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Astronaut Wants Space Program With No Frills
colonist writes "A veteran astronaut wants less comfort and more exploration for future missions. British-born astrophysicist Michael Foale has clocked up 374 days in space, more than any other American astronaut. Foale said, 'We need lean and mean spaceships with no frills', such as toilets or kitchen. However, he would like better oxygen-producing systems for the space station. Foale also talked about the Russians: they played 'some sort of Russian folk song. I'm not so sure it calmed me a lot.' As Foale boarded the Soyuz, an official kicked him in the back: a Russian launch tradition. From space, Foale saw a large black cloud over the Middle East: smoke from a bombed oil pipeline in Iraq."
Sice when did being able to take a dump become a 'frill'?
Pretty good description of where our priorities (especially spending) are isn't it? Personally I would like to see more astronauts and fewer plumes of smoke.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
That is his opinion and he is entitled to it. However, humans like comfort, and humans bitch when comfort does not exist, especially on long trips. In addition, there are cultural differences between Russians and Americans as he pointed out. What might seem comfortable for the Russians might not be comfortable for the Americans, just like he pointed out the folk song. Some people can handle comfortless trips, while others cannot. Those who cannot must be mentally trained to do so. No one wants an astronaut to have some sort of breakdown because his toiled sucked his anus too fast, or that he cannot eat anything else but food from the toothpaste containers. Speaking in terms of weight, not having a toilet or a kitchen will not significantly increase the maneuverability of the International Space Station or a future spaceship. It will not make it lean and mean. The only thing that will do is new propulsion systems. -------------
No, the waste is all the money we spend on britney spears and sports players. It's the money we spend on luxury items, it's the money we spend on pointless worship of mythical beings.
Space exploration gives us knowledge. War is unfortunate, but sometimes necessary. I wish we didn't have to spend money on war. But humans are vile creatures when it comes down to it, and so we need to spend money to kill and prevent being killed.
I wanted to write an insightful rebuttal, except I don't seem to understand what exactly to rebut. A bit too much metaphor, too little substance maybe. To reach space in a "meaningful way"? "Citizens of space"? Very elaborate, though...
If there was some sort of actual incentive to go to space, like Earth being growingly uninhabitable or some sort of extremely rare material only available on an asteroid, then yes, space "exploration" would increase. That's what you seem to be saying - but that's really quite obvious, isn't it? But for now the only incentive is academic, and most of the actual exploring is better done from Earth itself.
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Nothing will further space exploration more than a space elevator.
Even a simple one, little more than a winch that can lower payloads to space and back safely, would bring cheap solar power and a station on the moon within easy reach.
Anyone in the white house listening?
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Foale was the visiting Western astronaut (as opposed to regular Russian cosmonauts)on Mir during the period of time when there was a fairly serious fire, as well as a depressurization (contained to one module) and a collision with a supply rocket. He was very vocal about his criticisms of the joint NASA/Russian space program (largely that it being pushed through for political reasons, to the detriment of the safety of the astonauts and the spaceprogram as a whole). His arguments had some merits, but they did not make him too popular with the administrators.
So obviously this is a guy who knows about the dangers and travails of space exploration, but at the same time it's interesting to contrast how this new opinion conflicts -in some ways- with his earlier statements.
Again with the "how the hell can we fund Mars" argument.
NASA gets around $16 billion a year. With the new plan of scrapping the shuttle and abandoning the ISS, that' frees up about $6 billion. If we have a timescale of say 20 years to get a presence on Mars, that's $120 billion. If you're a member of the church of the $1 trillion mars mission, that's not enough. However, if you use Mars Direct or the NASA Mars reference mission plan, that's plenty of money.
As long as the American people are willing to pay 1 cent on the dollar for NASA as they currently do, the money to get to Mars will be there. It's just a matter of maintaining the political will to do it.
Blaze a trail to the New World
We're all going to die. If it happens while I'm exploring a crater on the Moon, or standing on Phobos while watching Mars below me, or flying through the rings of Saturn, or standing to close to a geyser on Triton, then at least it happens while I'm doing something so marvellous and beautiful as actually travelling through space, exploring its wonders. It beats the prospect of dying by the hands of a murderer, or in a natural disaster, or in a car accident on my way to my boring workplace, just because I wanted to stay on Earth because I thought it was safer than travelling through the Solar System. Safer, perhaps. More exciting? Hmmm.
I think the main reason many people would like to move to space if they could is the same reason many left Europe for the New World: to escape opression, to start anew. Earth no longer feels like it's big enough to do this. Space, though - well, it's pretty big.
"Why can't everyone just be straight with me?"
"Because we live in a bendy world, dear."
On one of the old soviet space missions (I think it was the Salyut 7 space stations in the early 80s) one of the mix-gender crews requested privacy curtains, and the implication of sex was there though the women claimed their behavior was stictly professional.
NASA pretty much has said it's never happened on one of their missions, even with the best possibility being a 1992 shuttle mission with a husband and wife on the same crew, but they had opposite shifts and reports were also that nothing happened.
Anyway, I'd bet the answer is yes, and that it was the old-era Soviets who did it first.