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Going Back to the Moon and Mars
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'."
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!!!
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
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.
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.
-I am an elective eunuch.
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
Eventually we'll need more room and more resources, and other planets in the solar system are just the place to get them.
The "more room" argument, unfortunately, doesn't work. The space program will never been able to successfully ease population pressures on Earth by moving people off to other planets. Getting people out of a gravity well is too costly, and while you're getting a few people off, others are bearing children. If you like science-fiction, try Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, which explores the implications of this problem.
Here's how Dr. Sagan put it in the book he gave me when he was trying to get me to come to Cornell:
"The universe is vast and awesome, and for the first time we are becomming part of it."
I like the sound of that.
Decent little book. It's got three chapters entitled "Space Exploration as a Human Enterprise" in it. I think you'd like them. The Cosmic Connection. Check it out.
He might also have mentioned something about space being full of nuclear reactions spewing radiation all over the place and that one of the problems to be faced by humans in becomming part of the universe was being able to shield ourselves from it.
It seems my humor was a little too dry this time.
KFG
> If something ever happens to this rock we're
> on, human kind is finished.
How noble...how full of crap.
Let's destroy this planet like were doing now and see if there are other worlds we can destroy.
Were doing it for humankind..yeah, thats it.
The destruction of humankind will become like the 'if a tree falls in the forest, does anybody care?' riddle.
We wont be missed except in the egos of some.
We've destroyed countless civilizations and no one cares, were destroying our planet and many still dont care, I fail to see how the future and possible destruction of all our civilization
should rate higher in peoples mind.
At best, youll be able to send a few chosen ones (hell, you can start a whole religion about these new chosen ones!) to some rock which isnt made for human beings... or doesnt have DSL.
zeke
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.
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 to Mars. The flight time is cut in half, and problems with fuel and radiation diminish dramatically.
Apart from its extreme heat and atmospheric pressure (and composition), Venus is remarkably similar to earth in size and mass. What's more, the heat factor is largely due to a greenhouse effect, with might conceivably be reversed in a future terraforming project.
Going to Venus would bring about major advancements in mettalurgy, heat protection, and so on, without the drawback of spanning great distances. Obviously, exploration for lifeforms would be meaningless, but we might find minerals of great value back home.
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 control unmanned surface explorers. This would pretty much eliminate the need for the surface explorers to have intelligent software for navigation & control. The astronauts would guide and direct the exploration interatively, which really cannot be done with unmanned missions such as the rovers & pathfinder
The biggest reason for not putting a man on the surface of mars is that it would elimiate the need of putting a large rocket powered lander on the surface. This rocket system would not only need enough fuel to orbit a craft from the surface of mars back to earth, but because mars lacks an atmosphere dense enough to slow and parachute a manned craft on the desccent, the desent phase would need to be rocket powered as well. This is similar to the task of the manned moon landings.
The weight and cost of the system for manned landing on the moon was much less than it would be for mars. The mass of the moon is 1/50 of earth's mass, IIRC, and gravity is 1/6 that of earth. The mass of mars, and its gravitation are much larger. Therefore the amount of fuel required for the descent and ascent would be much more. I believe that this would make manned missions to the surface of mars prohibitively expensive.
The extra weight that would be needed for a manned lander would better be used carry a number of unmanned landers that would be controlled by an orbiting craft. A dozen of these could be carried and landed on the surface at a variety of sites and would allow for more widespread exploration of the planet. These might range from small rovers that would primarily take pictures, to larger landers which may be able to do more advanced geological, chemical and biological experiments. Having intelligence that can control the crafts in a much more real-time manner than what can be done from earth would greatly improve the chances for success of these landers and expreiments.
I don't really think it's presently (or in the next 25 years) feasible or justifiable to put a man on the surface of mars. I do think its feasible and cost justifiable to put man into an orbit of mars where they could control surface robots and experiments for a 3-6 month stretch before returning to earth.
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.
I trully wish it was as simple as that. But unforntuneatly most of those bad things are in part social and human nature.
The US currently exports more food than not, Our government pays farmers to leave thier fields un-used, yet millions go hungry every day just so the prices of certain crops don't drop and put alot of farmers in even worse situations than they are now, where they can barely make enough $$ to survive themselves.
And that's just one example of how the problems we face as humans isn't as simple as we would have them.
It's my hope that we can grow up a bit more as a society, stop letting stupid superstions and prejudices fuel wars and exacerbate poverty.
I just don't see how staying put on this one tiny rock doing as we have for eons will change things. I don't see for certain how spreading off this rock will make a difference eigther, but it will be first NEW challange mankind has faced since columbus.
Maybe, no likely, we will take all our problems an foibles with us as we go out there, but just maybee we'll actually learn somthing as a race, and if not we'll at least through distance finally eliminate the only real threat this side a cosmic scale distater this race has faced since we came up with fire and the wheel, Ourselves.
If this sounds like I have a low opion of our species I don't. If you consider what we HAVE done it's hard not to be a little proud of what a bunch 'hairless apes' have managed to pull off despite our embarrisng moments.
Besides I think humans are the best people on earth:)
Working on the issues you mentioned is both worthwile and noble, but so is exploring and expanding the human condition and most likely achieving the only true imortality a species can achieve. And there will be lessons learned in getting man off this planet, lessons in medicine, engineering, construction, and so on than can and will be used on your goals as well. And nothing says we can't work on ALL of these goals except us.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
The amount Bush declared would be spent on attempting a Mars mission was said to be enough to stop half of world poverty.
I'm not sure whether this information is correct, but the source was reliable, and considering the sort of project it would be, I can believe it.
im in ur
Scrap iron is, what, ten cents a pound? Iron cannot be mined economically in space with anything resembling current technology, by many orders of magnitude. Ditto for nickel. The platinum group elements in asteroids are not nearly as ludicrous, but are still out of reach.
BTW, we'd mine metallic NEOs (near earth objects) before going to the asteroid belt. Easier to get to and much easier to return mass from. Still not economical, though.
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 doing research at Universities around the country, many not in aerospace engineering, that are supported by grants from NASA.
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 claim America in the name of the church even though there were already people here?
Forgive me for sounding brash, but this is not a good analogy for space travel/colinization.
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.
Tech Public Policy stuff
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....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The chances of being IN a shipwreck in the middle of the ocean was also small. Most shipwrecks happen on stormy coastlines.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Comments here mention the difficulty in sending everything a fragile human need for three years in the case of Mars, the food, water, etc.
Would it be so difficult to send robotic probe-supply ship type vehicles at the right velocity such that the human Mars craft would meet up with several en route and resupply? Maybe send a few extra, just in case?
I realize the acuracy required for two vehicles with extreme speeds meeting up, but you'd have months to make adjustements - and when you got close enough, the crew could take control of the supply ship and tweak it to make the hookup smooth...
Scrap iron. 10 cents per pound. A pound of iron outside earth's gravity well, ready to be used for space explaration. Priceless!
It makes me want to drop to my knees on the beach and scream "Damn you! God damn you all to hell!"
:) but as I've got older, I decided it was redundant...and I'm an athiest. But that's not important.
:)
*grin*
I've actually done more than a few times!
The greatest time in history, the time when a whole new and essentially infinite frontier has opened up and the capabilities to go there are within our grasp, and we spend a thousand times more a year in this country on fucking cosmetics alone.
Sigh. No wonder I'm occasionally found outside, drunk, howling obscenities in the general direction of the moon....
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.