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Can Space Nerds Get Along?
An anonymous reader writes "The Space Review asks whether space enthusiasts can ever get past the humans/robots and private/government flamewars. The article argues that space politics is a non-zero-sum game, and that space science, human spaceflight and private spaceflight can all co-exist. The debate between space and Earth is resolved in the same way: a non-zero-sum game that supports both Earth projects and space projects."
Um, like, wasn't there a story recently about an explosion at a plant that makes parts for a private spaceflight company that killed two people?
I'll stick with publicly-funded NASA rather than a corner-cutting for-profit space corporation... they tend to have a little less death, tyvm.
Doesn't matter - the Chinese will get there first.
I'm skipping the RTFA and am going to go ahead and just say that Trekkers are far superior to Trekkies and whatever it is that you call a Star Wars fan.
Hey, don't forget SETI vs. the nuts who want to broadcast our position to the Berserkers!
We do get along. People on all sides of the arguments are doing it for the same reason, to get the most bang for the buck. No matter what program we champion in planning and design, everyone stands and cheers when the selected program flies.
OK, maybe there's a few like Bob Park (http://www.bobpark.org/) that rants on and on about robots even when people fly, but he's not a space nerd, he's a politics nerd who thinks too much that the space program applies to him personally. Other than those few, the idea what we bicker bitterly is once again a media construct -- they have to make news where none exists to fill the white space. That's why when they need filler, they go to those few, if anyone at all.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Human exploration has always been about the inner struggle. Collectively, we watch struggles and use those that struggle as proxies. Our souls go with them, be it a sporting match, a voyage across the world, or a rocket into space.
In the end, the human involvement in space exploration, the human touching foot on a ground that is not Terran, is about the expansion of the human experience and the human soul. It is not about the attendant science, its about Man's struggles, triumphs, defeats, and lessons.
The science can be done by robots.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Can space nerds coexist with space fratboys? "NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS!"
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
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A comunity that can expend so much wasted energy debating the relative merits of vi vs emacs, or the one true brace, simply isn't built to co-operate like that. Part of the passion which drives the better technicians is an inability to compromise. Our individual strengths are our collective weaknesses
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
I don't know how much members of an open source software oriented site can say about those kinds of arguments without looking hypocritical at the same time. vi vs. emacs, command line vs. GUI, BSD vs GPL, BSD vs Linux, the language arguments and so on. I think getting beyond the arguments is the mature thing to do, but that's not an easy thing either.
Reminds me of the arguments between the flat-earthers and the round-earthers. You know, in an age before the periscope was invented.
Things went on for generations with neither side willing to concede to the other - bikkering and taunting... " The Earth is flat!" The Earth is round!", until finally, the round-earthers gathered together and the Elder round-earthers decided on a grand plan to settle things once and for all.
Their solution? Simple. They would collect all the flat-earthers together in one location, and push them over the edge...
first you have to make them understand what a zero-sum game is
An analogy could be - B5 fans promoting Quantum Space and SG fan talking about hyperspace. Seriously, 1 organisation providing 1 single framework, can make things less mess. But you need the "messy" in order to have 1 or 2 innovative concepts being created and put into use. The impact of man being out there, colonising other worlds itself, is too big and consists of way more groups than 3.
Do I require the c-sig package to have a signature?
Until we get humanity out of the solar system, the true future of mankind is doomed. It is certain that an extinction event will happen to the earth, and to the solar system. Yes it may take eons for these events to happen, but why not get our asses off this minuscule planet and spread out?
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We live in an extraordinary time; before us space flight was not possible because technology had not advanced far enough; after us space flight will not be possible because of all the junk we leave in earth orbit.
I've forgotten who it is from and I've probably mangled it.
My point: unless we design the 'end of life' for our satellites better and design our rockets to not leave their upper stages in orbit, this debate will be a fond memory someday. In that light, the suggested cooperation between the various societies can only be applauded.
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
The implication in your post was that the various arguments in the open-source community do more harm than good. I would argue just the opposite: although flamewars are not a good thing, overall the open debate that the open-source crowd engages in is a productive way to "get it right" and improve the state of the art. I should also note that despite the intensity of these debates, no one (that I'm aware of) actually takes them to the extreme of violence. At worst, people get their feelings hurt. I should also note that the egregious examples of flamewars and trolling are not unique to the FOSS movement--those trolls don't even care about the topic at hand, and just switch to some other "hot topic" when on another discussion board. You can't really blame FOSS for the universal existence of assholes.
