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NASA To Push Human Spaceflight
b00le wrote to mention a New Scientist article in which NASA chief Mike Griffin says that human spaceflight should be NASA's top priority. From the article: "Griffin countered that the same loss of expertise threatened NASA's human spaceflight programme, which had served to define the US as a world 'superpower'. He said NASA lost a substantial fraction of skilled engineers during a six-year gap between the end of the Apollo programme in 1975 and the first space shuttle flight in 1981. Letting the human spaceflight programme 'atrophy' after Apollo damaged the agency for three decades, he said."
There is another word for it, but it is great to see more and more companies start to focus on lost knowledge. I'd like to believe that the tech industry in both programming, help desk, and other fields focus on retaining this with benefits and such but with the eweeks, etc that I read and working where I currently do, I sometimes wonder. But as an American, it makes me proud that NASA finally has an intelligent leader (one whom I hope provides a space boost not only in America but an extra boost for other existing agencies across the world).
The more I hear Griffin speak, the more I think he was the perfect choice to head up NASA. The guy knows exactly what needs to get done, isn't afraid to push what needs to be done, is able to eloquently express why it needs to be done, and yet is respectful of the role he plays in the government without becoming a political shill.
About this particular story, he's right about needing human spaceflight. Every time we decide to push back on human space flight, we further reduce the ability of science programs to do their work. New technologies that could have been developed to get science packages off the ground and into space faster and cheaper get lost because there's no push for more advanced vehicles and technology. I don't know about anyone else, but I pray for the day when science packages based on reconfigurable standard designs can be simply and inexpensively launched from a space station. (A la Star Trek probes.) The mass production would allow us to launch more probes for less, and the orbital launch would save tens of millions on each probe. Thus instead of spending 20 years preparing for a single mission, we'll be able to reduce each mission to as little as 5 years (or less!) preparation time.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Griffin defended the agency's 2007 budget proposal, announced on 6 February, at a hearing before the US House of Representatives' science committee. The $16.8 billion budget includes $5.3 billion for science in 2007 but calls for $3.1 billion in cuts to science programmes by 2010 compared to projections made in the 2006 budget request.
Despite all the sybolism associated with sending people out into space, it's just not worth cancelling so many science programs. This related story details exactly what they're planning on cutting and states that from 2008 to 2011 science spending will increase by just 1% each year (is that even enough to keep up with inflation?). Is it really that important to send people back to the moon or to Mars?
I came here for a good argument
"Touché," Griffin responded. "I'm complaining now."
And this would be invaluable in a) reviving NASA's flagging image and b) allowing the private sector to take a more active role in spaceflight. The private groups are right now trying to make their living off of space tourism and the like, but I think that's the wrong tack. Science and exploration are what drives public opinion - remember when the first pictures of Jupiter came back from the Voyager probes? Small space companies would be well to consider trying to develop non-military launch vehicles to enable scientific expeditions to be launched cheaply and efficiently, with an eye toward adopting that technology toward getting people into space. After all, space toursist will have to have someplace to go, which means space stations, which won't be built by cargo hauled in space planes, but by good old-fashioned expendable boosters.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
The Article cites a senator saying that China will be on the moon in 2017... Do you have any bigger "Evil" competitors in mind?
I don't think we ever can spin China as our "evil" rival. We're just too tied to them economically. If Washington starts presenting China too strongly in this way, then China just threatens to make it harder for US companies to get to its goods/consumers. As more time passes, they will wield even more such power. The USSR was essentially isolated from us and that made it easy for the US gov't to propagansize against them. Apparently, China's cultural isolationism isn't enough.
I suppose a grassroots type of "evil-China" movement could emerge. But I don't see that happening any more than it already has when our economy is so tied to theirs. Too many people will want to avoid pissing them off.
Any space race we have with China will be "friendly".
China, despite the rhetoric it sometimes uses, is now becoming a capitalist country. There is no great ideological divide spliting the world into two. China might be the next big boy on the block, and there is bound to be a natural competition between superpowers, but it is not the polorized world of the cold war. It is not the great battle of civilizations and ideologies.
