The Why of Space Program Races

Deinhard writes "USA Today is running a story about the "why" behind the newly rekindled international space race. From the article: 'The science of space raises levels in areas such as computers, space materials, manufacturing technology, electronic equipment, systems integration and testing.' While it is a matter of national pride, China in specific also sees this as a way to increase the reputation of its high-tech exports."

Comments

Look for the label

[coastin]

hecho en la luna

Justifying space research

[LeonGeeste]

If you've seen my posts on this issue before, you probably know how I hate these justifications for space research See:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164516&cid=137 33897

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=165623&cid=138 20378

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164705&cid=137 47052

Long story short, if you want better computers, research better computers. If you want better materials, research better materials. You shouldn't say "Invest in ways to get into space so we can make better materials". And you shouldn't say "Space research is good because it gets us better computers." It was the computer research that produced the benefit, irrespective of whether that research is "for space" or not. Don't use peripheral gains to justify a different goal. Just say what you mean.

Re:Justifying space research

[someone1234]

Ok, and now tell me how to grow crystals in microgravity without going out to space? How to make sure a single idiot on earth won't destroy humankind completely without establishing settlements in other worlds? Sure, some money and life was wasted, but the US government wasted more in Iraq.

Re:Justifying space research

[oringo]

I agree with you, to the extent that we shouldn't justify space exploration with the after-thoughts that it brought us things like memory-foam matress. However, I believe that space exploration is self-justifiable, and that is to expand our foot steps to other planets, star systems, and even galaxies. It is the human nature to explore, conquer, and colonize.

Re:Justifying space research

[Anonymous Coward]

Your missing the point. It does China no good to have better computers if nobody else knows about it. The whole point for China is to sell their products. They need a vehicle to demonstrate their competative improvements they have made in their technicle capabilities. TFA even pointed out China's space effort was not a "crash course" 2 missions in two years is not really much of a space effort. What it does do is get a lot of international press saying WOW! look what they can do! They are hoping that this will make people think "look a chinese car if they can put a guy in space they must make a decent car" rather then "look a chinese car what a piece of crap from an underdeveloped nation".

So yes your point is well taken but there is no point for the Chinese uless they can sell those advancements and the space program is their billboard. Whether it works or not is debateable and yet to be seen but thats the point in this case anyway.

Re:Justifying space research

[andrewrm]

The argument that space research helps technology in general is at least somewhat true. My partner was a chemistry student during the space race working on perfecting liquid crystal desplays as they were safer and used considerably less energy than any other available technology. People probably didn't even consider such uses of LCD until it was needed for space travel. We have NASA to thank for the displays you are probably reading this on.

Re:Justifying space research

[dajak]

I agree in the case of the US. Nobody doubts Americans have the knowledge to make good products, although that doesn't necessarily translate to good value for money. The German government never needed to go to the moon for its manufacturers to acquire a reputation for quality.

The Japanese, however, suffered for a long time from a reputation acquired in the early 20th century of being yellow monkeys who merely made bad copies of our great white man's gadgets. The Chinese government actually has an argument for wanting the biggest buildings, a space program etc. Chinese products ARE worth less because they are considered inferior, and Chinese achievements will increase the value of the trademark 'Chinese'. The US does not have that argument.

Re:Justifying space research

[thesandtiger]

This should say: It is the nature of white humans to explore, conquer, and colonize.

Correction, you should have said: "I am completely fucking ignorant of history, and have no idea what I'm talking about."

Re:Justifying space research

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I believe that the colors means anything, but then im proud too be white.

Re:Justifying space research

[Rude Turnip]

Your pseudo-intellectual racism might get you good marks in an undergraduate-level humanities class, but otherwise you just come off looking like an ass. Newsflash: everyone explores conquers and colonizes because everyone sucks equally.

Re:Justifying space research

[LeonGeeste]

You're making the exact same argument I'm trying to show really doesn't hold up. First of all, NASA is not responsible for the LCD display I'm reading this on. It would have happened eventually. NASA sped it up to be sure, but with a very hidden opportunity cost: the best venues for R&D that didn't get pursued because of the diversion of resources to NASA.

Remember, if people at NASA thought of the possibility of LCD's someone else probably did, but didn't bother pursuing it because of cost considerations. Those costs are not trivial concerns; they were indicators that at the time there were better uses of scarce resources. NASA didn't change the fact that there were better uses of scarce resources; they just ensured that this particular use of scarce resources actually happened, despite the fact that there were better uses. We'll never know what would have happened instead, but it would have gone to more pressing needs at the time, ensuring better resource availability now.

Re:Justifying space research

[AviLazar]

As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. Our journey to space has brought us many great technologies...maybe they would have come about anyhow, but they DEFINITELY did come out because of our space endeavors. Some items: Flame retardant material used on the space ship to protect the astronauts is used in fire fighter equipment. Microwave (you know the stuff people use to cook with) was invented for astronauts. Satellite technology - yea those satellites sure don't get up there on their own. There are plenty of other examples.

There are many reasons to explore space:
1)It is an endeavor that will help bind many of us together - look at the projects we do with other countries that surround space travel, even during the cold war -it was one of the few positive connections we had with Russia
2)We are explorers - we always have been...because we first ventured beyond our cave and discovered fire, and then explored accross the ocean to bring us to a new land, and from there we found that we could fly...space is the next step..this is fuel for our souls.
3)The research done can yield new techniques, technologies, etc that may have a benefit to our everyday lives - just reference my example's above.
4)We may not be alone, and while we won't find life (probably) in this generation or the next ten, we eventually will
5)For the tin-foil hat folks - well some asteroid is bound to destroy us eventually, it would be nice if we were say spread out on different planets.
6)Travelling to space and doing research may bring more knowledge to us about us.


I don't care what we use to justify exploration into space, as long as we get there. Unfortunately, our elected officials and all those people who look at the bottom line want to see immediate benefits. You tell them we should spend 50 billion so we can find out that Mars may have had a couple of water molecules 3 million years and politicians will laugh; on the other hand, you tell them that by doing this research we could find a way to bring resources from Mars that will make our lives easier then they are more likely to consider it.

Re:Justifying space research

[ArsonSmith]

Sounds great. Lets just invent a bunch of solutions wether or not they have probelms. I bet Henry Ford could have just invented the Assembly line with building something. I'm sure Ugg said "I build round disk that rolls on ground, someday we find use for it." People don't invent things for the sake of inventing them.

"Necessity is the mother of invention." -someone

Space research is a Necessity that will birth the inventions. You're putting the cart before the horse, as they say.

Re:Justifying space research

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations! You've just won the Most Ignorant Slashdot Poster Award!

Seriously, did you sleep through all of your history classes? Or are you just stupid? It would be too long of a post to name all the non-white people in history that have explored, conquered, and colonized, so I'll just say that there have been many.

Geez, how does someone as flamingly idiotic as yourself even function on a basic level? Or, maybe a better question, how does one such as yourself get through the day without getting the shit beaten out of them for saying such ignorant things?

Re:Justifying space research

[bluGill]

Flame retardant material used on the space ship to protect the astronauts is used in fire fighter equipment.

Not to mention flame retardant material developed for use in movies.

Microwave (you know the stuff people use to cook with) was invented for astronauts.

No, Microwave was invented when engineers noticed that candybars in the pockets started to melt when they stood in front of WWII radar. (which wasn't a smart thing to do, but in the war you cared more about winning than your own life). After the war those engineers worked on making a product out of it. The first Microwaves were used on luxury ships because they were too large for any home (note that today many home microwaves have a large oven chamber and more power than those first ones)

Now I will grant that some things have come sooner because of space research. However what is the cost in things that we could have now if engineers hadn't been focused on space? This question cannot of course be answered, which is why I reject all arguments that space was really good for us. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, since we don't have a proper scientific controlled experiment we cannot know.

Re:Justifying space research

[dominator]

Your argument assumes a few things - most notably, that progress is linear and not sporadic and tangential. That if you want better computers, you should invest in better computers. But to accept that is to accept that interesting solutions to some hard, seemingly unrelated problem apply less well than dedicated research in that specialized domain. I don't accept that. Or that better computers are sufficient motivation in their own right. As an engineer, the carrot offered by space-age research has one heck of a better coolness factor than just earning another paycheck.

Pushing up against the limits often yields the most interesting ideas. And space is one of those big, cold limits that stoke the fires of our imaginations and our resourcefulness. The cube at Intel can't hold a candle.

Having a bunch of smart folks with a budget and a mission, sitting around in a room is a great investment, in large part because of its peripheral benefits. Not everything's planned. Not all development is linear. And not all significant discoveries are immediately relevant. Science for science's sake. Coz it's cool and we get to reap the benefits of its coolness.

Re:Justifying space research

[Anonymous Coward]

Necessity is the mother of invention. Although we don't really have an immediate need to explore space, the fact that we want to explore space creates a reason for "better computers and materials." It's kind of hard to go to a room full of scientists and say "invent better materials." It's a little better if you say "we need to design a structure that is capable of withstanding 200 km/h winds in a -100 C environment, and we need the materials to be light enough to transport through space, yet strong enough to retain 1 atm of pressure in a .01 atm environment without exploding."
If you can't see all of the positive spinoffs the space program has had on society, maybe it's just because they're such an integral part of your life that you don't notice them.
http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html

Re:Justifying space research

[hackstraw]

Long story short, if you want better computers, research better computers. If you want better materials, research better materials. You shouldn't say "Invest in ways to get into space so we can make better materials". And you shouldn't say "Space research is good because it gets us better computers." It was the computer research that produced the benefit, irrespective of whether that research is "for space" or not. Don't use peripheral gains to justify a different goal. Just say what you mean.

Until your theory is "more rigorously prove"n, most will accept the animal instinct to do nothing after ones basic needs are met, with the only exception would be some kind of ideology to initiate a change.

Look, plain and simple, "normal" people do not need computers that will survive the vacuum of space and consume very little power, and the g forces of going up and coming down from space. Normal people don't need computers that can survive a nuclear bomb, an Iraqi desert heat, have extra long battery life, and be shock resistant to whatever some grunt puts them through.

However, we all want "more" battery life, and "more" reliable computers, etc.

Space and the military provide these things because they are well beyond people's normal requirements, and engineers work at the edge of current technology with no real constraints on R&D costs nor manufacturing costs. I bolded the last part there for a reason.

For profit companies can spend at most around 10-20% on R&D, and have limits on manufacturing costs.

After reading an article about the Hummer today, I guess this is appropriate. Look at the Hummer. An amazingly successful car that is overpriced and not terribly designed for driving to work or carting kids around. One of the designers was talking about it, and he said that he was on the original design team for the Humvee. In that article, he said that there were no considerations for fuel consumption. The vehicle was designed to replace the Jeep and other transportation and medical vehicles that was designed to drive with flat tires (in the 80s) and through 6 feet of water with continuous service for something like 15 years. He also said, he would never drive one on the road because they were a waste to do so.

Automobile racing is another similar adventure. Nobody is going (except for a stupid ricer who is confused) to spend time and money to put carbon fiber and whatever state of the art into a Neon. But if the R&D for the carbon fiber is already in place and its now known how to manufacture the parts and they are better/cheaper or whatever compared to conventional metal parts, then everybody wins with the newer stuff in their Neon.

Re:Justifying space research

[Buran]

And yet, it's been the case over and over again that those better materials, those little things that improve lifestyles, those smaller and better computers, have all come about directly because of space programs. Composites, circuit miniaturization, freeze-dried food, powdered drink mixes, fly-by-wire avionics, cooling suits for those who can't sweat, better fabrics, and so on are examples of things that were originally developed for a specific use -- space programs.

Often it is the case that developing something for a specific use will result in its becoming usable much more quickly than is the case when open-ended "someone will eventually figure out a use for this" funding.

Re:Justifying space research

[StalinsNotDead]

Or, maybe a better question, how does one such as yourself get through the day without getting the shit beaten out of them for saying such ignorant things?

Because the comment is percieved to be against one of the few remaining demographics allowing anti-group comments.

Also acceptable:

It is the nature of christians to explore, conquer, and colonize.

or

It is the nature of males to explore, conquer, and colonize.

Re:Justifying space research

[Buran]

Minor clarification on what you say:

The "Hummer" is not the same thing as the HMMWV (high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle). It is a civilian spinoff of the military design that is merely designed to resemble what AM General came up with as a result of the Army's needs. The Hummer is a modified Tahoe, which wasn't originally designed with the military in mind even though there may be some modified ones in military service.

The HMMWV is not a civilian vehicle at all. To make it usable by civilians, it received a great many changes, the most obvious of which are the use of different paint (colors and gloss) and a revamped interior (military vehicles are very basic and don't use key locks on the ignition or doors, and have different tow hooks) but other less-obvious changes include things like the deletion of the snorkel. It is awkward, and even all the changes made to make it palatable for civilians don't hide its military utilitarian origins.

The next generation of the general-purpose vehicle (the first was the "Jeep", which also exists in a civilian incarnation) will however be designed with more efficiency in mind. Even the military is finally realizing that you can't just ignore high fuel consumption as it costs too much in money and environmental damage to do otherwise.

Re:Justifying space research

[Bull SR]

You make good points. There have been, and there are likely to be collateral benefits in future space research. These alone are poor reasons to do space research, but they do serve to offset the costs. Collateral benefits do need to be on the table when discussing any expensive endeavor. You are coorect in that they shouldn't be the primary argument.

Governments can fund projects that aren't cost justified. Some would argue that this occurs daily.

Re:Justifying space research

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to say it in so many words, but you are entirely incorrect.

The original Hummer, what is now called the H1, is a civilized HMMWV, in all of its god-awful extravogence.

You are thinking of the H2 and the H3, which are also now sold under the Hummer brand, and are basically Chevy SUVs with some ugly molding on them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummer

In 1991, AM General began selling a civilian version of the M998 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) vehicle to the public under the brand name Hummer. In 1999, AM General sold the brand name to General Motors but continued to manufacture the vehicles, which GM then re-sold. In the next few years, GM introduced two new homegrown models, the H2 and H3, and renamed the original vehicle to H1.

I believe you can add the snorkel back onto the H1.

Of course, the H1 also retails for about $125,000.

Re:Justifying space research

[avronius]

I suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to explore, conquer and colonize! Woohoo! Well, that was fun, now back to work...

Re:Justifying space research

[Darius Jedburgh]

It's great to see someone else making this argument I've made for years. But simple as it is, you'll find that many people simply don't follow it. To me it seems trivially obvious that concentrating your effort on researching X is a better way to develop X than to research Y in the hope of serendipitious discoveries about Y leading to development on X. But there are always anecdotes about how so-and-so did research here but accidentally made a discovery there. Unfortunately one story about a serendipitous discovery sells more copies of your book or newspaper than a hundred great discoveries made during the course of normal research.

Re:Justifying space research

[Moofie]

On behalf of white people everywhere, you're welcome.

Re:Justifying space research

[Moofie]

Utterly false.

