come from going to the north pole or the summit of Everest, but we go. We must go. Because it's there.
Even if it's only to the mall.
I'd rather go to the summit of Everest, or space.
KFG
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
But now we see SpaceShipOne and the advent of private initiatives in manned space flight. These initiatives are driven, in part, by private investment, and investors seek a return. So perhaps Van Allen's premise will now be tested. If there is a value to manned spaceflight beyond an ideology of adventure, private enterprise will presumably find it.
Re:adventure (Score:5, Interesting)
I seriously doubt that Paul Allen put money into the craft for some sort of theoretical return from joy ride sales. He did it because he wants to have a craft that goes down in the annals of history. Rutan undoubtedly has the same motive, plus a more personal motive of promoting his company.
Even if they can get into *ORBIT* (not "space", which is trivial by comparison), there's only a limited satellite market. They have to get prices down to 1-3k$/kg (the exact point is debated) before a host of new space opportunities start to open up.
And SpaceShipOne's design will *never* get to orbit, on many different fronts. Any orbit-reaching craft will involve starting over from scratch for almost all parts.
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
How much would your private aerospace company pay for front-page recognition in all the world's major newspapers for launching the first privately-funded commercial space flight, designed and built by your company?
Because of SpaceShipOne, Scaled Composites is very nearly a household name. Could they have achieved the same level of recognition by pouring a few tens of millions of dollars directly into advertising instead? Maybe...but by going this route, they get all the recognition, plus a fledgeling spacecraft research program with at least one tangible prototype so far.
No return on investment? They're laughing all the way to the bank.
Re:adventure (Score:5, Insightful)
To pay for it with tax money, it has to be good enough for other people, not just you.
Human spaceflight has had its development distorted by outrageous government subsidies. The result has been a ridiculously expensive form of theater that's sucking funding away from the uncrewed space program. It's the uncrewed space program that actually does all the science.
If people want to have an adventure climbing Mount Everest or circling the world in a balloon, they should pay for the adventure out of their own pockets. The X Prize, for instance, is cool. Of course, private industry works under all these pesky restraints, like having to worry about going bankrupt if they're incompetent. The ISS's design is such a botch that it would never have gotten off the drawing board except for the political impetus to keep it going.
The way people sell crewed spaceflight is also intellectually dishonest. For instance, you'll hear people say that the silicon chip would never have been invented without the space program. Well, I'll believe that statement when someone brings me back documentary evidence from an alternate universe where the cold war never happened, and there was no space race. It's an urban folktale, like the story about how Eskimos have 300 words for snow and English only has one, which has been throughly debunked by linguists. (In fact, if you compare the languages on an equal footing, they both have the same number of words for snow. For instance, English has specialized terms like "powder" that do double duty.)
Re:adventure (Score:3, Interesting)
One man, one vote. To send people into space is the grandparent's vote, and mine echos it. The bulk of your argument seems to deal with the way space is explored under government support, not with the fact that it is supported that way. I agree that there is a lot of waste, way too much waste, in the way NASA does things. But I still think that space exploration needs to be funded on several fronts, including the public f
Don't understand (Score:5, Funny)
And this is a problem because....?
Because (Score:5, Insightful)
What other motivation do we need? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh...so? The only motivation that got us off our asses and away from our idylic hunter-gatherer lifestyle on the plains of Africa was our desire to see what was over the next hill, what happens if we bash flints together, what happens if we lash a bunch of logs together and float it on the river...
I'd say adventure is a good enough reason to get me my damn spaceship and lunar weekend retreat!
Re:What other motivation do we need? (Score:3, Insightful)
From http://www.nasawatch.com/policy.html
"But only a tiny number of Earth's six billion inhabitants are direct participants. For the rest of us, the adventure is vicarious and akin to that of watching a science fiction movie. At the end of the day, I ask myself whether our huge national commitment of technical talent to human spaceflight and the ever present potential for the loss of precious human life are
Re:What other motivation do we need? (Score:3, Interesting)
True, but it's not the only reason. Among the others are:
* Moving humans off of earth. Building stable colonies away from earth is key to sustaining humanity (global catastrophies do happen), and making them self-sustaining will take generations upon generations, so starting now makes sense.