Similarly, I just don't see the disagreement in space enthusiasts and scientists. They debate, sure... but that is precisely what is needed to determine optimal solutions. No... Avoiding debate is not the answer. I would rather argue that the mature thing to do is to not get overly emotional in the debates. Arguments are a good thing--that's how progress is made. Maturity is knowing how to think rationally in a debate, and to change your mind when others have presented compelling evidence or logic.
I doesn't matter, Nerds will not get to call the shots -- the people with money will, and they will create policy and direct the nerds, while the nerds will keep fighting.
Not until, at least, we have resolved the issue of Green vs Purple debate.
PURPLE!
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
You are marked as funny, but the truth is, you may be right. They are discovering a number of resources underground as well as have a new economy. They are in a MAJOR growth phase. while developing (as well as "borrowing") lots of technology. CNSA is going slow, but that is because they are developing infrastructure. I doubt that they will get to the moon first (private industry will be there by 2015 assuming that bigelow does not have any accidents), but they may very well reach Mars first (no later than 2025).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Doesn't matter - the Chinese will get there first
Chinese Humans or Chinese Robots?
The resources that space has to offer may not be zero-sum, but the glory of "firsts" certainly is. If a civilian walks on Mars first because the government couldn't get through their own red tape fast enough, you don't think that'd have an effect?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
The article makes a few good points, and indeed I think they can all co-exist; however, it's painfully obvious that the author just learned the term 'non-zero sum' and wants to show how masterful of the idea he has become by repeating it 25 times in slightly varied context throughout the short span of the article. We're all very impressed.
Speak for yourself.
can space nerds get along?
short answer: no
long answer: hell no!
If China wants to go to Mars, my advice is: let 'em. Who cares? It's their money, they can piss it away on useless boondoggles if they want to. *shrug*
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Okay, if space exploration is a non zero-sum game, then what's the sum?
Seven? 42? Come on! Don't leave us hanging like that!
Seriously. We need cheap cost-to-orbit. After that, there's no "sum" in the game. As long as shooting a box into orbit costs as much as a new office building, there might be something to fight about. Make it 1/100 of the cost (using space elevators, mass drivers for non-human loads, or blimps-to-orbit) then who cares so much any more? Pay to reduce costs for everyone, skip the missions, and the rest will take care of itself.
The Chinese space program is going slow because the Chinese are maintaining just enough of a space program to keep themselves on the list of Great Nations. Infrastructure development/construction has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue. (And even if it did, they've had more than enough time to do so three times over.)
When he passes out, steal his wallet.
Seriously, we are talking about a zero sum game over the short term .
The reason has to do with marginal gains. The greatest marginal gains in manned spaceflight we'll ever see were in its first fifteen years. Currently robotic exploration provides the greatest bang for the buck, including in improving technologies needed for the next leap in manned flight. We can leap over the immediate marginal discrepancies by spending lots and lots more money on manned missions. Given enough money, it is possible that we can outperform the same investment in exclusively robotic missions. Given the money I think we will see spent on it, serious near term advances in human spaceflight is not going to come from public funding.
A realistic program to put a people on Mars in ten or twelve years would be great. But a vague plan for a manned Mars landing that is four Presidential administrations off does less for every priority, even manned space exploration, at more cost. The space budget will be siphoned off into paper projects and technology demonstrations that, despite budget busting expense, will be inconclusive and too infrequent to build a strong experience base from.
Consider this. Mercury program: twenty-one unmanned flights, seven manned flights. Gemini: two unmanned flights, twelve manned flights. Apollo (up to but not including first landing): aproximately twenty four unmanned flights, five manned.
Total: forty seven major unmanned flights, twenty four manned flights before we had the experience and proven technology to land on the moon. A huge fraction of the "manned" space program was in fact unmanned.