The Hummer H1 is a civilian-ized HMMWV. It has slightly different engine choices, but it has almost identical (and formidable) off-road capabilities. It is a state-of-the-art off-road vehicle. Take a look at the offset drive shafts, four wheel independent suspension with astonishing ground clearance, and the central tire inflation system. This is NOT Chevrolet Suburban technology.

It's almost totally unsuitable for daily commutes.

The Hummer H2 is a Tahoe with a body kit. It's almost as unsuitable for daily commutes as the Hummer H1.

Re:Justifying space research

[R3d M3rcury]

"[...] I reject all arguments that space was really good for us. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, since we don't have a proper scientific controlled experiment we cannot know."

I'll agree that it's a "Virtual History" question and that there is no way of knowing whether there could have been other paths. But the benefits of space research are proven and should not be ignored. What you're questioning shouldn't be the benefits of space research but, instead, whether there are other better ways to achieve the same results.

To use an analogy, if I take I-5 to CA-22, I'll get home. This is proven. But is it the fastest way to get home at 5:00PM on a weekday? Might another route, say CA-91 to CA-57 to CA-22 be a faster way to get home? Perhaps. To find this out, I would probably have to do various tests and average the times together for the two routes over a given period. But, regardless of whether it is faster or not, I-5 to CA-22 will achieve the desired result: I'll get home. To follow your analogy, you're saying that you don't believe that taking I-5 to CA-22 will get me home because all possible other routes have not been considered.

Thus, you can't really argue that space research benefits various industries which use that research to produce products which have improved our lives. It obviously has and there are plenty of examples of it. I agree with you, though, that the not-so-subtle implication--that if we don't commit to space research, we are doomed to stagnate--is not valid.

Re:Justifying space research

[Buran]

I think we're a little confused about what I was talking about.

The Tahoe derivative is the H2, the "Hummer". The H1 is the "HMMWV". They are NOT the same vehicle. The differences I mentioned (interior, paint, no snorkel) are definitely there. I never said the drivetrain, the clearance, etc. were different. Where did I say that?

I never said the civilian HMMWV was significantly different from the military version. I said that the "Hummer" (which is the H2, says Hummer on the grille) is different.

Re:Justifying space research

[heinousjay]

This is probably going to come off sounding like a flame, but I seriously have to tell you - that's the most deeply twisted logic I've ever attempted to comprehend.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that space research, which turned up ancillary technology with far ranging uses, was harmful for turning up said technology, because it prevented it from being found other ways, which would have been less harmful by virtue of not being related to the space race?

I must have this confused. Please restate.

Re:Justifying space research

[Moofie]

One of us is definitely confused. It ain't me.

The Hummer H1 says Hummer on the tailgate. Many cars show the name of the car brand, and also the name of the model. Hummer is the brand. H1, H2 and (now) H3 are models.

Jeeps say Jeep on the grill. That doesn't mean there's not a Cherokee and a Liberty and a Wrangler and a Commander and a....

Re:Justifying space research

[Buran]

OK then, if you want to nitpick and ignore the fact that the correct name is HMMWV, fine. Not my problem. The "Hummer" "H2" doesn't have any other names.

Re:Justifying space research

[LeonGeeste]

Space program proponents claim: the space program is/was a good idea, because it led to good thing X.

I claim: It does not suffice to show that Y led to good thing X, to prove that Y was a good idea. You must also show that X was better than what not-Y would have led to.

Example: I take $100 from you. I buy a candy bar. I give you the candy bar. I then claim that the Theft-Candy Program was a good idea because it led to you having a candy bar.

You respond: I could have gotten a candy bar for less than $100. Also, there were things I wanted more than a candy bar. If I had spent my own money on my own needs, I would be better off. Therefore, the $100 candy bar was a waste.

Space program proponents: Government takes ~$100e9 from the economy. It bankrolls a trip to the moon. It then notices that some of the things it made with the intent of getting to the mood happen to have uses outside of getting to the moon. It gives people these technologies to people. It then claims the space program was a good idea because it led to us having the technologies.

I respond: I could have gotten those technologies for less than $100e9. Also, there were more pressing needs at the time. If consumers had spend their own money on their own needs, money would have been invested in satisfying demands higher on consumers' priority lists, and they would be better off. Therefore, the $100e9 was a waste.

The only real difference is that people have a "hard time" imagining private industry investing that forgone income in technology, because of public goods' problems, shortsightedness, etc. But those are separate arguments, rarely discussed in the context of the space program. Space program proponents typically stop at "The space program produced good thing X. Ergo, it was better than all alternatives"... which is really a poor argument when you think about it. I didn't start this thread to deny other possible justifications, just to deny that that one is valid.

Let's go over your LCD example again. NASA saw the possibility of LCD technology. More than likely, so did many people not working for NASA. All of those people at the time ruled it out as not being cost effective for consumer and industrial purposes. But NASA wasn't satisfying specific consumer or industrial demands: its solitary goal was to get a man on the moon and get him back safely. That alters the equation. An LCD may be cost-effective for that specific goal. So it produced this thing, which at the time was probably not cost effective for actual other human desires. Had it not happened, those funds would be diverted to higher-ranked cost-effective consumer and industrial demands outside of getting to the moon. Because such funds would then be directly targeted at pressing human desires, rather than getting to the moon, it is very likely they would have yielded something better, as judged by the average person (i.e., the benchmark you used to justify the LCD in the first place).

Now, you do have a point that maybe NASA "saw the light" and "guessed right" that the LCD had more and better uses than entrepreneurs at the time judged. But, like I keep saying, "that's not enough". You have to show that the government's "guessing what satisfies human desires" is correct more often than private entrepreneurs "guessing what satisfies human desires" in the aggregate - i.e., that the Social Security Administration is more efficient than McDonald's. Showing that the government outguessed private industry one time doesn't prove much.

Since private industry directly targets human desires, while the space program was targeting getting to moon; and since private industry guesses consumer desires and cost-effectiveness generally better than the government, the diversion from private industry into a government program not specifically intended to develop better technology likely means we got something not as good as what we could have.

Now, agree or not, do you understand the point I'm trying to make?

Re:Justifying space research

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody who argues against manned space flight should take a long hard look at Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9(http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/sl9/). This is a close as a sign, from God, as you will ever get to get the hell off this planet. Having all of humanity on one planet is asking to be wiped out. It was so convenient that this comet happened to hit Jupiter just when Earth happened to have a spacecraft in the area. Just so everybody understands; if even one of those chunks had hit the Earth life would be back to single cell state. We have a clear and present danger. Earth is in a shooting gallery and we need to get self-sufficient colonies elsewhere as fast as possible. To paraphrase Heinlein: "Humans always have and always will live on the edge of disaster."

As for China; I would say watch their plans for the moon. I think China has much bigger plans for the moon than most people realize.

Re:Justifying space research

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, that clarified things. I don't agree with your overall gist, but there are some internal points I'll give you.

The LCD example wasn't me, by the way. I was just confused by your logic.

Re:Justifying space research

[HermanAB]

Uhhh, you forget that it was German technology that went to the moon and most people outside the USA, where there are real public schools that actually teaches something, know that.

Re:Justifying space research

[Moofie]

You're delusional. The HMMWV (also known as the M998 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle) is the military version. You go ahead and go to http://www.hummer.com/ and try to find a quote on something called a HMMWV.

Options on the HMMWV are automatic grenade launchers and a Kevlar shell on the back. The up-armor package is apparently really hard to come by. I'd love to see you try to spec those on Hummer's web site.

Re:Justifying space research

[eraserewind]

Well, true up to a point, but there is nothing like a concrete target to focus the mind.

Re:Justifying space research

[Politicus]

Just say what you mean.

Somehow saying, "We want better weapons." doesn't have the same appeal as all of the idealistic crap that they did say. That's why it's called propaganda. It makes the idea of spending money on guns rather than butter plausible to those who respond to emotional messages.

Your frustration arises out of ignorance of the world and its function. You would have a hard time changing American propaganda, let alone Chinese, so a better plan is to learn to understand it for what it is.

Re:Justifying space research

[ghoul]

The thing is you have to have some kind of candy to tempt the smart kids. Let me elaborate. In grade school the smartest kids can figure out they can have a much easier time in college and a richer life if they become Doctors and Lawyers than Engineers and Scientists. So why do these kids go into Engineering. It is the dream of mega projects like the Space program. Of course most Engineers dont make it to NASA but they spend their lives in guilt thinking they are not good enough and work their asses off for private industry hence providing the life blood of the country. Take away the space program, military research(which is cool in a nerdish way) and soon all you would have left would be Doctors, Lawyers , Plumbers and others who feed off the misery and misfortune of others. The politicians understand this better than you do hence they continue the funding

Re:Justifying space research

[1u3hr]

Long story short, if you want better computers, research better computers. If you want better materials, research better materials. You shouldn't say "Invest in ways to get into space so we can make better materials"...

All quite reasonable, but China doesn't use those reasons. They're not doing it for velcro and teflon, as TFA says it's "a matter of national pride ... a way to increase the reputation of its high-tech exports." Also, unstated, it gives them an excuse to research ICBM rockets without getting nagged about WMDs.

Re:Justifying space research

[csrster]

Well put, especially in an article referring to China, which has certainly not been reluctant to do a bit of exploring, colonizing and conquering of its own.

Re:Justifying space research

[semajpa]

With reference to your comment:
"look a chinese car if they can put a guy in space they must make a decent car"

See the article about the Chinese Landwind and how it failed a crashtest miserably:

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22749- 1783784,00.html

Performance in space has nothing to do with performance anywhere else.

Re:Justifying space research

[dajak]

Uhhh, you forget that it was German technology that went to the moon and most people outside the USA, where there are real public schools that actually teaches something, know that.

A space race is definitely a better way to show off technology than a world war. But Germany's reputation for quality technology predates WWII, and V2 missiles, just like Japan's image problem (that lasted into the eighties).

Re:Justifying space research

[YttriumOxide]

You have a very interesting point and it really made me stop and think for a bit. In the end, I have to disagree with it though.

    The primary reason is one of the ones that would fall in to your (quite accurate) category of "rarely discussed in the context of the space program".
    People don't know what they want. If no-one ever asks for LCD technology, they won't get it. No business is going to waste their money creating something that no-one wants. It's likely they would evaluate it, decide it's too expensive and the quality is terrible, so they never make it. The only reason it became something "people want" is that it was available. And it was available because of the space race.
    It's possible that the money might have been spent on an unknown "X" that is far better than LCD technology. But it's also possible it could have been squandered and nothing beneficial coming out of it at all.
    Hindsight is 20/20 (according to proverb), so looking back you can say "yes, it cost more than we got out of it", but how often do you look back and say "that period that we DIDN'T do something, look how much money we wasted"? Pretty much never since you just don't think of those times.
    We as individuals and as a species should take the time to think of those points in history (thankfully few, but the "dark ages" are a striking case) and come to the conclusion that it's always better to act than to not act. If we don't do SOMETHING, there's a potential for waste. If we do something, it may be more than we bargained for, but at least there'll be SOME gain.

    To go back to the candy bar scenario: I steal $100 from you and buy you a candy bar. You're unhappy with this situation (quite rightly I'd say!). But that's only because you WERE going to do something else with that money. Would you prefer to die having eaten that candy bar or be buried with your $100? And to anticipate an answer: No, I'm not giving you the option of leaving it to your children/friends/family/whatever - you either get a candy bar or nothing. I would hope any sane person chooses the former.

    Despite the fact that I disagree with you, thankyou very much for the second most interesting thing I've had to think about all week (the most interesting being a potential move within my company to a far more interesting position... woohoo!)

Re:Justifying space research

[Grab]

Suppose you're spending $1billion, and you say "hey, we've developed LCDs, velcro and memory foam". But of that $1billion, maybe $100million went into each of those three. So what happened to the other $700million? Answer: used for non-novel work to get a rocket (and its occupants) up and down.

So if what you really want is the ancillary benefits, you're better to throw the whole $1billion at technologies that give you the ancillary benefits, instead of blowing it on things that don't advance knowledge.

Grab.

Re:Justifying space research

[Eunuchswear]

Can you tell me how to grow crystals in microgravity with some bored astronaut farting in the next compartment?

Re:Justifying space research

[rufty_tufty]

On the note of this, I'd say that the space program is the engineering version of art. It does have some tangible benefits, but that's not the main reason we're doing it.

Like some people have said Art (Opera?) is perhaps what money is for, why can't the space program be considered in the same league? If there is a reason for human existance, I'd rather think it was to push boundries and explore rather than any of the other mainstream justifications for life.

But that's a belief so treat that as you will :-)

--
"Science is like sex. Sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it." -Richard Feynman

Re:Justifying space research

[rufty_tufty]

Erm careful there. That's like saying because I can design and build a small car, that I'll be able to build and F1 car.

It might just be a matter of scaling things up, it's quite an overstatement to say that it was german technology that went to the moon. It was american technology based upon German technology with a significant portion of the design team being german.

But yes paperclip was important

Re:Justifying space research

[AviLazar]

Now I will grant that some things have come sooner because of space research. However what is the cost in things that we could have now if engineers hadn't been focused on space? This question cannot of course be answered, which is why I reject all arguments that space was really good for us. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, since we don't have a proper scientific controlled experiment we cannot know.

I am sure someone in Europe said the same thing to Columbus when he asked for money to get some ships and travel to the Indies. Maybe he was wrong and we should have all stayed in Europe.

I stand corrected on all the other points (specific inventions) which I have bene misled :)

Re:Justifying space research

[Eunuchswear]

Hey, reading the article - no fair!

Good thing you're posting as AC or I'd be asking people to mod you down. :-) for the humour impaired.

Re:Justifying space research

[ifwm]

"What it does do is get a lot of international press saying WOW! look what they can do!"

Yes, China has demonstrated that they can do something with their current technology that other countries did forty years ago.

I wouldn't crow about that if I were them.

Re:Justifying space research

[HermanAB]

Well yeah, any American project is necessarily an international project - so many immigrants. However there is some uncertainty about whether von Braun and others were immigrants, abductees, or prisoners of war.

Re:Justifying space research

[rufty_tufty]

:-)
If I remember my history teacher back from GCSE (where did those 13 years go) then Von Braun and co would today be classed as asylum seekers as many were being pursued by the SAS for crimes against the reich (although some were almost certainly prisoners of war - I'm not sure how you can have an abductee under those circumstances).

Wonder how we'd treat them today - damn freeloading asylum seekers :-p

Re:Justifying space research

[dovetail3]

You said:
if you want better computers, research better computers
Why should we invest in 'better' computers- what is it we want them for, what problem are we trying to solve? If you mean faster computers and more memory, then that's interesting, but not revolutionary. Advancements and learning come mostly from needing to solve a problem. The space program (though certainly expensive) does provide unique challenges, and questions that we otherwise wouldn't ask.

Your statement seems to try to isolate things. I think pretty much everything is related. Consider how very different music and math are, yet studying one helps with the other.

