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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'."
We're stayin we're goin' make up your mind... I vote we all stay and die.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
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
We've done enough damage here on earth. I don't think it would be right to fill space with the radiative effects of nuclear reactions.
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
Rank Presidents by th
We're talking about a country here that spends "billions" every year working out better ways to kill people. Personally I think space exploration would be a much better way to spend this money.
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
what does the investment net us
Hope.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
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.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
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.