Naturally this takes nothing from the fact that manned flights were much more expensive and elaborate. But each mission, manned or unmanned, was a rung in the ladder of achievement that culminated on the moon. Where are the intermediate rungs on the ladder to Mars? Yes, I agree manned and unmanned exploration are a plus sum game in the long term. However, this doesn't mean the best way to spend your money is on everything at once. You put your money on what returns the biggest return you can afford. I'd love to invest in Berkshire Hathaway stock, but at $110,000/share, it's too rich a game for me. I'd love to see a real manned Mars mission in my lifetime, but rejiggering the existing budget and throwing in a bit of spare change isn't going to pay for one.
I'd propose we use the same money that would go into a mythical multi-generational manned Mars mission into becoming, very quickly, good at executing Mars missions. In other words, lets do lots of expendable, frequent unmanned missions until we know how to do Mars really well. At that point, a manned expedition within a short time is much more realistic and desirable, both because of our improved expertise, and because a manned mission represents something different, something with higher marginal return.
I think that manned space exploration is better targeted at Earth orbit missions for now. Again the objective should be developing expertise that makes it more routine. Do we really believe we have what it takes to undertake a responsible manned Mars mission in ten years? I don't. More experience in orbit will yield more expertise per dollar, as well as open up new possibilities for applied science and technology that could offset the cost.
And, we should not neglect orbital study of the Earth.
That's quite enough to be doing with the money we're likely to have. It's also more likely to result in a manned Mars mission in our lifetime.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
But then, I'm just a crazy dissenting American (who doesn't think we should have wasted all that money on Iraq either).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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Mars is the red planet, so I guess China should get first dibs.
Alaska was also considered a remote sterile rock ya know... It is all relative and matter of perception...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Actually, from my experience a lot of nerds are really Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder cases, meaning that they just can't see shades of grey. Their world has exactly one "perfect" solution, and everything else is crap. Aiming at any other point than that "perfect" solution is a sign of being a sheep, brainwashed, a lazy under-achiever, or an idiot with lax standards too.
I put "perfect" between quote signs, because an OCPD solution typically is more crap than anything else. Given the a problem with several variables and constraints (as RL problems usually are), a die-hard OCPD case will typically max one variable and proclaim the rest to be fluff only idiots care about. (Or have been brainwashed to care about.) Because they simply can't aim at anything except the extreme values, so they have to modify the problem for that to work. You know you got an OCPD solution when the problem is something like "find the X and Y where X + Y = 10 and X * Y is the maximum", and you get a solution saying, basically, "the One True Solution is X = 10, and Y is fluff for idiots. You've been brainwashed if you even put Y in those equations."
Well, not like that for a maths problem, because nerds tend to be good at maths. But take any other problem where it's more debatable what the variables and constraints are, and you'll get that kind of trying to handwave some of them out of the problem, to be able to maximize something else.
E.g., that's the kind of mentality that gets one to spend a month optimizing the last microsecond out of a background batch job, at the cost of causing the whole project to go over the deadline and become unmaintainable. Because that one variable, in this case speed, must be maximized, no matter what the effects on the other variables (e.g., budget) it has.
Why I've taken that long and boring detour is to explain why the same applies to space travel economics. Some people are genuinely incapable of seeing working shades of grey betweem, say, a mockery of 19'th century unrestricted capitalism (which didn't work like that even then, actually, and died in the Great Depression) and 100% Soviet-style communism. Anything else than the extreme they picked as "perfect" is deemed either as being the other extreme, or a fast slippery slope to the other extreme. And that applies to anything which needs any funding, including (but not limited to) space flight.
And there will be a bunch of them crusading for their perfect utopia. Luckily none are in a position to actually matter, but they exist.
So what I'm left scratching my head is, more or less, what's the point of an article explaining that they can coexist. Whoever is an OCPD case can't possibly accept that, other than as some inevitable evil that they can't personally prevent. And whoever isn't, didn't have a problem in the first place.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Exactly nerds can't get along, look at the posts already. Look at the movie 'Sunshine' nerds just argue and argue.
Causing Chaos Everywhere,
Nik J.
The strange world of a loner, in a populous city, drowning in society
Space Development is not a zero-sum game. There are resources to be used which will create wealth and goods. And there's plenty of work to be done by both humans and robots. I hear space is big, really big.
And humans have to get into space anyway. If we humans stay in our nest at the bottom of this gravity well, it's a zero-result game. Eventually something will stomp on our nest.