Here's some nasa developed technologies

Re:Justifying space research

[Red Flayer]

"5)For the tin-foil hat folks - well some asteroid is bound to destroy us eventually, it would be nice if we were say spread out on different planets."

That's not a tin-foil hat issue, unless of course, as we all know is true, "They" are conspiring to guide the asteroid into Earth for their own nefarious purposes, like destroying civilization on Earth so that they can recolonize from their bases on the moon and Mars.

Asteroid impact on Earth is more of an issue for the FUD-mongerers who are media whores.

Please don't think that those of us who wear tin-foil hats are media whores like the asteroid impact people. We're far better than that ;)

Re:Justifying space research

[Buran]

I am not delusional. I am talking about THE CIVILIAN VERSION so no, you can't buy that stuff, and I did say that there were changes for the civ version, which of course includes military stuff not being options, however, I refer to the vehicle by its correct name, not marketing bullshit designed to make it friendlier to stupid masses. "The civilian version of the HMMWV" is correct when used to refer to the vehicle being discussed. You are just trying to find a lame excuse to bitch at me. The vehicle in question is the "High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle".

Re:Justifying space research

[Moofie]

You said: "The Tahoe derivative is the H2,..." (this part is true) "...the "Hummer"" (Now you're conflating.)

Hummer is the name of a brand of cars, not the name of a model of car within that brand. It is also a common nickname for the military version of the vehicle. This wasn't a big deal when there was only one model being made by the GM division that's called Hummer, but now that they've got three vehicles, they have three different names.

This has obviously caused vast confusion for you.

*draws diagram*

You said: "It [I assume you are talking about the Hummer H2] is a civilian spinoff of the military design that is merely designed to resemble what AM General came up with as a result of the Army's needs."

That's also not true. If you're talking about the Hummer H2, it's not a spinoff at all. The design of the H2 has nothing whatsoever to do with the military version, or with the civilian-ized H1. If you're talking about something that shares a design heritage with the military version, you're talking about the Hummer H1.

I don't know WHY it's important to you to conflate the two models, because the only thing they've got in common is a nameplate.

Then again, I think I've fallen into the trap of arguing with a crazyperson, so I'm going to stop now.

Have a nice day!

Re:Justifying space research

[Buran]

Definition 2 of "spinoff" in dictionary.com:

Something, such as a product, that is derived from something larger and more or less unrelated; a byproduct.

So yes, it is a spinoff. It is derived from but not "related to" the HMMWV.

And GM did not come up with the H1/HMMWV, so no, they are not really the same product. By the way, it's not GM that makes either model. It's AM General LLC, but GM markets and distributes them.

I don't know WHY it's so important for you to argue with me over this, but I've obviously fallen into the trap of having to explain myself to someone who doesn't even bother to read the definitions of words that I use (are they too big?) and can't be bothered to research the history of the object the discussion is about.

I am ending this discussion now. All further posts will be ignored because I'm tired of having to explain myself. Have a nice life.

Re:Justifying space research

[virtual_mps]

It's possible that the money might have been spent on an unknown "X" that is far better than LCD technology. But it's also possible it could have been squandered and nothing beneficial coming out of it at all.

That sword cuts both ways. Can you say with a straight face that government programs never squander money? Can you claim that non-government R&D never produces new products? Your proposition reduces to: "something good came from the space program. other good things came from outside the space program. we don't know what would come if we allocated resources differently, but we almost certainly wasted some of the money." In itself, this chain of logic doesn't lead anywhere. The goal is to allocate resources as efficiently as possible to achieve Good Things, and citing a Good Thing that came from a particular program doesn't explain how to efficiently produce more Good Things.

Re:Justifying space research

[YttriumOxide]

Actually no... my position reduces a bit differently. Perhaps I wasn't quite clear.

My position reduces to:

We did the space program and got something out of it.
If we hadn't done the space program we MIGHT not have got something out of it.

100% chance of something is better than 100% chance of something.

Re:Justifying space research

[virtual_mps]

My position reduces to:

We did the space program and got something out of it.
If we hadn't done the space program we MIGHT not have got something out of it. 100% chance of something is better than 100% chance of something.

As I said, your position reduces to just about nothing.

Re:Justifying space research

[Anonymous Coward]

White, capitalist people are in control of the globe. That's a pretty safe thing to say.

Considering, I think the white conquerer joke was not only funny, but a frolicking, topical jaunt, and shouldn't be subject to the horrendously uptight challenges made in reference the OPs knowledge of history.

White people are in control of the globe now. Quit living in the past and get used to the jokes. White people deserve it. They are not - repeat - NOT gentle kings.

Re:Justifying space research

[someone1234]

Who said anyone must be in the next compartment?

Re:Justifying space research

[Flendon]

In space no one can hear you fart. Well at least not if you close your hatch and decompress his side.

weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

You can test ICBMs without blowing anything up. Hopefully.

He who has the ICBMs makes the rules.

Notice to the rest of the world

[j_cavera]

Bring it on! (BTW, Burt Rutan _is_ on our side, right?)

Re:Notice to the rest of the world

[BerntB]

Bring it on! (BTW, Burt Rutan _is_ on our side, right?)

But so is NASA; maybe the worst money sink history has known. :-(

(At least the new director went out and said that the shuttle and the space station cost at $250 billion were huge wastes of resources that should have had better uses. There might be hope, yet.)

No space race for US

[sphealey]

There is no "space race" for the United States. The next president, whether Republican or Democrat, is likely to terminate the remains of the US manned program. Except perhaps a few flights using Russian hardware. And I say this as a lifelong supporter of manned exploration who fully expected in 1969 to be able to tour the Moon before the end of my life (2040 or so).

sPh

Re:No space race for US

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

The next president, whether Republican or Democrat, is likely to terminate the remains of the US manned program.

If that should happen, then that would be a sign to me that the US is definitely in decline. I have a hope that this current trend of declining interest in science and engineering will turn around one day and we (the US) will go back to being the creators that we once were. I'm not saying that everyone needs to become a scientist or an engineer (I for one have no talent for it: just a fan). I'm just saying that hopefully we'll start to encourage our youth to pursue their interests in those areas instead of telling them, no showing them with outsourcing/offshoring, that they're better off going to medical or law school if they want to have a secure future.

Re:No space race for US

[frank378]

The next president, whether Republican or Democrat, is likely to terminate the remains of the US manned program.

As long as the ISS is up there the US will continue putting people into orbit. I can't see the powers that be letting it come down in a screaming ball of fire anytime soon. Too much has already been sunk into the project.

Re:No space race for US

[mcheu]

You'll still probably be able to, if you've got a few million bucks burning a hole in your pocket.

You'll just have to make arrangements with the Chinese or Russian governments, rather than booking on Pan Am, but at least the computer won't kill you -- not on purpose anyways.

Re:No space race for US

[Anonymous Coward]

Basic accounting prinicple...sunk costs don't matter you've lost that money anyway and your not getting it back no matter what...(yes it was a required class)

Re:No space race for US

[Buran]

I doubt that will happen. People are annoyingly two-faced about this. They want the prestige and coolness factor of having a space program even as they whine that it's not safe enough or cheap enough. (I hate to break it to them, but it's never gonna be as safe as airline flights, at least not for a few decades at least).

The space program will continue, even if it isn't at the pace that you and I would like, or the pace that the grand claims keep saying. Kennedy was the only one who was able to pull it off right.

Re:No space race for US

[rctay]

The public wants to go somewhere. LEO isn't interesting. They don't want to hear about the science, they want a bloody space opera. The ISS is dead. There's not enough heavy lift capacity to keep it going, much less finish it. If one more shuttle is lost or even a close call that program is dead. It will be 10 years before a new crew rated vehicle flies, and several more years before rapid turn around is accomplished. China may end up the tortoise in the classic tortoise vs hare race.

Re:No space race for US

[MurphyZero]

You may very well be correct. But I would classify it as the tortoise and the hare race, with a jump over a chasm required. The US (hare) can make the jump, but isn't interested or willing (money or risk) to do the 'interesting' missions; while the Chinese have the interest, but not the speed and ability to make the jump. Maybe someday that tortoise will evolve, but beyond the slow progress and basic missions the Chinese are doing right now, they're not going to get very far. They could catch up to exactly where the US and Russia are right now though with manned missions within 20 years definitely. At current rates, US and Russia will have stagnated and may be worse off in 20 years.

Re:No space race for US

[patio11]

How I wish you were right, but Dubya just signed them up with a couple dozen more billion dollars to waste and the number one rule of American politics is that no pork ever dies.

The space race...

[jamesgamble]

The Earth's resources are dwindling and if we intend to survive the next two thousand years, we're going to have to find resources elsewhere to sustain ourselves. It's not soley a matter of scientific interest now, but a matter of survival.

Re:The space race...

[redheaded_stepchild]

Just dont expect any Mur'cins to be there. We dont need no space rockets! We got Jeezus!

Re:The space race...

[Alef]

Or we could just learn to recycle the resources we have. Very few resources have left the Earth (a few space probes and some atmosphere mainly), so why do we need to bring more of them here?

Re:The space race...

[gwait]

Not meaning to be too abrasive, but.. Rubbish!

What will you find in space that we are running out of on the planet??
Oil? Water? Land? Food? Energy? (sitting on a molten ball of magma with 1000 watts per square foot of power shining down on us - no shortage of energy..)

I prefer science and exploration (hey add tourism!) to be the reasons to go into space,
but now we have the beginnings of a cold war in space starting up. That's likely the (sad but) real reason a space race seems imminent. With the amount of US federal budget in the military, it's an inevitable direction.

Re:The space race...

[lawpoop]

How about learning how to successfully or sustainably manage resources once we do find them? Space is vast and empty. We live in a cornucopia. If we're screwing up this badly while living in a virtual paradise, there's no way we can survive the 1000+ year trip to the next planet. We'd eat ourselves of out food a fuel 10 years into the space journey.

Re:The space race...

[Kelson]

Of course, some resources are rendered unusable by the way we use them. Sure, the atoms in a fuel are still around after you burn it, but you're not going to be able to get much power out of a bunch of smoke. (Exceptions include nuclear power, where the atoms aren't all still around, and particularly breeder reactors, which produce waste that you can use for more fuel.)

Re:The space race...

[Alef]

No, but you can get power out of trees and plants after they have collected the atoms in the smoke and made fule out of it again. It is just a matter of learning how to gather the resources again, after we have spread them out. In fact, many of the resources we use today, like metals, we have already gathered from minerals in Earth's crust. Ofcourse, energy is required to reverse most of the chemical reactions, but we have an abundance of energy thanks to the sun. I'm certain you will find it much more difficult to find resources somewhere in space and then somehow bring them here.

Re:The space race...

[grumpyman]

Yeah next 2000 years, and our president's mandate is 4 years, maximum 8 years. How can we expect us to have some real foresight into the things that we do?

Re:The space race...

[fletchzip]

hahaha I think someone just lept straight out of Blade Runner and into real life. So it's a matter of survival hey? So what you're saying is that a large portion of the population has to move. How many are you suggesting migrate to another planet? 4 billion, 5 billion, 9 billion? That would probably help the Earth (or Ocean as Clarke prefers) but I have to tell you, the resources required to move that many people to another planet just aren't available. It would require a fraction of those resources to fix the top 5 major problems with this planet.

Re:The space race...

[Anonymous Coward]

This argument does not work because if we don't need something for 2000 years we can wait 1500 years.

Really in the end the only reason to send people into space is because we like to do so. It is for the same reason we like to take trips to (say) the Grand Canyon. If you think standing at th edge of a giant hole in the ground and looking down is a waste of time and money you would think space is a waste too. Stop with the contrived jstifications. Humans are simply made such that they like looking at stuff they've not seen. Likely this was a surival skill a million years ago and natural selection caused us to be something that wants to just look around

I can imagine that folks who walked to the other side of the river just to look because they have nothingbetter to do where at an advantge to others who didn't. They had a higher chance of finding something usfull. Even if they dodn't need it, they'd remember seeing it later when they did.

Re:The space race...

[timbo234]

1) The earth's population is growing
2) The majority of people on earth are still extremely poor. Even with a lot more recycling efficiency these people will consume a lot more resources than they do today if/as they climb out of poverty.
3) Recycling can only do so much, some resources can't be recycled, some can't be recycled very much at all and for some it would actually take more net resources to recycle and reuse them.

Re:The space race...

[Alef]

Well, we were talking about the survival of mankind over several millenia, so:
1) If the population keeps growing, that surely means we are succeeding in surviving.
2) This is a matter of wealth, not survival.
3) Can you give any examples of vital resources that are permanently lost when used? Granted, if we plan to use fusion power we can run out of deuterium and tritium, but that would take billions of years if I'm not mistaken.

Re:The space race...

[timbo234]

1) If the population keeps growing, that surely means we are succeeding in surviving.

The world population is the highest its ever been and is at least an order of magnitude higher than before industrilisation. Our ability to keep growing up to now doesn't prove that the earth has enough resources to sustain this over time.

2) This is a matter of wealth, not survival.

Who said all we care about is survival? The human species would probably survive a global nuclear war, major asteroid impact or major climate change event in some (probably stone-age) form or other. The point is that to preserve human civilization we need wealth and for that we need natural resources.

3) Can you give any examples of vital resources that are permanently lost when used? Granted, if we plan to use fusion power we can run out of deuterium and tritium, but that would take billions of years if I'm not mistaken.

Even if we recycled to the max of our ability there would still be a significant shortfall - no recycling is 100% efficient so we need to get the extra from somewhere after earth's resources are run-down.

Re:The space race...

[Alef]

Who said all we care about is survival?

The original poster did:

"The Earth's resources are dwindling and if we intend to survive the next two thousand years, we're going to have to find resources elsewhere to sustain ourselves. It's not soley a matter of scientific interest now, but a matter of survival."

And that is what I responded to; I was disputing the claim that we will not survive two millenia without resources from space. I believe you read more into my post that was meant to.

Even if we recycled to the max of our ability there would still be a significant shortfall - no recycling is 100% efficient so we need to get the extra from somewhere after earth's resources are run-down.

But all materials we use will sooner or later return to nature in some form. The Earth is a closed system, as long as we don't send anything out to space. (In fact, the amount of available matter actually increases by 3000 tonnes per year as meteorite debris falls down from space.) As I said before, all we need to do is to learn how to gather whatever substances we need.

Re:The space race...

[timbo234]

And that is what I responded to; I was disputing the claim that we will not survive two millenia without resources from space. I believe you read more into my post that was meant to.

The OP didn't say wether he meant just survival of the species or survival of human civilization. I read that as talking about the survival of human civilization since, as I pointed out in my last post, the human species can probably survive almost any disaster but its civilization that could collapse if we run out of essential resources.

But all materials we use will sooner or later return to nature in some form. The Earth is a closed system, as long as we don't send anything out to space.