* Mining ore from asteroids is something that can mostly be automated, but having a human being present solves for a lot of sticky problems.
* Building a stable Lagrange point
Re:What other motivation do we need? (Score:5, Funny)
How do you know there aren't lots of tasty aliens out there if you don't look?
heh I first read as Van Halen (Score:5, Funny)
Re:heh I first read as Van Halen (Score:5, Funny)
Two words: Final Countdown
Re:heh I first read as Van Halen (Score:4, Informative)
To the inevitable nit-picking dweebs: I'm aware that "Final Countdown" was Europe and not VH. But the comment above was, "hair metal and space don't really seem to go together".
Whose spaceflight? (Score:5, Insightful)
But, private spaceflight, that's none of his business. If he doesn't want a ride, nobody's forcing him to buy a ticket.
Why manned spaceflight should be privatized (Score:3, Insightful)
Somebody elighten me with a single reason manned space flight should have anything to do with me. Does it help our nation? Does it have anything to do with the roles of the government defined by our constitution? If so, please somebody tell me what that might be. Why all the blank stares now? Don't you assholes have a halfway legitimate reason for jacking up my taxes to put people in space?
However, for the romantics, a private sector space industry doesn't bothe
Re:Whose spaceflight? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a surprise? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can think of a couple (Score:5, Insightful)
(2) Profiting off the immense riches to be had in space, once the technology is advanced enough to gather those riches at a profit;
(3) The same reason people climb K2
Max
Not nessecarly (Score:3, Interesting)
However, it is quite likely that if something is found that's going to make people rich its either a) going to be something that is extremely rare here on Earth and quite useful for construction or b) a new way of making energy and the fuel can only be found in
Yea, well... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, call me whatever you want, but Van Allen is just missing the big picture. We gotta get off this rock.
Or should we just wait for an asteroid cataclysm or some other natural disaster? I'd rather not. Personally, I think we should spend more money and effort on things like space elevators and fusion/antimatter/exotic matter propulsion.
In short, to Van Allen: screw you too buddy.
Ideology of Adventure? (Score:4, Insightful)
ideology of adventure he cites as the only reason for manned spaceflight is not an end unto itself - it is a way to maintain human interest and thus funding. It's pretty hard to get people interested in space when the only thing riding on it is a handful of integrated circuits. The average person couldn't care less about space travel or advancing science (Except perhaps in the medical arena) and in order to maintain any significant public interest whatsoever is is probably necessary to keep sending up manned missions.
Adventure Yes but It's Mainly about Money (Score:3, Insightful)
There is lot more money to be made from the taxpayer from pursuing human space flights. Robots are much cheaper and not nearly as lucrative to NASA.
He's absolutely right... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Let us not obfuscate the issue with false analogies to Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and Lewis and Clark, or with visions of establishing a pleasant tourist resort on the planet Mars," van Allen suggests
The space shuttle is PR. The ISS is a waste and a flop. The ISS should be a means not an end. Flags and footprints of COURSE aren't worth it if, again, they are an end and not a beginning.
However, those analogies to Columbus, Magellan, L&C and the tourist resort on Mars cease to be false if the goals are changed. If the point is to continue to grow out and off our ball of dirt, then none of the steps are a waste. If the goal is to put a flag on Mars and never return, then yes, it is a waste.
Another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Adventure (Score:3, Insightful)
We destoryed the indians.
Then we headed west to the plains from our comfortable homes in the 13 colonies.
We, again, destroyed the indians.
And, of course, the lure of gold and adventure brought EVERYBODY to the Pacific coast.
By this time, the indians had become wise to us and had moved to Canada.