No it's not. Sending humans to Mars is a waste of time. A child's fantasy wrapped up in scientific hubris. I'm not saying we shouldn't study Mars, just why bother sending people.
Unless and until we can turn back the desertification of our own planet, why bother. If we can't do it here, we won't be able to do it there.
I'm not a Global Warming alarmist, far from it, but I am the founder of the Terraform Terra First Foundation (T2F2(c)).
A trillion dollars (I'm just making up a number) to send a person(s) to Mars could pay for the Pacific - Death Valley siphon. Drop a pipe in the Pacific and snake it out to Death Valley. Use pumps to prime the pipe and then let gravity take over. The primer pumps can probably start generating electricity. Fill Death Valley up to 'sea level' and start pumping water east. Tidal forces can keep both the generators and the salt water flowing. Maybe put some glass pipes on the Death Valley side to purify the salt water or use solar stills.
It's not a zero-sum game, but there does obviously have to be priorities.
thank god many consider that crazy thinking. Look, the moon has a very limited real estate that can be developed cheaply. The poles can make use to solar to power the place for 98-99% of the time (IOW, you need minimal batteries). Every other place on the moon will require nuclear power. And it will require LOTS of it. Whoever owns those poles will be able to beam energy all over the moon. In addition, the polar area have the least amount of thermal flux (i.e., it is not wild thermal ranges). As to the flag, there is already one there.
Now, if you are saying it is a trillion dollars to go to mars, then I think that you are sadly mistaken (in fact, you are more mistaken if you meant luna). It will cost billions, but not a trillion. And as to sterile, there is increasing evidence that it is not lifeless. finally, Mars may be the easiest off-earth worlds to live at. Finally, it may like all the other "bad" deals that so many countries turned down, turn out to be the most profitable.
Invading and Occupying Iraq was a HUGE mistake. Not going to other planets would be just as much.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
When you get NASA involved, you are immediately in rent-seeking hell with the bonus that the only way you won't drive private capital away from critical technologies NASA is working on is for NASA to show such gross incompetence over the course of decades that the private investors no longer worry that NASA will do to them what it did to private launch services when it introduced "The National Space Transportation System" to launch satellites.
Seastead this.
...Maybe put some glass pipes on the Death Valley side to purify the salt water or use solar stills....
"maybe some glass pipes" is right, methinks.
But then, the earth wouldn't be a spaceship, it would be series of tubes!
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Alaska had oxygen, water, survivable atmospheric pressure, and food--and was a few weeks journey away. A better analogy would be the bottom of the ocean, and how many colonies have we built THERE?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I am old enough to remember the editor wars. I still use microemacs for some functionality, so you now know what my prefered editor religion was, but I was never a fanatic about it (emacs was big and vi was always there). People get needlessly pasionate about their tools, but tools are what the open souce movement is largely about. Space is different. The nerds vs. jocks angle is closer to correct than is comfortable. Human space flight, particularily to mars, is an entertainment mission. It is not science oriented, nor does it provide useful engineering development. I would never drop people down the martian gravity well. If you want people in space, look at the earth crossing asteroids. The energetics are not worse than the moon and you have enough available mass for reasonable radiation shielding.
It is California, after all. Maybe they can raid Tommy Chong's house, again.
Why haven't you bought property in the Gobi desert yet? Living conditions there are about a thousand times better than they are on the Moon/Mars.
oh go on then, just the one.
No, it's not a "zero sum game". NASA probably gets more money overall if they take on manned projects, but they still end up cutting science projects. So, technically, it's not a zero sum game, but science still loses when projects like a manned mission to Mars appear.
what he was getting at is that people didnt know what was in Alaska at the time it was purchased and this is about the same with regards to Mars. We dont know whats out there, even with the rovers and satellites.