Just because all the materials we use return to nature doesn't mean they are usable by us again in any practical way. When coal smoke spews out of a coal plant it doesn't fall back to the ground in a form that's usable by us again. And of course with sufficiently advanced technology (nanobots perhaps?) we could scour the landscape and fetch all those particles that came out of the coal and remake it, but it would require far, far more energy and resources to do this than you'd be able to get out of the coal. Even though in a sustainable world we probably wouldn't be using coal its the same with any resources - no manufacturing processes are 100% efficient.

(In fact, the amount of available matter actually increases by 3000 tonnes per year as meteorite debris falls down from space.)

3000 tonnes!? That's about 2000 cars, assuming that all that asteroid matrial could be collected and was all usable. Its an insignificant amount unless the world's population was about 10,000 or so.

As I said before, all we need to do is to learn how to gather whatever substances we need.

Yes and if we had perfect technology like this then we could just as easily mine asteriods for whatever we need. Recycling is not 100% efficient and it never will be. And even if it was why would we want to restrict ourselves to a set standard of living, an economy where any wealth I make is wealth taken away from you and vice-versa. At least as far as the solar system is concerned we know that there's resources up there, in areas where there definately is no life that we'd be destroying so we may as well use it.

Re:The space race...

[Alef]

When coal smoke spews out of a coal plant it doesn't fall back to the ground in a form that's usable by us again. And of course with sufficiently advanced technology (nanobots perhaps?) we could scour the landscape and fetch all those particles that came out of the coal and remake it, but it would require far, far more energy and resources to do this than you'd be able to get out of the coal.

Coal is a great example of a substance that is very easy to recycle. Any coal that we use (especially when we burn it) ends up as carbondioxide in the atmosphere, from where it is absorbed by plants and trees. Cut down the trees and you have it back.

In case you didn't know: the increasing carbondioxide levels due to use of fossile fuel is not because the carbon stays in the atomsphere, but because we have added more coal to the whole system. And since the amout of trees isn't increasing, it buffers up in the atmosphere.

Even though in a sustainable world we probably wouldn't be using coal its the same with any resources - no manufacturing processes are 100% efficient.

You think of it in the wrong way. It doesn't matter that the process isn't 100% efficient when we are talking about a closed system, since all loss will return to some other part of the system where it can be collected again.

As a side note: I actually think we will be using carbon as the main building material in the future, so it's a good thing it is so easily recycled.

Its an insignificant amount unless the world's population was about 10,000 or so.

Ofcourse, but I maintain we don't even require that.

And even if it was why would we want to restrict ourselves to a set standard of living, an economy where any wealth I make is wealth taken away from you and vice-versa.

And I have never said we should restrict ourselves. What I said was that it is not a matter of survival. And for that matter, limited natural resources does not imply limited wealth. Wealth is more a matter of producing more advanced technology; generally the amount of resources needed to produce for example cell-phones etc. decreases as technology advances.

Re:The space race...

[timbo234]

Your whole argument is based on thinking on geological timescales, resources like coal form over millions of years on earth. This is of no practical use to us because we 'use-up' all the important resources much, much faster than they are 'replaced' by the earth's natural processes. The idea that the earth is a closed system is irrelevant - our use of resources still converts them into forms that either have no further use to us or will take millions of years to process back to what they originally were. Coal being a perfect example of this. We need to get resources from space to make up that shortfall of usable resources.

Re:The space race...

[Alef]

You are to hung up on fossilised carbon, which we don't need. Carbon that is exchanged between the biosphere and the atmosphere completes a full cycle in decades. You may want to take a quick glance at the carbon cycle.

Furthermore, if we stop using carbon as a fuel (Hydrogen economy) it will be even less of a problem.

I challange you to name at least a few resources that:

• are absolutely vital to us.
• are not renewable, even using more advance technology than we have today.
• are not replacable by renewable resources.
• are readily available in relatively close proximity in space.

Re:The space race...

[timbo234]

You are to hung up on fossilised carbon, which we don't need. Carbon that is exchanged between the biosphere and the atmosphere completes a full cycle in decades. You may want to take a quick glance at the carbon cycle.

I agree that theoretically we won't need it future,although we're still heavily reliant on it and that shows no sign of change in the near future. But I was using it as an example - the carbon cycle may be only a few decades but that doesn't change the fact that it takes millions of years for coal and the other fossil fuels to form. This is why just saying 'the earth is a closed system and will renew whatever we use' isn't a valid argument - it may well be true but it happens on such large timescales that its irrelevant to human beings.

I challange you to name at least a few resources that:

are absolutely vital to us.

are not renewable, even using more advance technology than we have today.

are not replacable by renewable resources.

are readily available in relatively close proximity in space.

Platinum for example. http://science.howstuffworks.com/asteroid-mining1. htm
Its well known to be fairly rare and expensive due to a limited supply on earth.

Look the whole point of mining in space is not because we will totally run out of resources on earth, its not some desperate last-resort. The point of it is that there's vastly more (mostly) mineral wealth out there than we have on earth, enough to completely revolutionise the economics of pretty much everything. For example one of the roadblocks to large-scale production of fuel-cell cars at the moment is the shortage of platinum. The other reason is that no matter how efficient we recycle, we don't have enough resources on earth to get all 6 billion people alive today up to the current standard of living of the developed world, let alone the future.

Plus the whole thing has the added benefit that we could shift mining off earth eventually and not have to suffer all the environmental damage it brings. Even though none of this will happen for decades the space programs today are undeniably laying the groundwork for it all.

Military conquest

[Anonymous Coward]

There's valuable things in space. GPS systems; communication systems; Lagrange points; planetary redundancy. Slashdot reported that U.S. Space Command advocates seizing control of the LaGrange points before other nations do it. , and without space races, it'd be hard to do that.

High tech is good but....

[tktk]

While it is a matter of national pride, China in specific also sees this as a way to increase the reputation of its high-tech exports.

What I really want to see are low-tech solutions to the space race. Not to prove your own country's superiority but to make other governments look bad. Any large government can throw billions or trillions of dollars to get into space.

What I want to see is some guy get into space by sitting on a huge jug of exploding moonshine.

Re:High tech is good but....

[Kelson]

What I want to see is some guy get into space by sitting on a huge jug of exploding moonshine.

Add in sufficient sheilding, and I think you've just described dozens of sci-fi novels from the 1940s and 1950s.

Re:High tech is good but....

[otherbiz]

National Pride you say? According to this post the chinese are busy building SUVs for Europeans that have gotten a 0 safety score. 0 is the lowest http://www.transittrends.org/mvnforum/mvnforum/vie wthread?thread=981

Re:High tech is good but....

[Buran]

Some rockets actually have run on alcohol. The V-2/A-4, for instance, was fueled by ethanol (ethyl alcohol) -- the same main ingredient in most liquor. It's an easily storable fuel, it isn't hypergolic, and it burns very cleanly.

Re:High tech is good but....

[SharkJumper]

This has already been done. And by China, no less. I don't think we should chastise them for wanting to modernize their research some.

SharkJumper

Re:High tech is good but....

[arbitraryaardvark]

While it is a matter of national pride, China in specific also sees this as a way to increase the reputation of its high-tech exports.

This makes sense. For a large enough firm, with assets including a billion slave laborers, the expenses of space exploration can be written off out of the ad budget.
If Moore's law applies (somewhat) to the costs of space travel, smaller ventures will be able to fund space travel as an investment in reputation capital (wuffie.)
When a rocket ship costs less than a superbowl ad, we'll see more of them around.
That'll lead to economies of scale and more applications that have payoff independent of the wuffie factor.

Re:High tech is good but....

[HermanAB]

Something low tech like Robert Heinlein's gigantic, coal fired, steam powered space ships? Though he never explained where they got the oxidizer from...

Re:High tech is good but....

[1u3hr]

>What I want to see is some guy get into space by sitting on a huge jug of exploding moonshine.
Add in sufficient sheilding, and I think you've just described dozens of sci-fi novels from the 1940s and 1950s.

A Bicycle Built for Brew, (Astounding, 1958)

Re:High tech is good but....

[1u3hr]

Something low tech like Robert Heinlein's gigantic, coal fired, steam powered space ships? Though he never explained where they got the oxidizer from...

Probably because he never wrote any stories about "coal fired spacehips". If he explained the technology at all, his spaceships were usually nuclear powered.

Re:High tech is good but....

[HermanAB]

The steam powered space ships were used by people in an alternate universe - green mars - to move between earth and mars. I think it is in A Stranger in a Strange Land.

Re:High tech is good but....

[1u3hr]

The steam powered space ships were used by people in an alternate universe - green mars - to move between earth and mars. I think it is in A Stranger in a Strange Land.

Not Stranger, that was part of his "Future History" (with nuclear powered ships). But you may be right, I did't get into his last few books where he had characters shuttling between fictional universes in between having incest.

Velcro

[OctoberSky]

Wasn't Velcro developed by NASA?

That sound alone is worth at least 150 Billion Dollars. [/sarcasm]

Re:Velcro

[gregbains]

That all goes to the Men in Black

Re:Velcro

[Reducer2001]

Nope. Wikipedia link.

Re:Velcro

[R3d M3rcury]

Bah! Any Trek fan knows we got velcro from the Vulcans.

Wikipedia is part of the conspiracy to keep the information secret...

What it's really about

[argoff]

What it is really about is that a lot of the technologies used for space can also be used for military dominance. (like ICBM's) China and India know this, and so have engaged in a strong space program. The US knows this too, and so is getting back in the game to keep dominance over China.

Re:What it's really about

[amightywind]

The US knows this too, and so is getting back in the game to keep dominance over China.

Agreed. With the many countries also showing interest in the moon, it is better to be living and working there then to be surprised by an upstart country. It is certainly not in the US interest to cede the moon to Russia or China. The political forces at work here are no different that those that drove the development of the new world.

Pfft.

[Britissippi]

There is no real country based 'space race' anymore in the western world. Corporations are going to take over where the governments leave off. China is 50 years behind the times, and eventually it'll be the corporations there that take over the space flights, too.

Re:Pfft.

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

If the current transfer of wealth continues the way it's going, China will be the only ones with the money to explore space.

God, I'm getting really pessimistic in my old age!

Re:Pfft.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps less than 5 years from having equivalent to the greatest achievements of the current U.S. space programme, if current trends continue, excepting the known failed designs that it is useless to repeat.

Re:Pfft.

[LoveTheIRS]

Except...picture China as Microsoft. Microsoft gets into the market with a shoddy product, compared to the competition, then Microsoft improves it to match their rivals. Then Microsoft cuts their prices, and takes over the market. Never ever laugh at your competitors, it's like laughing at a beggining dancer on the dance floor(A big politeness no no). One day that beginning dancer will be as good or better than you.

Re:Pfft.

[TrevorB]

China may be 50 years behind (let's say 45 to be more accurate), but the US is about 25 years behind (Shuttle) and Russia about 38 years behind.

We could be kinder to each country. The US has been upgrading their shuttles with newer materials. The Russians developed a new variant of their Soyuz craft (TMA class) as recently as 2002.

However America is about to go with a new CEV design, which while an upgrade in technology basically puts them back to where they were in 1968.

I'm very impressed with the Shenzhou spacecraft. It's larger than Soyuz by about 10-20%, which itself had significantly more space available than Apollo did on its own (not sure about Apollo-LEM). It's orbital module can operate autonomously, staying in orbit for many months, making the potential for Shenzhou orbital modules to be used as space station components. If its launch safety can be shown to be equivelant to Soyuz, the Shenzhou spacecraft will be the best operating in 2010.

The actual "space race" may be taking place now, in the design stage of the American CEV. Can they build a craft superior to the Chinese?

China has been building a lot of momentum here, while the US has stalled. I'm very curious to know how things will turn out in the next decade.

Re:Pfft.

[Chiralhydra]

China is not 50 years behind the times. 50 years ago, getting into space with the current materials was very difficult. Now, the world has access to cheap, powerful computing, high tech materials, and plenty of easily available research on all aspects of the problems space poses. All a country needs is the economy and the will. China's economy economy is booming...

Re:Pfft.

[Britissippi]

So why wern't they in space 20 or 30 years ago then? I'm not, in no way, diminishing China's achievement here. It's miraculous how China has turned itself into an economic powerhouse that has the money to spare to be able to build a rocket and crew pod capable of doing this. My point is, is that private enterprise will take over from governments who have "better" things to spend their money on. If a private enterprise uses billions of dollars to get into orbit, then it's only the shareholders who have chosen to be a part of that company that take the profits or losses of that grand adventure. If a country does it, then there are always large elements of the citizen populous who do *not* see the value of millions of dollars / roubles / yuan being pumped into sending a select few into the great unknown. China will eventually face the same stagnation in it's populace where space flight no longer excites them , and even though it's not a democracy, I beleive that the people of China would rather see that money go into further benefits on it's own land, than burnt in fuel. I can fully see private enterprise catching up and overtaking any country in the world when it comes to space flight. Either for tourism, science, or cargo.

Re:Pfft.

[Guppy06]

"Corporations are going to take over where the governments leave off."

Why? Unless tomorrow somebody discovers something everybody must have and must be made in microgravity, or some probe discovers a huge stash of unobtainium on the surface of Mars, there's no commercial impulse for space travel to progress beyond where it is now: putting microwave repeaters into geosynchronus orbit.

Exploration (space or otherwise) is nothing if not a long-term investment, and Wall Street prefers the short-term to boost quarterly profits.

Re:Pfft.

[Martin Blank]

However America is about to go with a new CEV design, which while an upgrade in technology basically puts them back to where they were in 1968.

Just because it's a capsule design doesn't mean that it's a step backwards in technology. Your argument seems to be based on the capsule to shuttle to aerospace plane development map that failed.

I would argue that the CEV is a step forward, because it adds flexibility to the design. The second phase of the CEV includes not only a lunar module, but also the capacity to start building a lunar base. Where the Apollo mission could support two people on the lunar surface for a maximum of three days, the CEV will be able to support four people on the surface for a week, and those four people will be able to do much more than just pick up a few rocks and wander a few hundred meters at a time.

I base where we are on what we can do once we get there. If the CEV merely duplicated Apollo, that would put us back at 1968, and would be a sad waste of tax dollars. If it's capable of living up to its promise, then that puts us much further along, and only 10-15 years behind where we should be.

Re:Pfft.

[Xeriar]

>> The actual "space race" may be taking place now, in the design stage of the American CEV. Can they build a craft superior to the Chinese?

The American models, by the specs, seem vastly superior to the Chinese craft. That this is merely a proposal for the same continued shuttle budget is even more intriguing. It shows how much of a setback the Shuttle really was.

It puts the US where the US should have been ~20 years ago, maybe 10.

Re:Pfft.

[jurgenaut]

eventually it'll be the corporations there that take over the space flights

And by then, it will be corporations that name everything: The IBM Stellar Sphere. The Microsoft Galaxy. Planet Starbucks.

Re:Pfft.

