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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."
Damn, Easy Jet and the other low cost airlines haven't been around long, and this guy is already talking about low cost space travel, that boy sure has some business potential.
Foale's suggestions for leaving the comfort zone ring true on several levels. We can't really explore space until we're ready to leave the Garden of Eden behind. So far, we're trying to take it with us -- everything must be 100% safe, from the toilets to the astronauts themselves. We're not going to get past the walls of the garden until there's a flaming sword -- until we must either push forward or die.
I don't neccesarily mean that there will have to be some sort of global catastrophe, just that there will be no real exploration until a group of humans blasts off from Earth with no prospects to return. Ideally, they would be volunteers, but I don't think they can be the perfect psychological and physical specimens we're used to sending into space.
Space simply won't be a "real" place until we have a real human presence, and that means the bad as well as the good. Expanding into the new world takes more than just tilling the land and never moving on. To extend the Eden analogy further: Man didn't really start his journey until Cain's jealousy reached its breaking point. I don't think that's a story of one guy who got mad at his brother -- it's an allegory about mankind's darker side, and how it's an integral part of our experience.
To take a more recent example: when the US lost a dozen-plus troops in Somalia, we left with our tail tucked between our legs. Same thing a few years earlier in Beirut, when a few hundred troops were killed. But now, after losing several thousand lives in 9/11, we're able to bear the loss of hundreds in Iraq and Afghanistan... instead of turning tail, we're actually debating the issue.
We won't reach space in any meaningful way until all of humanity is represented -- both good and bad. That's why we're just spinning our wheels at the moment, playing on the outskirts of Eden. It won't be until Cain shows up -- until someone walks out the airlock in despair, someone fights over resources or a mate, or until there's a war over some metal-rich asteroid -- that humans will truly be able to call themselves citizens of space.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
It's a strange time we live in when astronauts are flying into space and note large plumes of smoke from ongoing wars.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
Unfortunately more often than not the UK doesn't view doing any science/technology as cost effective. Better to leave it to the Americans. That way you pay for all the R&D (much more cost effective), the fact we have to kiss your asses for it seems beside the point.
It's becoming necessary to go to the States to do any PhD level science/technology job not just if you want to be an astronaut.
If you disagree then name one thing the UK is still world class in science or technology. I can't think of anything.
How much money could be saved if the trip to Mars was just one-way? How many people would volunteer to "sacrifice" themselves for the sake of exploration? Consider this: the most technically challenging part of a long-duration space mission is how to provide for food, water and air - followed closely by the re-entry systems. If you could cut the food, water and air need in half and eliminate the Earth re-entry system, we might now be talking about an affordable Mars mission.
The moral issues are clear, however. Suicide is a nasty requirement to write up in the mission specs. Nevertheless, an astronaut's chances of dying on one of the current U.S. "man-rated" space vehicles is better than one in fifty due to accidents as measured by actual performance. Make death part of the final equation, and we're talking the ultimate no-frills space ride.
This sig is a test. If this had been an actual sig, you would be reading something quite a bit wittier than this now.
Well, there's huge risk in sending a man to Mars and bringing him back. Mars is hard. It's easily one or more orders of magnitude harder than the Moon. It's much farther away; equipment and supplies have to last much longer. It's got a much bigger gravity well -- you have two major launches to deal with. Mars actually has an environment to deal with, including an atmosphere with sand storms and temperature fluctuations to deal with. Given that it takes so long to get there, you're going to want to do an extended mission -- no landing, spending two or three days and coming right home. Equipment failure would be catastrophic: an Apollo 13 style retreat would be nearly impossible. The logistics would be daunting, probably involving a number of missions simply to stage supplies and equipment.
Failure would be nearly intolerable. Even settting the value of the astronaut's life at zero, you won't be able to tolerate losing your craft, which will be fabulously expensive to build and launch.
Can I suggest a more -- incremental? approach? One that reduces risks, costs and increases near term value returned in technology, military and economic spin-offs?
Why not set as a goal cutting the cost to orbit by an order of magnitude or more? This will do several things. Firstly efforts, even somewhat unsuccessful efforts, will have short term value. Second, it will be possible to try a number of "out of the box" ideas because the financial and human costs of failure on a small technological trial is much lower than in a large, man-rated mission. Finally this approach would lay the groundwork for a faster, cheaper, safer manned Mars mission. We might even get there faster. F
What I am proposing would look like this:
Phase 1: Apollo style effort to reduce launch costs by an order of magnitude or more. Occasional robotic missions continue.
Phase 2: Utilizing lowered costs from Phase 1, step up rate of relatively low cost robotic missions from Mars to meet scientific goals, survey the planet, and learn about systems requirements for long term missions to Mars and on the Martian surface. Culminate in a several ambitious sample return missions that will parallel the challenges of a manned mission.
Phase 3: Using engineering knowledge from phase 2, begin a series of missions to stage equipment and supplies for an extended manned mission.
Phase 4: Establish long term Mars base.
So a manned mission would be part of the roadmap, but no specific planning or resources would be commmitted to this until well into phase 2.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.