Okay, well, the thing with the indians could've been handled a whole lot differently. But, the whole "thrill of adventure" is what causes the human race to grow. He's saying space exploration just exists for adventure?
Exactly.
To quote Heinlein (Score:4, Insightful)
Van Allen Considered Harmful (Score:3, Insightful)
This statement is not very bright and not at all visionary. Besides the likely scientific and possible economic benefits (and opinions of the potential for these vary, admittedly), there's one overarching reason of critical importance: Survival of our species.
With time, our ability to create a planet-wide catastrophe threatening our species survival grows exponentially. There are any number of ways we could do ourselves in ecologically or militarily, but the chances of those wiping out all of humanity are reduced when we're spread out among more than one planet - moreso if that planet is terraformed or otherwise made human-friendly on a large scale and self-sufficient without shipping of either raw materials or finished goods from earth.
Anyone who is interested, as Van Allen claims to be, in "the ever-present potential for the loss of precious human life" should be unequivocally for, not against, manned human spaceflight with a final goal of extraterrestrial colonization.
OK,
- B
Re:Van Allen Considered Harmful (Score:3, Insightful)
And it doesn't even require humanity to screw up the Earth. It is a simple fact that the Earth has a finite existence with or without its life forms. It is clearly essential for Earth's life forms to proceed into the cosmos. The urgency of the current situation is debateable, but eventually it is inevitable.
He's right (Score:3, Insightful)
Computers and robots are terrific explorers. I believe that they can also be terrific builders of infrastructure. That's the direction that future space missions should follow.
I'm not saying that humans should stay home. I am saying that if I had to build a log cabin on the moon myself, or have a robot do it for me, I'd let the robot do it.
We need to reduce expenditures on manned spaceflight and redirect those resources to basic research in materials, computer systems, robotics, and planetary chemistry. Out of this research would come technologies allowing us to explore the solar system remotely, build robust spacecraft, and actually make a living off the materials available on the planet or moon we happen to be standing on.
Re:He's right (Score:3, Insightful)
Point is, sacrifices must be made to advance humanity. If a man is willing to sacrifice his life, that is his choosing and you should be grateful. Just because you don't possess the same ambition and daring, doesn't mean others should be restrained.
In the spirit of my view.. I would
No substitute for people (Score:4, Insightful)
Although life is precious and reckless endangerment is to be decried, the fact is life is sometimes jeopardized/sacrificed for the greater advancement of the species (human or otherwise). Although not a good analogy, it is similar in sentiment to those unwilling to risk lives in battle.
Unwillingly to sacrifice one sacrifices all. THe 'all' in this case just happens to be knowledge and experience. If carefully balanced, some risk is acceptable (I'd do it).
Echoes of ancient China (Score:3, Insightful)
It would appear that the average person is content with their idiotic tv, fattening foods, gas guzzling road yachts, and other such pointless pursuits.
The Chinese are still around . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Patience.
Re:The Chinese are still around . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not his fault. (Score:4, Insightful)
He says, "I ask myself whether the huge national commitment of technical talent to human spaceflight and the ever-present potential for the loss of precious human life are really justifiable."
To the government and a nation, definitely not.
To a private investor? That's his choice to make.
So Van Allen is only half right. But he makes it seem like government spaceflight is by far the only option.
Only? (Score:5, Insightful)
The "ideology of adventure"? As opposed to what?
Nice way to trivialize perhaps the only justification for our existence. Why are we here if not to travel and discover? The universe granted us enough awareness to perceive that there might be something worthwhile over the next hill. It seems to me we have a duty to adventure; it's our job!
That, or we could just hang back and breed. Should be fairly plain that one 8k mile dia. ball of rock is not sufficient for that to go on indefinitely.
Symbolic value (Score:5, Insightful)
What if a Pharao of Egypt had said: "Screw this pyramid stuff, I'm spending the money on defense instead. And you can bury me in a wooden casket".