[rufty_tufty]

Corporations are happy to play the long term game.
Most accountants write things off over a 10 year period. All corporations play the long term game. Lots of venture capitalists (represented on the stock exchange) invest in technologies that won't pay off for years if at all.

If GM was only interested in the next quater's profits they _could_ sell off all their holdings and post a massive profit for that year. They'd probably fold the next quater, but they've maximised the quaterly profits.

Not all stock markets follow the enron philosophy... So yes, they profer the short term gain, but what most want most is maximum ROI.

Re:Simple

[halivar]

Simple; the US is not #1 anymore, China is starting to stand on their two feet, so, this is suddenly an ego thing again. God I love being Canadian.

Hah! You earth-bounders are just jealous of our enormous rocketships! If you had rocketships like we do, you'd be racing, too. But you'd lose, because our rocketships are bigger than anyone else's!

TO THE MOON!!!

It's a pissing match.

[Shadow Wrought]

'nuff said.

The original reason for the space race

[mbkennel]

It was a proxy for development of ICBM technology. An ICBM warhead is a satellite whose orbit happens to intersect the surface of the earth.

Having the capability for heavy lift, accurate guidance, precise orbital adjustments and robust communication shows that your ICBMs are probably also just as good, without divulging specific classified technological details.

Basic research is very good (and underfunded and underappreciated) but there is also something significant to be learned when basic research is applied to a rigorous problem, e.g. space technology, before it has to hit the commercial market.

There is the "valley of death" in R&D development: it takes about 25 years from a technology to go from lab discovery to commercial development.

Academic development does the first 7 years, by then it is "old" and professors can't really write good papers or get good grants and tenure dicking around with small things.

Commercial development funds the last 2 years only.

The middle is the Valley of Death and you need some kind of funding source and goal to take technologies from a lab formula to a product of economic significance.

Re:The original reason for the space race

[timeOday]

I agree govt. ought to fund research to bridge academic and commercial interests, but that is apart from the parent's argument - that space research sometimes proceeds on weak justification by touting gains in other fields. To me, your argument that "China wants ICMBs" is much more concrete (and believable) than the argument that China wants to discover next-generation Tang or Velcro.

That said, why did the USSR give up on the moon after failing to be first, whereas China still wants to go? Your explanation of demonstrating capability might explain China's actions, but not those of the USSR.

Re:The original reason for the space race

[Ralph Wiggam]

Since the chances of the US using an ICBM have dropped to near 0, how about changing the direction of our efforts.

Putting firecrackers underneath trash cans (chemical rockets) are cool and impressive, but they're a terrible way to get things in to space. the Apollo program in the 60s used drafting boards, adding machines, rotary phones, and liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engines. We've completely replaced all of those technologies except the rocket engines.

The day someone commits billions of dollars to build a space elevator, everything we know about space travel and exploration are going to change dramatically. Apparently, a space elevator is one of the many projects being considered by Google to spend their stock offering cash. I expect those guys to have more vision than the US government, which has decided to go back to the mooon for no apparent reason.

-B

Re:The original reason for the space race

[Guppy06]

"An ICBM warhead is a satellite whose orbit happens to intersect the surface of the earth."

Wrong limiting case. Orbit is a ballistic arc that continually misses. It's easier to put something in a ballistic arc (Freedom 7, SpaceShip 1) than it is to put something into orbit (Vostok 1, Friendship 7). Anybody that can put something into LEO can build an ICBM, but not everybody that can build an ICBM can put something into LEO.

The USA/USSR space race was pure politics that spun off from missile technology. It just so happens that, at the time, Soviet nuclear weapons were considerably heavier than their American counterparts, even heavier than a manned capsule, so it was simple to modify an existing Soviet ICBM to put a lighter payload into orbit.

Re:The original reason for the space race

[photon317]

We haven't completely replaced all of those technologies.

Drafters still like to use drafting boards, even when they've got advanced CAD tools sitting right next to them. Technology has not managed to obviate the need for a drafting board.

Adding machines? Have you been in a store lately that wasn't run by a multi-national meglomaniac corporation? Many smaller stores and businesses still don't put a PC at the front desk, instead they use big fat 70's looking calculators. Even when they do have PCs, they often still stick to the little electonic adding machines because it's more convenient than firing up a calculator app at a computer terminal. (Ok, I know you meant the big room-sized calculating computers, but I had to have something for this item, so I'm feigning ignorance. In any case transistors were already around at the time, all we've done since is shrink them, not replace them...)

Most POTS telephone lines in the US still support rotary dialing AFAIK (at least they did last time I cared, maybe 5 years ago). While it takes a little longer, it is more reliable (even with a broken dialer, you can tap out the numbers manually with the hangup switch). And many customers, especially if older aged or living in rural areas, actually possess rotary phones.

Re:The original reason for the space race

[mscalora]

>the Apollo program in the 60s used drafting boards, adding machines,
>rotary phones, and liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engines.

83% of the thrust of the Saturn V was generated by burning kerosene. Stages 2 and 3 which used H2 and O2 only generated the other 17%.

The first and second stategs of the Soyuz also burn kerosene.

-Mike

Re:The original reason for the space race

[Anonymous Coward]

Space research justification is long-term, whereas the side benefits from the space program are medium term-they can be provided as reason to pay the costs for the infrastructure with taxes by a state; China does not need to tout this as much as the US did and does. Also, China currently has an operational ICBM, it has had since it was tested in 1971-the Soviet Union developed the technology first in 1957 and the U.S. in 1959 so not too far off and still one of the few nations with the technology presently-the same as the nuclear powers (India and Pakistan do not have ICBM technology yet, only IRBM). That the Chinese government desires to both refine ICBM technology without hostile actions but still wishes to demonstrate this capacity is reasonable but the simple comment that "China wants ICBM" is misleading.

Manned flights....

[wpiman]

In June 2000, soon after the first unmanned test flight of a Shenzhou spacecraft, an article in Xiandai Bingqi magazine explained why the cost of human flight was justified:
The cost of human flight to the Chinese? Since when did the Chinese value human life? They kill babies AFTER they are born, they drive tanks over protesters, they kill political dissenters.....
Of course China will do manned flight- they could care less about the cargo.

Space race? What space race?

[Anonymous Coward]

While it is a matter of national pride, China in specific also sees this as a way to increase the reputation of its high-tech exports.

I strongly suspect the driving force for the Chinese space program (much like the US and USSR), is to build ICBMs. If you can put a man in space, you can put a nuke anywhere in the world in 30 minutes or so. And it's very hard to shoot down an ICBM.

Re:Space race? What space race?

[Andy Tai]

But mainland Chinese have had ICBMs since the 1970s...

Re:Space race? What space race?

[Guppy06]

ICBMs are difficult to destroy after they launch, but fairly easy to take out with your own ICBMs before they lauch. You only have a few minutes (at best) after you pick up an incoming warhead on radar to launch your own missiles before they're vaporized on the ground.

This is what drove the USA/USSR nuclear arms race: most missiles were pointed at the other guy's missiles, with only a minority left to target other stratiegic interests (runways long enough for B-52s, for example).

And if it was China's main intent to use space travel as a way of improving their ICBMs, then they've already lost before they began: the US has (at worst) a 3:1 advantage in nuclear weapons, and even assuming all Chinese warheads are sitting on top of an ICBM, the US can take them all out at its liesure. And even if we again give the Chinese the benefit of the doubt and assume they can build a single nuclear-tipped ICBM as quickly as the US, it's going to be a slow linear progression.

With that said, space travel has very little to do with missile technology; when was the last time somebody put something into orbit with a Minuteman III? Don't attribute to technological or military ambitions what can be attributed to pure politics.

Related Topic

[Viper Daimao]

The National Acadamy of Sciences is having a cool event.

Space Settlement: Homesteading on the Moon?

The degree to which land on the moon may be owned has been the subject of debate and international treaties since the start of the Cold War. This seminar will address the relationship of existing treaties to lunar property rights and the role of such ownership as an incentive for commercial space settlement. Panelists will address the following questions:

• Why settle the moon?
• What are the policy implications of a lunar settlement?
• What are the opportunities and challenges?
• Should privately funded missions play a role in lunar settlement?

It seems to me that homestead acts in the 1800s really drove the development and settlement of the American west, could something similar drive private space exploration?

Re:Related Topic

[frank378]

It seems to me that homestead acts in the 1800s really drove the development and settlement of the American west, could something similar drive private space exploration?

I wish. Orbital flight is a far cry from saving up your pennies for a covered wagon that you can hook your plow horse to and start a new life out west. Not to mention the strangehold that certain companies will have probably have on the air/water market on the moon, no matter how many space-flight start-ups actually succeed in getting humans onto the moon.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple; the US is not #1 anymore

Wow, what a troll. Anyone who understands the Space Programs of the world can tell you that the US still has a significant technological lead. i.e. There's only one country that flys a super-booster. In case you're wondering who, the answer is the United States of America. The Space Shuttle is capable of 137 metric tonnes to low earth orbit, making it the most powerful booster to have ever flown. Sadly, it's saddled by the orbiter itself, making its cargo capacity a mere (but highly respectable) 28 metric tonnes.

China is starting to stand on their two feet

"Starting" is the operative term here. They've flown precisely 3 taikonauts to date, who have had very short up and down missions. Prior to this, China has been all talk and no put up on manned space flight. And that's despite the fact that they stole the Dynasoar design for their early attempts at manned flight.

On the bright side, their Long March program has done well for itself, despite the relatively poor payload of the rocket. Now if they'd just place a bit more value on human life (see: Feb 15, 1996), they'd be off to a decent start.

Worked for the Russians -- NOT!

[Derling Whirvish]

Oh yeah, that strategy worked so well for the Russians. How's that Russian cell phone you are using? Reading this on a Russian computer? How about your GLONASS receiver? Your Russian-built TV? Washer-dryer? Car? Tractor even? Combine-harvester?

Unless you are a third-world dictator needing some cheap airplanes, tanks, or guns, (with the sole exception of surplus rocket engines sold to NASA) I don't know of any area where the space-program advanced Russian high-tech exports.

Re:Worked for the Russians -- NOT!

[frank378]

Sounds like an apples to oranges comparison. The Chinese are just coming into their own and just don't seem to be as communist as the Soviets were. More socialist than anything I'd wager, and my guess is that the mainland will only become more like Taiwan and Hong Kong as the days pass. This will be the century the Chinese really start to dominate, and I for one welcome...ah *ahem*.

Let's just say it another way, bought anything at WalMart lately? Flip it over and you'll probably see "made in China" stamped on it.

Re:Worked for the Russians -- NOT!

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Want to travel back in time? Just leave costal China and head towards the central districts, there you can find the land time forgot. So I don't expect them to dominate the next century until they pull the rest of their country out of the 19th century.

Re:Worked for the Russians -- NOT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia until the late 80s had very limited trade with western nations. China is exactly the opposite. Not only is it geared towards a global economy, it's fueling it.

Instead of thinking of Russian products, think of their reputation. If you were told you got two new neighbors, one was a Russian mathematician, and the other a Taiwanese mathematician, who would you or your average Joe assume is the smarter person? I bet 9/10 people you ask, they'll tell you that Russian is probably smarter. The Russian accomplishments in the space and nuclear arms races earned them a reputation as very smart mathematicians and scientists. Even at a time when other countries (such as Taiwan) were just as smart but applied those talents to making computers, TVs, cars, etc. Interesting, Taiwan makes computers, TVs, cell-phones yet still most people would probably assume the Russian is smarter.

If Russia didn't have a state-planned economy and closed trading borders, they probably would've capitilzed on their "smart" reputation. You'll see China do exactly this!

Re:Worked for the Russians -- NOT!

[J05H]

>I don't know of any area where the space-program advanced Russian high-tech exports.

Did you miss Greg Olsen landing last week? From a Soyuz? One of the Russian space-related products is space itself in the form of $20mil trips to the space station. They may not have much going economically, but space launch is one of the bright spots. Russia has the only manned spaceflight system in the world that approaches regular flights - China is still testing and Shuttle is severely grounded.

Josh

Re:Worked for the Russians -- NOT!

[Guppy06]

"Oh yeah, that strategy worked so well for the Russians. How's that Russian cell phone you are using? Reading this on a Russian computer? How about your GLONASS receiver? Your Russian-built TV? Washer-dryer? Car? Tractor even? Combine-harvester?"

Two things:

1. The USSR was more than just Russia. A good deal of the economic collapse we saw in the region in the 1990's was precipitated by the fact that the Soviet Union broke up and saw no successor. If even a half-dozen of the more important Soviet Republics managed to hammer out some sort of confederacy or federation after the collapse instead of all going their separate ways, things would be very different today. Would the US aerospace industry be what it is today if Texas and Florida were two different countries? And we're not just talking about aerospace; the Soviet Union allowed the member republics to specialize in particular industries, relying on the other republics to produce what is no longer made locally. Kazakhstanis could worry about oil and leave wheat production to the Russians.
2. The Soviets felt they had to spend an inordinate part of their budget on defense, thanks to the antagonism of Western Europe (who initially dragged the US along; IMO, Bolshevik Russia made a far more natural ally to the US than either the UK/French alliance or Imperial Germany during the 1910's). Things didn't pan out into other industries as we saw in the US because the benefits were funneled back into the defense industry. The results were that, though the Soviets certainly couldn't build a better toaster, the military hardware the Soviets did focus on were easily on par to NATO technology. If the Soviets didn't (need to) focus so much on defense and allowed more civillian development, I see no reason to believe those techonlogies wouldn't also be on par to what we see in the United States. And if US taxpayers weren't paying for the defense of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, the technology available in the US wouldn't be what it is.

"Unless you are a third-world dictator needing some cheap airplanes, tanks, or guns"

"Inexpensive" isn't always the same as "cheap." And the reason they're on the market for low prices is because there isn't a Soviet Union around any more than can afford the upkeep and maintenance. Ever had to pay for the upkeep of a luxury car that was out of warranty?

Why?

[TopSpin]

Why football (both kinds,) baseball, basketball, hockey, etc? Why do auto manufacturers sink millions into F1? Most of their customers are oblivious to it. Yet year after year teams have budgets.

We keep score. We measure each other, both individuals and aggregates, incessantly. This is not new, surprising or unique to space. It has nothing to do with space specifically. We compete. Space exploration happens to be one of the more benign methods of competition we've managed to invent.

On any given day you're likely to witness the Times quibble about billions 'wasted' in space. In the very same column the next day you'll read about how far we lag the Chinese as they accomplish another mission. Sniping at NASA budgets is easy. It isn't easy to discover you really are second rate.

China, the Final Frontier

[writerjosh]

China, without a doubt, will surpass us economically in the next few decades. This space endeavor is only a foreshadowing of things to come. We in the US should make efforts to pool our resources with China in all things in order to create a stable, peaceful relationship. Otherwise, China will be our new enemy if we are not careful. Their population will create immense demands on the Earth's natural resources (oil, food, etc). If we don't stretch out our arms and try to connect, then the US will be only the 2nd biggest world power.