Unfortunately, that analysis is almost certainly correct. The Chinese are currently acting the way we did in the first half of the twentieth century: productive, energetic, industrious, etc... All Americans do is look for easy jobs, sit on their butts in front of the TV as much as possible, and generally just consume things and be lazy. There aren't enough engineers and scientists coming out of the current generation to sustain American, or even Western, dominance. And the effect is this: human presence in space will look FAR more like the closed, tightly controlled Romulan empire than any kind of Federation. America and other Western societies don't have the backbone anymore to build any kind of government/empire in space, and the communist Chinese do. They will take the lead, and in the end, when you look to human presence in the stars, you will see the stamp of authoritarianism and secretiveness that China will leave on it.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
Personnaly I'd sleep much better at night knowing that the government was spending trillions on real science and exploration rather than trillions blowing shit up for no reason.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Seriously, how can we afford to have this debate when we've got only a few billion years until our expanding sun makes the argument moot?
At least let's agree to develop the instruments now that will make the bridge of our first starship generate ceaseless pingy sonar-sounding effects loud enough to be heard throughout the bridge.
I think that is a vision of the future we can all support today!
or cut corners...like...I don't know...
Ignoring e-mails suggesting possible danger to Columbia due to wing being struck on takeoff
Tiles routinely falling off of Challenger
Launch of Challenger done in "out of spec" environmental conditions leading to catastrophic failure.
I don't think the problem in "commercial space flight"
A goal is a dream with a deadline
(One of your ancestors in the 1400s)
"If Christopher Columbus wants to sail off to into unknown stretches of the ocean, who cares? If Queen Isabella wants to piss her money away on useless boondoggles, let her."
I'm kinda tired of people saying how great China's economy is. The thing is that the US economy is so huge that China's growth rate would have to stay pretty high for them to catch the US. China's real GDP is $2.68 trillion (non PPP calc), the US GDP is $13.020 trillion. A little mathematics will show you that if the economy of the US only grows at 3% per year, and the economy of China continues to maintain it's already high growth rate at 10% that it will still be 25 years before they come close to us. The compound interest calculations are left as an exercise for the reader.
_ China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Republic_of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US
especially because it appears there are klingons on Uranus.
Is it wretched and ignorant to dare state that we may be alone in the universe (or, separated by such vast distances from other intelligent life as to be practically alone)? Is it wretched and ignorant to observe that we have yet to identify any practical resources on any other planets in our solar system that make travel to them even remotely useful? Is it wretched and ignorant to observe that it would be almost infinitely more practical to concentrate our "extinction event" survival efforts here on Earth rather than aiming for some pie-in-the-sky dream of a mass evacuation to distant planets that are almost completely hostile to life as we know it? Is it a mere fraud to point to any one of the millions of ways those resources could be used more productively here on Earth?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Scaled Composites, the people who created SpaceShipOne, is the group that suffered the explosion. From what I've read, they were running a test that had been run a number of times before without mishap.
The failure killed three people and put three others in the hospital, two in critical condition and one in serious condition. That failure could be due to flawed materials, unknown damage to the equipment, sabotage, simple human error, a design flaw or any one of a number of other reasons. It is currently under investigation.
Note that the problem occurred DURING TESTING, not when the equipment was being used for passengers. (They will undoubtedly change their testing procedures to prevent this type of disaster from happening.) They were being good corporate citizens by making sure that things worked before being put into production.
Scaled Composites is NOT one of those corner-cutting for-profit space corporations that exist today and fade away tomorrow. They have a long track record of successful projects that push the envelope when it comes to aviation technology.
Heck, their use of nitrous oxide and a rubber based propellant for SpaceShipOne was designed to reduce risks, not increase them. The combination is a lot less risky than what NASA uses in their rockets.
I wouldn't be surprized if the problem could be traced to defective equipment provided by the vendors Scaled Composites uses for their materials. (But that is conjecture right now.)
I wonder if our resources would be better spent on Earth-based research short term (say, for the next 20 years). We need nationwide man-on-moon style efforts to address global warming, world population control, political stability, eradication of nuclear weapons... Yes, it's not a zero sum game. But addressing these things may cost a trillion dollars and we may not have government money left for much else.
Moreover, Earth-based research can create advances that will make our future space exploration dramatically easier. We can not just keep using chemical propellant as we consider manned and/or heavier robotic missions to solar system and beyond. A combination of a fusion reactor (or at least a safer fission one) and an ion drive needs to be developed to the point where it can be used as the main source of thrust. We need new materials that can reliably survive atmospheric reentry unlike current fragile ceramics. We need robotics that can operate autonomously where speed of light rules out direct remote control. Mars is not going anywhere for the next few years, but we can get a huge head start by doing our research.