What if Charles Lindbergh had said: "What's the point? I can take the boat."
What if Columbus had said: "You can't sail to India. Everyone knows that."
It'd have been a much less interesting world to live in, I'll tell you that. I don't believe every single thing we chose to do should follow from the utilitarian principle of the "greatest good" in strict scientific or material terms.
Or to paraphrase Kennedy: We choose not to do these things because they are useful. We choose to do them becase they are a human thing to do.
Babylon 5 put it best... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sappy, yeah. But it makes the point nicely.
(quote copied from http://jdmoncada.tripod.com/babylon5.html)
Why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
And there is nothing wrong with this idea.
Jeffrey Sinclair of Babylon 5 said it best... (Score:5, Insightful)
"We have to stay here and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes
Our SURVIVAL is at stake. Forget the Sun going out, what about an comet impact? That's not an unprecedented event in Earth history, and we're due, statistically speaking. We HAVE to go, and it has to be sooner rather than later because that comet might hit us sooner rather than later.
Sorry Van Allen, your dead wrong on this one, and so is the human race if too many agree with you.
Re:The universe does not need us (Score:3, Interesting)
Neither do we, in the present.
Yet, would you consider it unfortunate if, somehow, all traces of Bach's music vanished tomorrow? If we woke up to find every last copy of "Army of Darkness" eaten by moths? If some anti-intellectual government managed to efface The Tempest (Shakespeare's or Gaiman's version, doesn't matter which you prefer) from human memory?
We don't "need" culture. But at least some things seem worth ke
The only motivation? (Score:3, Interesting)
What about colonizing the solar system?
What about exploring the universe?
What about inspiring future generations?
What about showing democracy is superior to communism...
Old News (Score:5, Informative)
I am an Iowa Physics and astronomy student. Van Allen works only two floors up from me. Although I don't know him personally, I have certainly read the various articles and commentary posted by his door.
Why not surprising? Professor Van Allen is a pioneer of robotic spaceflight. As a plasma physicist, humans are of little use to him in any place other than on the ground doing data reduction. That's okay, but there are other scientific disciplines such as geology and SETI (which is certainly taken seriously among radio astronomers, contrary to some popular belief) where human investigators are hard to replace.
Is orbiting the earth in an elderly tin can a waste of our time and money? Maybe, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't go to Mars.
Even if you don't believe that the scientific merits of spaceflight are worth the cost, consider the technological benefits [nasa.gov]. Attempting a new task of spaceflight is a technological challenge that yields benefits felt in every corner of society.
The only thing that can be said for the human cost is that astronauts do their jobs fully cognisant of the risk. They know they could be making more money in a safer job in the private sector, but they do it anyway. They have that "ideology of adventure" that Professor Van Allen does not.
When NASA sent out job offers for the astronaut class of 2004, candidates were asked if they would still want the job, even if there was a chance they would never fly in space. All but one said yes. These are people who are fully committed to the enterprise of crewed spaceflight, even at great personal risk. I for one would not stop them from voluntarily assuming that risk "in peace for all mankind." I would also happily join them.
He's got his already... (Score:5, Funny)
"C'mon, everybody, back to Earth. Nothing to see here...except for these VAN ALLEN BELTS, baby! That's right! Booyah! In your FACE!"
Wrong. Its the only reason for ANY spaceflight (Score:4, Insightful)
Mr. Van Allen,
Sorry, but I do not take pleasure in the adventure of pure science. I know its not very sophisticated of me, but if my money is spent on it, I'd at least like some of it to go to activities that keep alive the dream of actually being there someday.
To this point, I've been understanding of the extensive expenditures on your pure science missions though I think Hollywood could probably create better images that are just as real to me at much less cost. But, you are now attacking my adventures. So, apparently, the ground rules need to be defined.
If you want your adventure, give me mine.