As for their space program directly, it's only a matter of time before their intelligence gathering surpasses ours (spy satellites).

Re:China, the Final Frontier

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I'd like Firefly to come true too, but creating the Alliance? Wuh de Mah!

Re:China, the Final Frontier

[fletchzip]

An interesting comment. I think as the EU matures, India evolves and China moves forward, it is feasible that the US may be the 4th world power. That's not going to sit well with the xenophobes. Why are you worried that soon someone will be bale to look into your backyard with their satellites but you have no problem with the fact that other people have had to put up with your govt doing it for years? Ultimately it is going to be sheer economic weight that will establish the world order. The space race is somewhat irrelevant in regards to this matter. Manned space flight will continue to be a veil for intelligence and military research. Anyway is their a space race? I don't see the US stepping up space missions because China have launched a rocket. So where is the race? Also I don't think China is launching space missions to try to keep up with anyone, they are doing it to learn how to build rockets for whatever purpose or for their own goals in space.

Re:China, the Final Frontier

[dancpsu]

Unless the EU and India don't cripple their industries with regulations, they will never be world powers. The reason why China is rising is not just economics, it's regulation as well. But if business gets their way too much, then they could look like Japan.

Re:China, the Final Frontier

[fletchzip]

The EU may struggle to overcome regulatory issues but I don't think India will have that problem, the problem India has to overcome on it's quest for 1st world status is natural resources but I think they have a reasonable chance of solving that problem with new technologies and increased use of nuclear power. China's natural resources are too abundant for it to ever look like Japan imo.

R&D doesn't buy business growth

[G4from128k]

This study of $384 billion in R&D spending by 1,000 companies finds no correlation between R&D spending or patents and a company's growth, profitability, or shareholder return. Part of the problem probably stems from too much R and too little D.

What's interesting is that companies with extremely strong R&D foundations such as IBM and Lucent haven't done as well as low R&D companies such as Dell or Wal-Mart. Companies such as Dell and Wal-Mart show the power of very tightly managed business processes without a lot of the traditional science-based R&D.

I'm not saying that new materials aren't essential to the future, only that these new materials are useless without highly efficient business processes to commercialize them. I hope that space race R&D takes this fact into account.

Re:R&D doesn't buy business growth

[Kelson]

Clearly, the solution for profitable business is to let someone else do all the research and development, then implement the results yourself without the burden of a huge money sink.

Actually, that's fairly typical of many industries. The leading edge is dragged down by the overhead of all the experimentation, and once they've worked out a system, the imitators have a much smoother ride. It's easier to stand on giants' shoulders than to build the stilts yourself.

fighting the last war

[Quadraginta]

Eh, this is the problem with Stalinist top-down economic planning. The Chicoms are fighting the last (economic) war here. I seriously doubt the future belongs to the nation that makes best progress in rocket technology, semiconductors, or high-energy materials physics for that matter. Sure, these things are important, but they are well-developed, mature fields of research, and there's no indication that Holy Cow Wow low-hanging fruit breakthroughs are just waiting to happen.

But it's a different story in biotech, nanotech or even funky networked software, which are areas where the US is megaparsecs ahead of the Chinese and if anything pulling away. Sure, a new cadre of starry-eyed Chinese metallurgists and aerospace engineers are going to have influence on the future, make stuff that people in the rest of the world -- say, in Southeast Asia or Africa -- are going to want to buy.

But what about the American firm that comes up with proteomics-based individualized cancer therapies that double lung cancer survival rates? Or a little in utero genetic magic that can cure cystic fibrosis or guarantee perfect vision and superior resistance to infection in every newborn child? How about a vaccine against Alzheimer's so everybody can be as sharp in their 90s as they were in their 50s? Cure for AIDS? Rapid-response antiviral technology that can snuff out avian flu before it gets started? Networking applications infrastructure that make it plausible for most of us to work anywhere without commuting further than from the bedroom to the home office? Nanoscopic fuel cells that let portable electronics work for days or weeks at a time off the electric grid? Any of those future-tech possibilities seems to me way more lucrative to bring to the international market in 2050 than the ability to build rockets or memory chips that are 5% more efficient than anyone else. So if I were buying stock in countries based on their R&D focus, I'd pass up the Chinese as slugfeet, based on their 1960s-era research focus.

Maybe it's just because I remember hearing similar arguments about Korean and Japanese innovations in steel- and auto-making in the 1980s, when American business was jumping out of heavy industry and getting into such weird niche vanity businesses like personal computers. (I mean, who the heck needed a computer on every single desk, just to play Solitaire and Zork and customize the fonts on your letters? Geez, you want computations, go to the computer center and punch a deck like everybody else...)

Re:fighting the last war

[Anthonares]

I don't know that China's space program is a sign of top-down economic planning, because largely the "communist" govenerment is no longer in control of the economy. They seem to be persuing a space program from the standpoint of national pride, perhaps exclusively. If you have a country of more than a billion people and can inspire them to work harder and be more loyal by building a few rockets, wouldn't you do it?

Unfortunately the US is not light-years ahead in biotech, especially stem-cell science. Any differences between our countries in science or technology will not last much longer, because they graduate so very many more scientists and engineers than we do. Granted, our colleges are the envy of the world, but increasingly foreign students are staying home and expending their genius there. This is why Tom Friedman and so many others are talking about how the world is now flattening even for knowledge workers, like scientists.

Re:fighting the last war

[brokeninside]

But what about the American firm that comes up with proteomics-based individualized cancer therapies that double lung cancer survival rates? Or a little in utero genetic magic that can cure cystic fibrosis or guarantee perfect vision and superior resistance to infection in every newborn child? How about a vaccine against Alzheimer's so everybody can be as sharp in their 90s as they were in their 50s? Cure for AIDS?

Long term, China doesn't really have to worry about that because their birth rate exceeds that of the US by such a large factor.

Eh, this is the problem with Stalinist top-down economic planning. The Chicoms are fighting the last (economic) war here. I seriously doubt the future belongs to the nation that makes best progress in rocket technology, semiconductors, or high-energy materials physics for that matter.

China has never been Stalinist. And has been making tremendous strides in making its economy follow more of a market model than the strictly top-down model it followed in the fifties, sixties and seventies.

I do think you are correct that China is fighting an economic war with the US. But, presently, it would seem that China has the upper hand if one is measuring success according to the assumptions of capitalism. The simple question is which country owns more of the means of production of the other country. It seems to me that China owns far more of US factories, real estate, and government debt than the US owns of the same in China. The only non-military pressure that the US can presently exercise on China is the threat of defaulting on the US treasury bills owned by China. But China's government could probably take that hit without slowing down all that much. China, on the other hand, holds tremendous economic influence over the US.

But it's a different story in biotech, nanotech or even funky networked software

Chinese scientists are among the scientific world's leaders in stem cell and cloning research. The number of published articles from Chinese scientists and citations of those articles by other scientists is on par with most western nations in the fields of biotech, nanotech and others.

250 million people in 20 years

[gelfling]

That's how many people China lifted out of poverty. How well did your country do?

Re:250 million people in 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't possibly be serious. First, trusting statistics produced by a communist regime is the only thing stupider than trusting statisitics at all. Second, China has the world's largest and GROWING population of hand-to-mouth poor.

Re:250 million people in 20 years

[FooGoo]

In the US we don't have poverty like they do in China. In the US being poor means you rent a DVD once a month instead of once a week.

Re:250 million people in 20 years

[Shihar]

I'll take my American'poor' or Chinese 'poor' any day of the week. American and European poor die of obesity because they watch too much TV, eat too much food, and burn a few dinos a day in electricity. When the Chinese poor have to worry about dying of over eating and American poor flee the China in cargo crates, then I'll be impressed. Until then, 250,000 Chinese no longer in poverty just means that the government fiddled with the definition of poverty, sent out a few corrupt officials who lied on their census data, had some officials over them fudge a few more figures, then had the CCP propaganda wing fudge the numbers once more, then finally blasted the numbers on the state television after one final fudging by the news 'reporters'.

Re:250 million people in 20 years

[Quadraginta]

Say, how did they get into poverty in the first place? I mean, it's not like China got a late start in the civilization horse race, eh? Wasn't it Mao and the Great Leap "Forward" that were responsible for much of the economic stagnation that plagued China from the early 50s to the late 70s? I thought things only improved when Mr. Little Red Book was shelved and a desperate Party quietly took a few pages from the manifestos of the imperialist running dogs, things like free markets and such.

Re:250 million people in 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Who knows? I don't look to my country to do what people should do for themselves.

Re:250 million people in 20 years

[timbo234]

If you want to compare Chinese poverty to my country (Australia) then the answer is that we lifted zero out of poverty out of a total of zero. Poverty as its defined in China (US$1 per day is the UN's global poverty line) simply doesn't exist in Australia - you could get more money than that begging on the streets of Sydney. China still has a long way to go before the majority of its people 'enjoy' the standard-of-living of even our poorer public housing tenants.

Re:250 million people in 20 years

[Fengpost]

Yeah, and how many percentage of people in China has tap water, toilet, electricity or a proper education. Not to mention the freedom of speech, religion, and press! A measure of a nation's greatness is not in its extraordinary act but in its citizens' everyday life.

one manned launch in four years - is that a race?

[peter303]

Is NASA even in contention anymore? China will have done three, Russia eight, Rutan at least three in that same period of time.

I hope so.

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

If our government (US) has to concentrate on a "Space Race" as opposed to invading countries to promote democracy, I say GREAT! I'd rather have my tax money for a space race anyday. Space races, although expensive, have positive results. Wars, on the other hand, rarely have positive results. Yeah, yeah, WWII was a necessary war, but I'm talking about these wars that don't do much except get a lot of innocent people hurt because of some ideology.

British Astronauts?

[Winckle]

The BBC are reporting on a possible cahnge in stance for Britain's current ban on tax payer astronaut spending

Oops, but we need Zero-G to make it all

[spun]

Wouldn't it be ironic if we developed all those wonderful things you listed, but it then turned out that in order to make them economically and efficiently, we needed to do it in zero-g. And wouldn't it be a funny ol' world if the Chinese then took our innovations and capitalized on them because they had the zero-g fabs? And in retaliation for their stealing our ideas we used our secret space lasers and blew their fabs out of orbit? And that started WWIII and...

Wait, that wouldn't be funny at all, never mind.

Re:Simple

[McSpace]

Hah! You earth-bounders are just jealous of our enormous rocketships! If you had rocketships like we do, you'd be racing, too. But you'd lose, because our rocketships are bigger than anyone else's!

It's not the size that matters, but how you use it.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sure, but how many mega-millionaires has China created? The only true measure of the wealth of a nation is how many ultra rich it has. Anyone who makes less than $1,000,000 per year shouldn't count anyway. What have the poor ever done for us? Everyone knows that all wealth is created by the rich. If you want to be better off as a nation kill all the poor and never make the rich pay taxes. The rich are obviously favored by God, if not actually Divine in some way. The fact is, poor people are not selfish enough to succeed, and as we all know, selfishness is next to godliness, so they are all going to hell anyway.

nothing is monocausative

[globaljustin]

or, to say more correctly, technological advancements partially justify manned space programs.

you said in a previous post:

"Hey, all you entrepreneurs working on technologies to satisfy actual human desires: STOP. Give us money so we can show the Ruskies where it's it."

Do you deny the strategic advantages of space? Do you have any doubt that Russia was seeking to gain power and eventually dominion over the U.S. in some way? You can validly say that the U.S. space program was run very ineffiently, but to say that it was ONLY about beating the Russians, well, that's just wrong. Here's where I link this to your latest comment...nothing on a macro scale is monocausative.

You assume that there is always ONE central reason for something happening. Especially on the international stage, this is a fatal assumption.

And you shouldn't say "Space research is good because it gets us better computers."

Why not???

It was the computer research that produced the benefit, irrespective of whether that research is "for space" or not. Don't use peripheral gains to justify a different goal.

You wish the people in power would just:

Just say what you mean

Well my friend, especially in America, things are NOT THAT SIMPLE. It's just a reality of our American system of business, government, and research. Did we go to the moon for exploration? Yes. Did we go there to enrich texas businesses? Yes. Did we go there to prove to the Russians that we are dominant? Yes. Did we go there for science? Yes. Did we go there to advance computer technology? Yes.

We went to the moon (culmination of space race, btw) for myriad reasons because that is how America works, by consensus. Different groups with different, sometimes overlapping, interests get together for common good. The more we get together, the more we accomplish...the individual stick is weaker than a bundle of....yeah you get the idea.

So, your criticism of 'going to space just for research' is invalid...b/c whenever we go to space, there are many reasons, not one...we never went to space just for research.

I believe my own eyes

[gelfling]

China has 100 cities of more than one million people. I've seen a percentage of them.

Re:I believe my own eyes

[Anonymous Coward]

Go take a look at the countryside where the people that are left ar piss poor. I'm talking about the people who haven't been forcefully removed from their homes and forced to go live in the filthiest, most polluted cities on the globe all in the name of progress.

I thought fellow travellers like you wised up and changed flags after Stalin & Co went out of business. Apparently not.

We have more pressing priorities here

[lawpoop]

I am not against space research per se, but I think space research isn't the best place to be spending our limited research dollars. We are losing plant and animals species by the dozens each year, just when we are learning enough about DNA to make some real advances in biology and medicine. I don't think 'rocket science', atomic research, and metallurgy will be the science that puts food in the table in the upcoming centuries. Soon, we will be growing new plants, tools, dwellings and organs. The future will be unimaginable. We will live in a symbioses with living surroundings we will have created. If my prediction holds true, we are now in the process of burning million-year-old libraries of genetic information while shooting rockets into space.

If we can't solve the political, social, and economic problems we have right now here on Earth, nothing magic is going on happen on the long space journey to our 'new home'. We have to learn to effectively deal with these problems -- they are endemic to human existence, and they will follow us everywhere. We won't leave them behind if/when we leave Earth.

you have no evidence

[globaljustin]

<i>The next president, whether Republican or Democrat, is likely to terminate the remains of the US manned program. Except perhaps a few flights using Russian hardware.</i><br<br>

what support do you have for this argument?  You provided none.  I know these issues well, and I cannot think of any reasons to support this statement.

Re:you have no evidence

[tftp]

IMO, there is just no money to do the job. NASA is a very expensive bureaucracy, and they have a very expensive legacy (STS) to drag along. In general, USA is probably the most expensive place on Earth to do development. You may get what you pay for, but only if you can afford it. With current US budget being as red as it is, and with oil being as expensive as it is, one can definitely believe that the next president will have his hands full with just keeping the basic economy going.

Re:you have no evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Ref- see SSC

Earth's got plenty resources

[Alwin Henseler]

The Earth's resources are dwindling and if we intend to survive the next two thousand years, we're going to have to find resources elsewhere to sustain ourselves.