Lenin said that the irresistable forces of history would garantee that Socialism would be more scientificly advanced then Capitalism - This is one of the fundamental reasons for supporting a Socialist economy. By winning the space race, it was a way to discredit Socialism and the historical determinism of Marxism-Leninism. The U.S. sending men to the moon first destroyed people's faith in the Soviet system. But, since we share the same ideology as China, there is nothing to be gained in some grand struggle by going into space.
In a capitalist society, if they build a superior rocket system, we can just BUY it from China (the same way they buy Boeing jets from us). It isn't a crushing blow to our economic system.
What I find so fascinating about humans in space is that there really is *no* space for us humans.
The living conditions are horrific.
Star Trek has really lobotomized the public about what it will be like to live in space; at least for the near future.
The MIR station had over 200 organisms growing on the crystal port window.
The smell inside was like a dirty locker room full of moldy socks.
The moon is like living in an ashtray.
No showers, no proper waste disposal.
Humans slough off 3 grams of skin per day, never mind shaving your face.
Where does all that go without gravity to conveniently collect it?
Breathing that conglomerate into your lungs is very unhealthy.
Sweating is a big problem with water loss adding to the Petri dish of the living space.
The list goes on with all the health concerns and morphing changes ones body goes through.
Space is *not* as glamorous as we are lead to believe.
I also bristle at Dr. Friedman's quote. At NASA, spaceflight, especially manned spaceflight, has never really been about science, but has always had a strong political component. That's why I kept telling people to write their congresscritters to get funding for the initiatives proposed a few years back. NASA does, or doesn't do, what it does, or doesn't do, primarily for political reasons, not technical or scientific reasons. The "now" implies that there was some time in the past where science drove spaceflight at NASA and I don't think that time ever existed.
I do have some sympathy with the fact that the meaning of your submission was changed. That's a bummer, dude. At least you got a chance to correct it.
I hate to disagree with this sort of idea -- going back to the Moon and everything sounds like so much fun -- but this is obviously all going to go nowhere. When push comes to shove, economic realities (not to mention Congress) simply won't allow Bush's grandiose Moon-Mars plan to get off the ground, or maybe LEO at best. It's all far too expensive and Dubya knows it, but he'll be long gone by the time NASA comes asking for the really big bucks. Then it'll be the next guy's fault for shooting it down.
Oh, the government could pay for it easily if they decided to shrink military spending by something like only 10 or 15%, but you know that isn't going to happen. There are way too many terrorists out there who are just be waiting to pounce at the first sign of weakness, so we'd better not give them the impression that our new fleet of F-22 Raptor's won't be ready on time! (haw).
I say NASA should concentrate on doing more with less and stick to stuff like Mars rovers and Titan landers. Hell, really great science projects like the JIMO mission and the Terrestrial Planet Finder have been scrapped, and for what? In the end, it'll turn out to be for nothing. We'll just be left with a bunch of expensive plans that are never going to fly outside of a computer.
All this to pay for a shuttle system already slated for retirement, a Space Station with no clear mission, a return to the moon, which will be fun but little more than a stunt, and a manned mission to Mars which is not going to happen, not in the foreseeable future. How does this help to make the US a world 'superpower'? (Never mind whether that in itself is a good idea.)
Did the Mars Rovers do nothing for America's standing? Did anyone notice the enormous amount of attention that was paid (at least in Europe) to the return of the Stardust mission? Right now, nobody can be in much doubt about how powerful the US is - the doubt is all about how wise.
Science fiction for grown-ups...
If you want to learn more about the universe, go out there and personallly and look.
One geologist on site with comparatively primitive tools would learn more in 1 month than all of the missions all the nations on Earth have sent to Mars so far.
What we've done so far is tantamount to trying to study Antarctica with remote probes with a huge time delay to prevent them from being used interactively. I'd like to see what kind of information you scrape out of Antarctica with nothing but Viking, Sojorner, and similar types of automated remote probes.
People who believe we can do everything with science packages are the same people who believe that they can understand humans by watching "Reality TV"; they don't see that intermediation by a poor technology results in poorer results.
-- Terry