Sincerely,
"apparently not as geeky as you"
He's only right (Score:3, Insightful)
The sad reality is space flight does have other ends, which have goals in common with the aforementioned explorers' missions. Commercial exploitation of raw materials, military industrialization, colonization in the name of territorial supremacy - these are the shared ends of these endeavors. The question is not what purpose can space purpose possibly serve, but do we have any true interest in these purposes?
M
Humans in space is cheaper long term (Score:4, Interesting)
But once you get around the problems in keeping that talking meatbag alive, you will find that the talking meatbag can try a whole lot more and do a whole lot more then the robot.
So which is easier long term? Solving all the known issue problems in keeping a talking meatbag functioning in space, or creating a device that can improvise and use tools, is capable of learning and higher reasoning, and can interpret situational input and act on it in real time?
END COMMUNICATION
Engineer vs. Scientist (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems odd to me, and probably other astronomers that people would spend 80 billion on an orbiting cottage, when so much more could be done with that money.
Why build a vehicle before you have a place to go? We don't even know if we will need snow tires yet?
If we had spent the 80 billion on better remote sensing gear then we might, by now, have found earth like planets around other stars. We might, by now, have discovered alien radio transmissions, we might, by now, have retrieved fossils of former life forms from Mars. Any of which would teach us far more than a space staion would.
Unfortunately, fed with a constant diet of bad sci-fi, most people are incable of imagining any possible method of exploration that doesn't involve laser cannons and leather clad chicks.
Most people, it seems, are not interested in real exploration. People don't want to discover something new, they want to find the same thing somewhere else. That's why all the Star Trek "aliens" breathe the same air, look human, and run their societies like the United States, hell there is more variation in the real societies on earth than one finds in the english speaking universe of Star Trek.
Real exploration involves going somewhere new, not going to somewhere you have been, using a different route. The thing about learning is that one learns the most through novel experiences, the more completely unknown the experience the more you learn. Given a budget you can send a robot a lot farther than a human. Even if the human will provide 1000x the science of the robot, the robot will still deliver more information, because it will be in an area that is a million times more novel than the human. The Saturn system is far more novel than than low earth orbit. It costs 80 billion to send a humans into orbit to study Earth for a couple years, it costs 1 billion to send a robot to Saturn. You tell me which one is doing real exploration.
I get so tired of this... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's really annoying about this guy is that he seems to think that un-manned spaceflight will somehow benefit if manned spaceflight is scaled back. Of course, that's nonsense. Cut manned spaceflight and I will bet you a donut to a Delta VH that within a decade NASA will cease to exist. This guy, who benefitted professionally to a huge extent from the existence of manned spaceflight programs, now has the nerve to turn around and bite the hand that (probably quite literally) fed him. That's annoying. And it hurts all of space science in the long run.
On a dollar-for-dollar basis space research of any kind (manned or unmanned) is pretty much a total waste of money. Some examples will help: the Hubble Space Telescope cost something like 2 billion. That's about 20 times the cost of the Keck Telescope [hawaii.edu], and it is about neck-and-neck when it comes to scientific output between the two. When it comes to planetary exploration - can you honestly say that there have been spin-offs that are useful here on Earth? I mean, let's be honest here: the science return from space research is all pretty trivial. Between us, who really gives a sh*t about some radiation belts around the Earth? A few power-line operators maybe, but it's not like they need a detailed understanding of the Earths bow-shock to operate, now is it? As for the rest of it - well, pretty pictures of Saturn are nice and all, but who really cares? They're ice and dirt, and have absolutely no impact on our daily lives. None whatsoever.
Some would argue that certain kinds of science can only be done from space, things like far-infrared, or X-ray observations. But those missions have in effect been subsidized to the tune of billions by other, less worthy missions. If you had to factor in the development cost of heavy-lift boosters into the cost of developing the Chandra [harvard.edu] X-ray observatory, it would have cost $20 billion or more. I doubt that would have been seen as worthwhile science.