Hmm, so because we might make our own planet a shitty place to live in, you suggest we go out and look for other planets to fuck up, instead of fixing things here? Newsflash: a fresh new world 10 lightyears out won't help shit back on Earth, and everybody who's not an astronaut (or filthy rich) will be stuck here anyway.

As for resources: there's plenty of those. Mankind is mostly burning away fossil fuels, which can be replaced with other energy sources. Most other materials and energy sources found on earth are constant. A heavy metal mine depleted? Well, all that metal didn't disappear, just shipped around the globe and turned into something else (and thrown away after use). Today's landfill = tomorrow's goldmine.

Water? Covers 2/3 of the planet. Food? We're producing enough to feed ~10 billion people today, we could grow plenty more if we needed to, and world population may stabilize before it reaches that mark. Energy? Solar power will be around for a couple of years more, I think.

We don't need far away worlds to survive. Unless some 100+ km. asteroid hits our planet, mankind will be just fine - if we CHOOSE to be.

Re:Earth's got plenty resources

[rufty_tufty]

But if those heavy metals can be got for less resources by mining near earth asteroids?
What if we can hollow out these asteroids (or build spheres from ice) and use them to grow food stuffs for use down here?
Or if we use orbital solar power arrays for greater efficiency?

Space technology doesn't mean many/any have to leave the planet, but we can expoit the resources up there for down here.

As for recycling rubbish tips; what you miss there is that the concentrations of valuable materials in there are no-where near as high as you get in economically viable deposits. Sure that'll shift over time, but it's got a long way to go before I start fighting the seagulls at my local tip.

Re:Earth's got plenty resources

[rufty_tufty]

Forgot to add to the last point that we're much closer to getting the abopve space technologies working than we are to getting the required recycling efficiencies and economies in place. Therefore my money goes on what appears to be the cheapest route which is space.

Why the space race?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has to do with the NSS document in 2002 stating that the United States should militarize space. The US would love to have the ability to drop a nuke or any other weapon from any point on earth within minutes instead of hours. The Chinese and Europeans are not dumb, so they have to make sure that they can counteract any plans by the United States to dominate space.

Re:Why the space race?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure that they already have something like that floating around up there, I mean stealth technology was around in the late 70's and they finaly told us about it in the early 90's. Chances are if they ever had the idea to do something like that and thought it was important, it would would be done by now. Unless the major setback is that they don't want something shooting something off because of a software glitch.

Re:Why the space race?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the technology exists in some form of stealth weapon deployment, the current treaty we have says that space is owned by no one, and we will not make any claims about the domain of space. The US reversed that in 2002.
Look up the National Security Strategy plan of 2002.

Join the Military

[Anonymous Coward]

THE SPACE PROGRAM IS A TOOL TO RECRUITE CHILDREN FOR THE MILITARY.

Remember what the grand prize was for Double Dare? Doesn't take a fucking rocket scientist to figure this one out.

George Bush eats babies.

mod parent down

[globaljustin]

mod parent down...this is flame and it is inaccurate.  What possible definition of 'poverty' did poster use?  What statistics?  Are these official Chinese Government stats?

Blind quotaions of random flame statistics such as this should be detected by moderators as flame already...mod down mod down mod down

newsflash::China is a coorperation

[Brigadier]

Dude, China is a coorperation. And they are doing exactly what they need to do. Show thier prowess and capabilities. American technology is on the decline now they are showing that asian has the technology and the means. Pretty soon the IBM's Microsoft, Ciscos will be all located in china and be a part of the chinese economy.

Positive space program spinoffs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Astroglide, anyone?

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an international penis size comparison. Canada's climate causes shrinkage anyway.

Re:Simple

[SharkJumper]

Ancient Chinese saying: He who sits at top of gravity well drops rocks on he who sits at bottom.

I suppose ego or national pride could play a part too though.

SharkJumper

Re:Simple

[brendalson]

To tell the truth, it's the fact that they see human life the way they do that is going to make their journeys into space interesting. We Americans over engineer everything to be as safe as we can make it. One of the large drawbacks to this is that we don't take to many risks and chances when human life is concerned. It's something that China isn't going to worry about. They won't over engineer and they will be willing to take risks that we won't. Yes, they are going to lose people. Yes, bad things are going to happen for them. But they are going to go a great distance in a short amount of time in the "space race" because of it.

This is not rocket science

[ipsender]

Pardon the pun. This article falls into the commentator category. It does not contain any information that cannot be readily deduced. What is required is articles which purport news analysis. For example, an economic analysis of whether it is actually a viable possibility for China to compete in space over time, especially given the reasons for the the collapse of the Soviet Union including over-wheening belief in its own economic ability without real economic underpinnings.

of course

[globaljustin]

Rutan at least three in that same period of time.

Rutan? He's not near the same level. His accomplishments are not about space travel, but about private funding of space travel. He did not orbit, as I've said before on here, he just used updated X project technology...rocket plane dropped from a bigger plane.

ironic indeed

[Quadraginta]

It would be ironic, yes. Also astonishing and unlikely, since no one in the business seems to give much of a damn about zero-G fabrication. I don't think it's likely to be important myself -- although I'm no biotech expert at all -- on the basic molecular physics consideration that, on the scale of molecules, the force of gravity is a ridiculously small perturbation. It's hard to think of many systems which are so delicate that gravity can make or break the manufacturing process. Space would arguably be far more valuable as a very cheap enormous ultrahigh vacuum chamber, but unfortunately this chamber is flooded with nasty high-energy radiation.

Actually, I can't persuade myself that space is useful in any serious way for any kind of manufacturing. Hence the real reasons I support space travel enthusiastically are more or less just manifest-destiny expand-or-die arguments. I feel in my bones (i.e. without any articulable rational reason) that cultures that stop looking outward, which no longer produce an excess of men seeking new places to take insane risks with their lives, become moribund and flaccid, and then suddenly die when the next unexpected environmental perturbation comes along.

For this reason, I'm unimpressed with massive and cautious state-sponsored exploration, fleets of ships with all the amenities, safety cushions for everyone, and gold dinner service for the embarked king. I'd look for a crop of wild-eyed unshaven adventurers, in a motley collection of vessels with wildly varying motives and methods and a high mortality rate. The weird look of Rutan's Space Ship One compared to the conservative look of the Shenzhou, and the fact that the Starchaser rocket exploded in everbody's view at the XP Cup shindig in Las Cruces versus the fact that the Chicoms tightly monitor public access to their launches does much to relieve me of any concern that the PRC is now the place to be if you're an egomaniac pioneer with quite possible The Right Stuff, even in aerospace.

I once had a Lada does that count ?

[Brigadier]

I once drove a Lada, tough as nails it was. could fix anythign on it with a comb and some duct tape.

http://www.crxsi.com/mycar/lada.htm

Re:I once had a Lada does that count ?

[David Off]

> I once had a Lada does that count ?

no because it is a Fiat 124 or something

The "why" of taikonaut

[pclminion]

Why is the term for a space-going human different depending on the nationality of the person in question? U.S. space-farers are astronauts, Russians are cosmonauts, Chinese are taikonauts... This is stupid. What the hell does somebody's nationality have to do with anything?

If anything, space is the one place where everybody can be truly united -- political divisions don't seem to matter very much, when you're looking down at the entire Earth and see it for what it truly is -- a big rock in space that we all live on.

Leave this idiotic divisiveness down here. I think a great many wars could have been prevented if we'd shot the leaders of the opposing sides into space and let them look down on what they are really fighting over. So let's call it, in the interests of fairness, a taikosmastronaut, and leave it at that. No new terms. This is stupid.

Re:The "why" of taikonaut

[Taco Cowboy]

Why is the term for a space-going human different depending on the nationality of the person in question? U.S. space-farers are astronauts, Russians are cosmonauts, Chinese are taikonauts... This is stupid. What the hell does somebody's nationality have to do with anything?

If anything, space is the one place where everybody can be truly united -- political divisions don't seem to matter very much, when you're looking down at the entire Earth and see it for what it truly is -- a big rock in space that we all live on.

Leave this idiotic divisiveness down here. I think a great many wars could have been prevented if we'd shot the leaders of the opposing sides into space and let them look down on what they are really fighting over. So let's call it, in the interests of fairness, a taikosmastronaut, and leave it at that. No new terms. This is stupid.

I can't agree with you more with what you have said, but there's one thing that I'd like to point out - and that, if there is a space-race, it definitely wasn't started by the Chinese.

Do you know that Chinese are barred from participating in the International Space Station program ?

Can't blame them if they have to do everything on their own.

Re:The "why" of taikonaut

[Anonymous Coward]

well, if U.S. is willing to give the "astronaut" up.. after all.. cosmonaut is there first.

Re:The "why" of taikonaut

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait.... Chinese don't actually call them "taikonaut". They are known as yuhangyuan, literally space-navigating-person. The "taikonaut" term is just something invented by western press....

That Is Idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even stop to think for a second why 250 million people were in poverty in the first place? Didn't think so.

Could it have been that their collective state failed miserably before going to a more capitalistic system? Why don't you learn about the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution. Economic activity and education basically stopped during that time. In short, imprisoning and killing your own intellectuals will do wonders to lead your country to poverty. They basically brought poverty onto themselves.

This allegedly "insightful" post proves what a bunch of retards the mods are.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the large drawbacks to this is that we don't take to many risks and chances when human life is concerned. It's something that China isn't going to worry about. They won't over engineer and they will be willing to take risks that we won't.

Total trolling. Have you checked their blueprint for their rocket design? Oversee their engineers and manufacturing process?

Yes, they are going to lose people. Yes, bad things are going to happen for them. But they are going to go a great distance in a short amount of time in the "space race" because of it.

Are you just trying to be funny? Dude, how many lives we've lost in our space program? How many pieces of space-gear/component malfunctioned after take-off? What's the deal here? You sound as if they take tremendous risk and that's the only reason they succeeded? Maybe based on your reason both Chinese rockets should've just exploded without taking off a meter if they're taking such huge risk and not value human life. Dude, do we have to put down others because we can't do it here now? NASA don't have the dough, so be it. What's the problem with other countries achieving it? Why diminish other peoples achievement?

no one said that wasn't true

[gelfling]

250 million is 20% of the population. Still 250 million is 250 million. Anyway shouldn't you be in the bomb shelter cleaning your M-16?

ICBMs

[Doc Ruby]

I'm all for space development. I want to see its benefits in all those things pursued. But the truth is that the US and Soviet Union raced to space as a way to develop Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles with nuclear warheads. Nations continue to pursue this path for those same reasons, with more or less the same priority for the ballistic missile research. That doesn't mean we have to keep prioritizing the warfare research. But we shouldn't pretend that we've gotten our priorities straight until we actually have.

Re:ICBMs

[DerekLyons]

I'm all for space development. I want to see its benefits in all those things pursued. But the truth is that the US and Soviet Union raced to space as a way to develop Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles with nuclear warheads.

The problem is - the facts don't support that argument. We 'raced' to space on converted ICBM's and derived technology that was already being phased out from ICBM usage. We built no liquid fueled ICBM's after Titan II - which reached service in 1962.

Re:ICBMs

[Doc Ruby]

No, those facts don't directly support the argument. The space race was a lot more than just the rocket engines. Just launching a rocket doesn't get it to its destination. And just manufacturing some rockets doesn't make an industry. The space race was part of the R&D for the rest of the program. And even more important, the space race was propaganda for Americans to accept the $billions spent on building a Federal rocket/aerospace industry, most of which was going into ICBMs and other Cold War tech to be used in a hot war.

Re:ICBMs

[DerekLyons]

No, those facts don't directly support the argument.

Then produce some that do... Because while I'm producing facts, you are producing handwaving.

The space race was a lot more than just the rocket engines. Just launching a rocket doesn't get it to its destination. And just manufacturing some rockets doesn't make an industry.

Utterly meaningless handwaving.

The space race was part of the R&D for the rest of the program.

A completely false claim. The launchers used in the space race were either a) developed from ICBM's (I.E. the R&D was already done) or b) down a different evolutionary path than ICBM's took (I.E. the R&D doesn't feed back). On path 'b' the motors were completely different, the structures utterly different, the guidance systems derived from path 'a', etc...

And even more important, the space race was propaganda for Americans to accept the $billions spent on building a Federal rocket/aerospace industry, most of which was going into ICBMs and other Cold War tech to be used in a hot war.

The problem is - chronology doesn't support this. By the time the space race geared up the rocket/aerospace industry was already running full steam. It was already accepted by the public as being needed to 'defeat the godless commies', no additional propoganda needed.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

it really ticks me off when countries get into pissing competitions like this. instead of diverting billions of dollars into stuff like this (or "arming" space), there are countless other uses for that money (ironically, for example, to pay off the debt to China)

Here is the why of the space race

[SouthSong]

Preparation for military expression of might. China has beefed up its military wing and by entering the space race it builds nationalism. It will need national support to overcome something like taking over Taiwan and rebuffing U.S. Counter Strike.

Enough with the warm fuzzy of space exploration

[voss]

Why do the chinese understand this and we dont

"From a science and technology perspective, the experience of developing and testing a manned spacecraft will be more important to China's space effort than anything that their astronauts can actually accomplish on the new spacecraft," the article stated. "This is because it will raise levels in areas such as computers, space materials, manufacturing technology, electronic equipment, systems integration and testing."

US - China debt

[captaineo]

I wonder if China is attempting to goad the US into spending billions more on space exploration... Money that will come in the form of treasury debt to the Chinese central bank.

Private funding?

[Anonymous Coward]

If a company makes most of its money on selling UAVs (Predator, etc.) to the government, I don't consider it to be privately funded.

Re:Private funding?

[globaljustin]

i'm with you.  i said 'private funding' because that is how it has been reported in the mainstream media because he won the x-prize, so by my estimation, that's what's bringing Rutan attention in the first place.  His business prowess.  I didn't know Rutan's company made those eerily Terminator-like UAV's...

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

If they operate their space program safety the way they operate their underground mine safety, then I would worry if I were a taikonaut. The US may have lost lives in their space program, but the attitude to this does seem very different from China's.

Wrong analogy

[bluGill]

Your analogy is wrong. You have consider taking I5, and CA-22. How you never considered teleportation, helicopter, or airplanes. Your thinking is constrained because the US and your state put a lot of money into building roads.

If your state had not put money into roads, and thus your road choices were dirt (not even gravel) tracks, you would have developed other modes of transportation. Because you are not the only one in the position of needing to get home from work, there would be great demands for whatever you use instead.

Lets call that replacement helicopters, to pick one. Because so many people are buying helicopters, there would be hundreds of models to choose from. The Japanese would have been beating the US's lunch in the 70s, but today the Koreans would be trying hard, with the Chinese looking for their way into the market.

Would this be better or worse? We will never know because we have a road system that is already a sunk cost.

Re:Wrong analogy

[R3d M3rcury]

I think you got hung up on the road and car part. Sorry, I'm in Southern California, so we tend to think in cars... :^)

I'll try it again.