Of course, the point is moot if instead of the space program our taxes are going to unnecessary wars and incarcerating pot smokers. We all need to become as passionate about politics as we are about tech toys if we want to see either Man on Mars or Earth inhabitable without space suits.
We know enough about Mars to know that we're not going to be picking any fruit, drinking from any streams, or breathing any oxygen when we get there. Early explorers to Alaska expected a daunting landscape, but not an unlivable one.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This behavior is so destructive and egotistical, and is literally holding back the progress of HumanKind, from experiencing the Promised Land of a ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY.
This reminds me of how much talent is likewise wasted on building/playing TECH-FANTASY worlds when such energies could be spent to build the REAL THING http://teaminfinity.com/robo_real_thing
You have some of the smartest people in the world wasting their flesh CPU cycles playing/building FANTASY games/worlds when they could be building the REAL THING. http://teaminfinity.com/robo_real_thing
In fairness to these people, it is not entirely their own fault, until NOW. Many of them are disillusioned that a REAL ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY and resultant AGE of RECREATION is simply not possible etc. So they are smart, but jaded. Each of these SMART but JADED GEMS needs to be converted/polished one by one into advocates for the ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY, precisely because these are the smart people we need, and who can, make it happen, and understand what it will be like, explain it to others, and MAKE IT HAPPEN in as few as 10 YEARS !!!
Also in fairness to my magnificently talented and intelligent colleagues, there is a LEADERSHIP GAP of Gargantuan proportions that is squandering such talent by not providing the infrastructure and initiative to start the ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY where such talent would be put to best use.
Leadership and high level commitment to the ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY would end the dis-wars and endless inane conversations, and help launch a revolution at least on the scale of the Maritime Revolutions of the 1500s propelling us into the solar system and beyond with a life style for each of us only the Diocletians and Solomons have experienced.
The Future is already here, just unevenly distributed... THE ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY NOW! http://RoboEco.com/slash
Or, why isn't anyone fighting over Antarctica, if it's so easy? There you have oxygen, water, pressure and even valuable natural resources. Hell, just the TEMPERATURE there scares everyone off. Does anyone think we're going to colonize the moon and Mars if we can't even colonize that?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I seem to recall an SF story where the anti-debris shield ended up being the equivalent of large blobs of very sticky gel, kind of like giant gummy bears. Debris of all types would stick to it, not just those that are affected by magnetism.
All you had to do was put it into orbit and move it around with space tugs, aiming for spots with lots of debris. Debris would stick to it. When there was too much debris, you just take the shield to a station, scrape it off and send it back, with more gel if needed.
The people that came up with the solution got in trouble with the Establishment because it didn't cost billions of dollars and it wasn't high tech.
On a more serious side, if you had a decent LEO base, you could send tugs to retrieve the satellites that are hazards but still intact. And for that matter, if the satellites are built at the LEO base, a lot of extra hardware needed to orbit the things could be left behind. Why should satellites designed for LEO and GEO have to handle the high Gs of launch if 99.9999% of their life is spent in zero G? A LEO or even GEO based assembly site could cut launch costs and greatly improve reliability.
Heck, you could even test the satellites in their native element for weeks or months before hauling them to their target orbits.
This is a matter of perception.
The Northern Pacific and the Arctic were as difficult for the 17 and 18th century seafarer as the space is for us nowdays. May I remind you that prior to Vitus Bering and Chirikov every single attempt to explore the area has ended with a loss of the ship and all hands. Bering payed his life and the life of half of his crew for just mapping the southern coast of Alaska and the Aleut chain. So did many crews after him.
Actually our current is more the level of Amundsen and the Fram which happily travelled around the area freezing in ice for prolonged periods when necessary. So can we in space. We cannot get fast from A to B, but we already possess the technology level to do so slowly.
Yep, it is not the level of an Arctica class icebreaker which can nowdays sail around the arctic from the Barentz to Alaska and back as it sees fit, but before you build one you have to go through the sufferings of early discoveries and through long and tedious voyages on the Fram.
Sorry if the analogy seems far fetched. IMO it is not.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
NOW GET TO WORK on the REAL THING !!