In terms of improving human life, wouldn't the billions spent on un-manned space exploration be better spent curing disease through the NIH? Or a tax-cut. I mean, tax -cuts and de-regulation make more ultra-billionaires; if they want to fund space research privately then they can do that, and the free market will reward it accordingly (if in fact it is worthwhile).
Only a true naif would think that science is funded for scientific reasons alone, and Dr. van Allen has an inflated sense of his own importance when it comes to national funding priorities. Sciences like physics were funded because physiscists know how to make very, very large bombs. Bio-medical science is funded because people don't want to die. Everything else is pretty much not funded, or lives off of the table-droppings from the big sciences. And the big sciences are not funded because Congress has a love for deep knowledge.
By somehow pretending like his particular kind of science is more worthy than other science, he's starting a discussion that by all rights should hurt all of space science. In other words: Jim, SHUT UP. We've got a good gig going here, and you're messing it up.
Re:I get so tired of this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, there's a nonsense comparison if I've ever seen one. How are we measuring 'scientific output', exactly?
Both instruments can perform measurements that no other telescope is capable of. The Hubble is far and away a winner in that respect, just because it has access to wavelengths (the vacuum ultraviolet and the infrared) that don't penetrate our atmosphere. Because of redshift issues, no earthbound telescope can ever see the stuff we got from the Hubble Deep Field. The Keck kicks ass for light-gathering and resolution because of the tremendous aperture (10 meters(!) for both of Keck I and Keck II)) and its ability to function as an interferometer.
Damn it, some research is just more expensive. On a research-dollars-per-published-paper metric, perhaps Keck comes out as a 'better' investment--but without Hubble, there are whole classes of investigation that are flat-out impossible. Not only that, but neither instrument exists in a (scientific) vacuum--there is a synergistic effect, because results from one instrument can be used to guide studies on others.
It's like saying we should only fund theoretical cosmologists or astrophysicists--they only need one salary, one office, and enough money for pencils and paper. Why do actual measurements in the field? Those would be much more expensive per published paper.
Comparing the cost per publication (or however you choose to measure 'scientific output') is a gross oversimplification. Apples and oranges. It reminds me of when Homer visits the Bentley dealer and asks after the test drive, "What advantages does this motor car have over, say, a train...?" Different purposes, different costs, different science.
My own field is physics (radiation, not astro-). Working next to me are people who work with instruments ranging in price from $2000 to $20 million...there aren't vast differences in 'scientific output', just different costs associated with exploring different aspects of science.
In terms of improving human life, wouldn't the billions spent on un-manned space exploration be better spent curing disease through the NIH? Or a tax-cut. I mean, tax -cuts and de-regulation make more ultra-billionaires; if they want to fund space research privately then they can do that, and the free market will reward it accordingly (if in fact it is worthwhile).
The first argument--the ever popular 'wouldn't the money be better spent on problem X here on earth' refrain--has been addressed many times before. It's a philosophical question. If we wait until all the other problems on Earth are solved, we'll never again do any exploration, or even basic science research that doesn't have immediately obvious applications. Many people believe that it is worthwhile to spend a small amount of public money on projects that--despite having no immediate and obvious economic, military or health benefit--are of interest to the country and its citizens.
The second argument--that the private sector will fund space research if it's worthwhile--is interesting. There are direct, marketable benefits to health research, but the NIH is still disbursing billions from the public purse for that purpose. Why is that? Oh, right. If it can't be made into a patented procedure or drug, the private sector isn't interested. If it won't improve the quarterly results, the private sector isn't interested. We have more than a few billionaires already. Most of them are not funding space or medical research, except in cases where they're trying to buy a positive legacy after years as robber barons.
Sustainability in space... (Score:3, Insightful)
Spinoffs of technology from this effort will help people in their everday lives in immeasurable ways (velcro, Tang, space blankets, and other exotic materials that save lives or allow us to do things previously impossible are a result of our manned space program).
Robots currently don't have the intelligence and flexibility to cope with changing environments quickly (look how long it took the mars rovers to cover the few miles during their explorations, that would have been a day trip for manned exploration).