I need to go from Point A to Point B. I know I can walk from Point A to Point B. I can also bicycle, I can drive a vehicle, I can ride a horse, a donkey, or a very large dog.

The grandparent said, "I reject all arguments that space was really good for us. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, since we don't have a proper scientific controlled experiment we cannot know." To apply this statement to my analogy, the grandparent is saying that he rejects that I can walk from Point A to Point B because the best method of getting to point B has not yet been determined.

Maybe I'll try a different tack.

Wars are known to spur technological development. I don't reject this. I'm not convinced that it's worth getting into a war just so that after the war (assuming we won), I could potentially fly from New York to Tokyo in 3 hours on a hypersonic airliner which grew out of the military's need for a hypersonic bomber. But I don't reject the fact that wars are known to spur technological development. I just don't believe we should get into wars and kill thousands or millions of people for the sole purpose of spurring technological innovation. Call me a bleeding heart liberal... :^)

To take it back to the space exploration argument, I don't reject that space exploration has improved our way of life here on Earth. I may not be convinced that we should devote billions upon billions of dollars to go to the Moon and Mars on the chance that the above mentioned hypersonic airliner would become a reality. That's fine--that's an opinion. But there are many examples where space research has improved life on Earth. Now, would we have those same benefits without space research? That cannot be determined. Are there other ways, besides space research, to get those same benefits? That has yet to be determined. But I don't deny the facts that show space research has improved life on Earth.

I'm reminded of the people who reject global warming because it cannot be proved that mankind is the sole source.

Re:Wrong analogy

[bluGill]

I think we are making the same point, but I'm not sure.

I need to go from Point A to Point B. I know I can walk from Point A to Point B. I can also bicycle, I can drive a vehicle, I can ride a horse, a donkey, or a very large dog.

You have still forgotten the helicopter, airplane. Maybe we would have teleportation by now if all the energy that went into space went into physics research (they have teleported elementary particles a few feet in the lab, though it isn't clear if this can generalize to anything bigger). Today all 3 of those are infeasible for the average person. (my office has a place to park my car, but no runway or helicopter pad)

I'm also not arguing that space research hasn't benefited us. I'm arguing that perhaps it wasn't as much benefit as something else we could have done instead.

The "manned" and the "un-manned"

[betasam]

Personally, I believe space research may be vital for us for research and experiments which cannot be performed within the earth's atmosphere, but provide vital clues to theoretical physicists to validate theories. The most successful space programmes have been "unmanned" including the Voyager series (no not the Star Trek one you see on TV), Galileo, Ulysses to name a few. The Mars Rovers that gave us quite a lot of detail from Martian terrain were "un-manned", and yet provided necessary scientific information.

Even Carl Sagan would agree that a "manned" mission under current conditions is more of a publicity stunt and a splurge of tax money. MIT's robotics labs believe they could have clustered robots (or swarm robots) programmed to search for vital mineral resources on unexplored planet terrain providing clues for life or proto-life. The Space Research programmes (be it USA or erstwhile USSR or China or even India in the future) are in the most part publicity stunts. Part of it is because of political control over the immense amount of funding required in Space research. I am not sure that one would want to spend billions of $$$s to boost public morale and achieve far too little in scientifically. I often wonder how ancient astronomy progressed significantly without the use of much equipment, but on the basis of pure observation and correlation. Some day science would be the turf for scientists, for now so long as BIG funds are necessitated, publicity stunts and "manned" missions will be inevitable.

I can't imagine humans going to the moon to collect debris and bring them 'home' for analysis when we have the technology to avoid this. No one walks into a volcanic vent to collect geological data, into which we have robots going where no man has gone before. They do provide useful scientific data, which can be scientifically analysed in non-realtime. I am not aware of a situation where a significant "realtime" response is required to have a "manned" mission to the moon (or into a volcanic vent), enough to justify endangering the life of the astronauts. (This is not about the "thrill" of space tourism.) Of the few "manned" successes was "Hubble" and the Orbital Space Stations which too can be assembled today with lesser human intervention.

The Real Reasons behind the Space Race

[i]

* * *

We have two old space race participants: US and Russia. And at least three new ones: China which is seriously on the way to space, Japan with plans but still no results and India that at least have ambitions.

None of them are offically talking about the real value of a positin in space: Military Power.

Yes, a big part of the motivation is national prestige, but the real critical point is the strategic advantage of space. Whe you have a space station or a base on e g the Moon and also vehicles stationed there with decent transport capacity, you control the earth !

The potentiol tools are of two kinds: One are the same old nuclear weapons, but with a ballistic advantage as they are at the top of the gravity well.

The other one is the killer: A possibility to divert small comets or asteroids towards earth ! And if noone else have similar capabilitys in space, You is the one that sets the rules.

This is certianly China aware of. They probably see USA as their main enemy, if not by any other reason so for the fact that USA is the most powerful (at least w r t military forces) country on earth. And one way to get an advantage is to get a base in space.

Chinas potential motives is certainly also US aware of, at least some intelligency agencies and other political actors in the states. But maybe Bush et al still does not take this seriously.

But I'm suprised that noone (AFAICS) is commenting on this situation.
Nevertheless, if China is succesfull in space and start to build a moonbase you will see a new race to space by US and this time with full throttle. If not - then it's time to start learning mandarin...

* * *

Re:The Real Reasons behind the Space Race

[MikeyToo]

There's a reason why neither the US or the USSR developed space-based nuclear weapons systems.

They're useless.

Let's take a nuclear-capable satellite. Unless you have unlimited fuel, your little "space battlestation" will be pretty much in a fixed orbit. In case of hostilites, any launch would be like telegraphing your punch. You only have certain points in your orbit where Sir Issac will let you launch and hit your targets. If you did make an orbit change, your adversaries would have your new launch points recomputed in about a minute.

A base on the moon is an even worse proposition. In addition to the restrictions placed on you by celestial mechanics, you have the fact that the moon is about 250,000 miles away. The math for this is over my head I admit. I would think that something along the lines of a Peacekeeper would still take the better part of a day to hit a target. Seems they would be a simple target for an intercept also, given the amount of time for acquisition and tracking.

Using an asteroid as a weapon seems utterly foolish with the current state of technology. A tiny mistake means that you could end up dropping that rock on your own head. You may even succeed, but before your rock hits, your adversary would probably unload on you with his nukes. You wouldn't even be around to see your "victory".

Sid Says

[focitrixilous P]

Unless one of the countries wipes out everyone else, the only way to win is to get to Alpha Centauri, and the tech tree is not nearly devloped enough at the moment. The space race is just the preliminaries for the real race.

Penicillin, ENIAC - out of the blue

[weighn]

If you want better materials, research better materials

Many of the greatest discoveries were unexpected adjuncts to research in other areas..

Wikipedia has a good article on the development of Technology during World War II.

Radar, sonar, synthetic fuels, "Digital electronics, particularly, was also given a massive boost by war-related research" (ENIAC).

A new space race is A Good Thing.

Re:Penicillin, ENIAC - out of the blue

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the war related research was to solve real problems. We didn't justify the development of radar by the creation of the microwave oven. We justified the research by the fact that it helped us win WWII.

Any difficult technical undertaking will produce spin-off technology. If we spent all of NASA's budget on deep ocean exploration, we'd see spin-off's. If we spent its budget on developing alternative energy sources, we'd see spin-offs. If we direct all of NASA's budget to unmanned missions, we'd see spin-offs. Hell, if we spent its budget on building the tallest building we can so we can piss off God, we'd see spin-offs. The creation of spin-off technologies is not an argument for any one project or area of research, its just an argument for spending money on science and technology.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Our rocketships are huge AND they go to the fucking moon.

(I know your comment was sexual. So was mine.)

Re:one manned launch in four years - is that a rac

[MMaestro]

The fact that the space shuttle exploded a few years ago didn't help. And that was designed to be reused unlike the Russian and Chinese disposable rockets which are dumped into ocean/left to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. And then of course, theres the recent accident with pieces of the second shuttle falling off during launch. THATS going to hurt U.S. works in outer space.

Last word in outsourcing

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Actually, I can't persuade myself that space is useful in any serious way for any kind of manufacturing.

I think space will be useful for manufacturing, and indeed will ultimately replace any kind of planet-based manufacturing. Think about it, to manufacture, you need two things, materials and energy, two things which are in abundance in space. If someone built a general purpose factory relatively close to the sun, to use that vast nuclear furnace, and supplied it with materials from asteroids, it opens the doors for macroengineering projects on a scale undreamt of, at a fairly reasonable cost.

Essentially infinite resources for the taking, and essentially infinite energy being pumped out around the clock? I don't see how that wouldn't pay for itself in the first year. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate that there are significant issues that would have to be addressed first, such as how to get your manufactured goods to market, and setting up the mining and resource location infrastructure first, but to reach these goals we need more exploration and experimentation.

What this kind of station or stations would do very effectively would be to produce space based resources in enormous quantites. You want a fleet of spacecraft? We'll have that for you in 12 months, sir, and all it will cost is the lease on our robotic mining fleet, pay for station staff, and a bit on the top. Don't have a mining fleet? We'll churn one out in about three weeks. These are the kind of projects which are essentially impossible, now or ever, from earth.

Hell, we could construct a functioning death star if it took our fancy.

Re:Last word in outsourcing

[rufty_tufty]

While I completely agree with you on so much of what you said there, 2 things occured to me:
* Most of what you say seems to advocate robotic explotation of space over manned missions. While I agree with this it says that perhaps the Chinese focus is in the wrong place.
* No we couldn't build a death star, just no, do you know how impossible and against the known laws of physics that ting is right? :-) Would be fun to try though

Now if we gave up on this go to the moon malarchy and one space agency said "No we're going to capture an asteroid and mine that. Then I'd get very excited. Few others would though...

Oh, yeah: National Pride

[WheelDweller]

"While it is a matter of national pride, China in specific also sees this as a way to increase the reputation of its high-tech exports."

Not to mention that it plays a part in the next World War...

Matter of Honour

[Petersson]

Just understand: Chinese have a strong motivation to go in space. They invented gun powder, fireworks but couldn't get their butts off the ground to space during the space race.

But no space flights changes the fact that China has communistic dictatorship.

Re:Simple

[rufty_tufty]

The figures I saw, said that they were doing it on a shoestring budget. It has cost $2.3 billion to date http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9685477/ and If I remember right nasa has twice this much per year(but nasa does MUCH more than manned space flight).
Granted Chinese labour costs less, but I don't think it's fair to say nasa doesn't have the money.

I think another thing people forget is when it is working nasa is doing much more in orbit than putting people up there. When China is regularly lifting cargo up and maintaining and building the ISS as nasa has been doing then I think we can compare the two.

Until then China is playing catchup and good on them, the more people at the table the better! Hopefully they will do what we all want and lower the cost of access to space.

Education?

[gelfling]

Well I know for a fact they grind out more PhD's in the hard sciences than we do. Does that count?

No they've been poor for a very long time

[gelfling]

A few hundred years at least. Plus that whole Japanese engineered genocide in the 1930's didn't help too much either.

Re:No they've been poor for a very long time

[ABCC]

Your correct in saying that the Japanese invasion in the 30s didn't help much, neither did the war with them at the start of the century. However, "a few hundred years at least" is incorrect. The main goal of european exploration was always getting to China (think Marco Polo, Columbus etc.) since it has historically been the largest economy in the world. They held this position well into the 19th century. In the mid 19th century, the British fought them in the Opium wars to ensure that their silver would flow to India, which in turn meant that India could buy textiles from the UK. It wasn't until the flow of silver from South America's mines to China by way of the USA was stopped that the Chinese economy flopped (late 19th) and a period of stagflation/deflation occurred, which was further compounded by the Great Depression). So, in conclusion, Mao forgot that basic adage "its the economy stupid" but wasn't the cause of China's fall from the dizzying heights of the previous 25 centuries. A good essay on the subject is http://www.rrojasdatabank.org/agfrank/reorient_19c .doc. Don't be put off by the fact that he's a lefty, I learned this in a capitalist running dog Economics School.

Are you insane?

[gelfling]

Seriously, are you?

We should just kill and eat them then

[gelfling]

And we can euthanize the lame, the blind, and anyone else who stands in the way of our bright shining eugenic wonderland then.

You are basically a fucking retard and living proof that the standard maturity for /. is about age 14.

Re:Simple

[hesiod]

Amazing that the Ancient Chinese knew what a "gravity well" was....

Everyone but u.s. is in a space race

[heroine]

Seems everyone but u.s. is treating it like a space race. U.s. is happy to let China and France dominate the high ground and buy their services for a premium while it lays off its aerospace engineers. Then again, leaving the stifling culture of American business out of the space race may be a good thing.

nah

[koroviev (begemot)]

What has China got? Ideally trained workers - will work for little, do everything you tell them, very obedient, taking no initiative (i.e. cannot mess up things by doing something stupid).
What can China do with them? Nothing - lets not forget - there's the workers, and the Party with its planned economy (in the 20th century). No middle class, no initiative, no inovation.
Party people have no originality or initiative or innovativeness by being bureaucrats, and the workers are just trained to not take initiative.

So, China decides (in the 70s) to sell their workers to those who can actually make good use of them. i.e. foreign companies. And suddenly China starts making money.

Can anyone explain me how selling your resources to the world can be a threat? China is nowhere near being capitalist (and therefore competitive), when it comes to technology. Because technology requires innovativeness, originality, individualism, and dislike for established paradigms/authorities in a specific matter. China hasn't got what it takes when it comes to educating/upbringing the scientists and engineers that will be doing the research, and those chineese who go abroad and learn a different mindset and like it - will not go back to China.

Unless kicked out of the USA/Europe :).

Re:nah

[koroviev (begemot)]

Ps. There can be no chineese middle class (outside the party conections bureaucracy) as the chineese proto-middle class can never compete with the american when it come to the resource - the chineese workers. If it is a fair competition - about making the most money out of them. If it is not - then they wouldnt learn how to be efficient and competitive - would they. So - I dont see any problems in the forseeable future. Unless people start seeing a problem where it doesnt exist and force chineese immigrants to go back to China.

Re:nah

[koroviev (begemot)]

PSS. When you are this way - your best approach to technology is reverse engineering/copying what others have done before you. This way one can keep some semblance of technological parity. This, however, is also a dead end - because the people who are best at being "trendy" with their research and/or technological development - will not recognise a good (original) idea even if it hits them on the head. So, such an environment has positive feedback towards being more and more "second best".

Cutting corners not cheap

[SeanDuggan]

Even if human life is cheap for them, technology isn't. You can't afford to have your shuttle burn up in the atmosphere because that means a millions of lost dollars (yes, I know they don't use dollars there) in lost equipment. Even cutting corners in safety like lowest-bidder harnesses means your million-dollar spacecraft may become a million-dollar paperweight because your pilots were killed from the shock of launch. The only place where a lack of regard for human life could come in handy would be experimenting to find the limits of human endurance for things like vacuum, temperature extremes, etc and volunteers might be in short supply.