There is no substitute, yet, for a human being on the ground. There is a whole level of real-time experiences that a robot can not take in or comment on - that humans are more than capable of doing. Aside from collecting specimens and taking pictures, robots will never have the immediacy that humans offer.
The idea of a completely automated space program, is similar to the idea of a completely remote controlled military aparatus. I think we can all agree that, except in rare circumstances where a robot would perform better (air combat beyond gforce limits of human pilots, and remote reconnaisance), war must be fought by humans, due to the ability to make the right decisions that AI is incompetent to make - and, more importantly, to not distance ourselves so much from the life and death on the battlefield as to make it easy for us to choose war as a first option. Human beings bring moral and esthetical issues into the mix, which robots, for all their precision, lack.
It's a long term investment (Score:3, Insightful)
Space Exploration has always been a much more longer term before we really see or understand what the Return On Investment was.
Space exploration provides a platform for us to tackle new problems, which result in new solutions. Even if we find nothing of value on mars for example, just getting to the point where we can be sure of that will have resulted in a wealth of knowledge.
I'd also like to add that we need more research being done for the exploration of our own planet. Exploring the deepest oceans is on the same difficulty level of space exploration.
Lets take a 10 year timeout (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead of a 2 year timeout while the Shuttle is being revamped, I think we need to take a 10 year timeout until new launch systems are invented.
Here are the technologies I would invest in:
Any of several forms of launch assist, most likely Magnetic Rail. Any other technology would benefit from having this as a virtual first stage. Find the ideal location and buy the land -- DO NOT LEASE. We could probably build it in America, but why be trapped long term with less than ideal initial launch orbits. To be really radical, make it accessible to all nations, maybe build it as a coalition of the gravity well escaping.
Scram Jet and VASMIR, lets throw bucket loads of money in those directions.
Ditch the Space Elevator (at least for now), concentrate on something that could really be built, and that would be a "rotovator" [islandone.org]
For items like oxygen, water, propellant, food -- fire them into orbit with a cannon. Massive G-Forces will not hurt them (though it might over tenderize steaks if that's the kind of food your sending up). This is really-really cost effective. Iraq was constructing a cannon capable of hitting Israel, it's just a matter of scale
Put any two or three of these together, then manned space flight begins to make sense
How about "Survival of Human Race?" (Score:4, Interesting)
Any number of catastrophes could occur which would wipe out life on this planet (or at least the human variant of it), from the uncontrollable (asteroid hits, neighborhood novae, solar instability, etc.) to the self-induced (disease, ecological, nuclear...)
Only one way to ensure humans survive - get off the planet and spread out. Only way to do that - human space travel.
Now, if Van Allen's argument is that the human race isn't worth saving, then let's have that argument. But to say the only reason for human space travel is "adventure" shows a critical lack of imagination.
Boatload of Crap (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me rebut. First of all, the only reason that space travel seems adventurous is because it is still new, dangerous, expensive, and controversial. All of those aspects need to be removed from the equation of space travel before it can be a productive endeavor. We have to keep working at it, improving it, productionizing it, until space travel becomes old, safe, cheap, and boring. THen we won't have any old-school scientists (taken your metamucil today, Roger?) spewing drivel like this.
Second, any "scientist" who states that manned space travel is a waste is simple envious of the "whopping" budget for manned space flights. True, the space program is expensive compared to say, dinner at Burger Barn. But compared to the 2003 GDP of $10.7 Trillion, the entire NASA budget for 2003 [whitehouse.gov] was $15.0 Billion, or only 0.14% of our nation's productivity [bea.gov]. Or as a percentage of the $2.128 Trillion 2003 federal budget [whitehouse.gov], only 0.71%. (Holy crap, I had no idea that the feds took 20% of the GDP!) Or finally, as a percentage of the interest we paid on the national debt last year of $181 Billion, only 8.3%. Of Social Security's $472 Billion, 3.2%; of National defense's $368 Billion, 4.1%; of Medicare/Medicaid's $390 Billion, 3.8%; of other 'discretionary' spending's $390 Billion, also 3.8%. Compared to the major federal spending programs, NASA is small potatoes indeed.
There will always be space exploration, but what we need now is to start harvesting the resources available in space. Space travel will become a national priority when it becomes a net positive on the balance sheet. Or in other words, when the expenses are clearly outweighed by the benefits, by the resources made available, and by the money to be made, in outer space.
Argh! I hate it when "distinguished elder scientists" come up with this kind of crap. Do they just enjoy shooting themselves, and their colleagues, in the foot? Sheesh.
Ok maybe Van Allen is right for now.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Far too much money goes into these partical accelerators and underground partical detectors that help scientists prove cosomological theories about the universe and about places that we won't get to in a million years and about energies that are far beyond our ability to manipulate. Let's focus the money on the practical science.
Respectfully Dr Van Allen, you're wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
With all due respect to this legendary scientist, suggesting that human space flight may be obsolete is like the Patent Office suggesting in the 1800s, according to myth [about.com], that there was nothing left to invent. There may be no tangible material benefits to space travel in the foreseeable future, ignoring Teflon and the standard list of by-products. The most important benefit will be the long-term survival of the human race. We know that our planet is subject periodically to catastrophic events that can extinguish us. Populating at least one more world will be as significant as climbing out of the primordial ooze.
Incidentally, grounding the remaining space shuttle fleet "to take steps to improve their safety" doesn't conflict with starting "a more costly and far more hazardous" Moon/Mars program. Astronauts, and I think most people in general, are fully aware that no spaceship is "safe" in any normal sense. Safety in the space program is more of a euphemism for "avoiding setbacks."
You're forgetting the oceans (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd just like to point out that "we have explored all of Earth" is definitely not true. The deep oceans are something that we are just barely starting to explore. There are some crazy looking motherfuckers living down there. They glow and shit. And they don't even need light to live -- how wack is that? Seriously, though, I understand your sentiment (and I agree with it) that space is the next big frontier. I just wanted to point out that there are still a few exciting opportunities still here on Eart
Re:Oh, is that all? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ask yourself this: Considering it will cost billions to send people to the moon versus the millions it cost sending unmanned flights, exactly what scientific experiment could those people do that an unmanned flight could not do? Look for evidence of life or water? Collect
You really shouldn't refer to OT nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting back to the topic, ID proponents are somewhat like James Van Allen; both assume that they already know all that is worthwhile or necessary, so there is no need to go further except for those things which particularly interest them (plasma physics or biblical exegesis, take your pick). Both are wrong.
Re:Space science isn't something you can do in a j (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you trolling, or are you prepared to give some evidence and references for this "irreducibly complex" argument? I wouldn't call intelligent design 'new' or 'challenging'. It's the whole 'how di
Re:Space science isn't something you can do in a j (Score:3, Insightful)
You might want to brush up on your history [wikipedia.org]. One popular theory is that he got in trouble for advocating the heliocentric theory, but it's not even the only theory. It may be that he just pissed off too many powerful Jesuits. All educated Europeans in Galileo's time (and even long before Columbus' time) knew the world was round. The church's position was that "the Bible teaches us
Re:Human spaceflight as neurotic compulsion (Score:3, Interesting)
2) Would you rather we satisfy our brute animal urge to kill things with multi-TRILLION dollar budgets, or our animal urge to explore with multi-billion dollar budgets?
Re:He is right (Score:5, Insightful)
The fallacy you are committing is that there will be a point when we say "ok, NOW we can pursue spaceflight, NOW we are ready" -- thats absurd. We should always be pursuing everything we can, in parallel. To close off thought, or dreams, or progress in any direction because "we arent ready" is foolish. Humans don't learn by not doing - we learn by doing.