The Future is already here, just unevenly distributed... THE ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY NOW! http://RoboEco.com/slash
No. You jerks.
Helium - 3
/ 1283056.html?page=3
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space
Maybe not a good reason to go to Mars, but it is more than enough reason to go to the moon which is rich in it. Do some digging around, I'm always shocked that more people don't seem to know about this, also shocked more effort hasn't gone into attempting to figure out a system to mine it and deliver it safely back to earth.
The issue at hand is the promotion of space projects. Space geeks can agree that a expansion of space exploration would be a good thing, the question is the path to get there. In one camp, you have the "First Steps" people who have a romantic notion that someone must be physically present to plant their foot into the ice/dust/rocks. They often justify this with the "first steps to the stars", a refrain I hear more and more these days. These weasel-words compose a phrase that turns my stomach. These "first human steps" people are living in the past and/or a science fiction novel because they are ignoring today's science, in keeping with their 1960s notions.
People need to get their heads around the fact that (A) humans are never getting out of the solar system, and (B) humans are not going to use other planets around us as a genesis of new intergalactic civilization.
We have this one Earth and when it is dead, so are we.
Consider: (i) Right now we cannot generate a self-sustaining, enclosed bio-sphere colony even on Earth, where resources are available to set perfect conditions. (ii) Our fastest probe, using planetary catapulting (obtaining our fastest realistic speeds), would take 40,000-50,000 years to get to our nearest neighboring star. Theoretical Near Light Speed ships are nice in theory but they do not hold up in practice. (iii) No energy source is going to survive for the duration of time required for the flight to another star. How will the human crew survive thousands of years (assuming travel reduced to a fraction of current practical time)? (iv) Putting a colony on any planet or moon is equivalent to building the Space Station much, much further away. The colony will still require the same cargo rotation from Earth. (v) While iv. is debatable, it is less debatable that any terrible thing that happens to Earth will likely result in other colonies perishing as well, especially considering how long before the Earth is habitable again.
So, while we have a culture of space geeks hoping for indications that we're headed toward a Buck Rogers & Star Trek future, they are overlooking the real potentials of robotic exploration that is based on science fact. For example, the USA deciding they will focus on putting men on the Mars, while their robotics explorers of Mars are already proven, is about as frustrating as seeing the US Department of Energy decide to invest in fuel-cells and Ethanol for cars when solar and hybrid technology is proving itself in the field. It is frustrating to see one proven technology not being perfected, while a less viable option is pursued.
No, it's not a zero-sum game, but the "hard" science fiction fans have never seen eye-to-eye with the "fantasy" science fiction fans anyway, even though there are a lot of books out there! Sometimes you just have to call a duck a duck when you see it.
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vi vs. emacs
I haven't seen a serious person argue in favour of emacs for years, those that do are only doing it to argue, they secretly use vi (or vim or one of it's decendents), and even write their arguments in vi.
Actually, the early explorers had NO idea of what was there. Ever notice the edges of maps (here be monsters). They thought that they would be fighting mosters, dragons, bears, and snakes, etc. On mars, we are fighting against the elements, but we are not fighting for our lives against animals that stalk us. Each have their issues. It was just as hard to do alaska as it is to do mars.
The thing about the bottom of the ocean is that it can already be reached in a matter of minutes (hours?). So there's less of an incentive to actually live there, when it's not that far away. I am somewhat surprised there isn't a manned research station though... I would think there would be a lot of scientists interested in staying there in a relatively comfortable lab for an extended period of time.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Not that I'm criticizing you in particular, but it irks me when people think we have to choose between doing cool engineering and science-type things on earth and in space. Why not both? The budgets of space programs and scientific research is pitiful compared to the amount wasted on subsidies, social programs, military spending, and pork projects.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
All of those artic explorations you mentioned were trivial compared to space travel. How many full-time engineers were required to design a 18th century artic-seaworthy ship? How many technicians were required to construct it? How many ground crew were needed for every mission? How expensive was the entire voyage (how many top-5% wealthy people would it take to completely fund the trip)? How long could a voyage conceiveably last without resupplies? How much dedicated training time was required per crewmember? How many seconds of powered acceleration was the vessel capable of?
If you actually answer all of these questions for an 18th century artic explorer and compare them to current space travel, you'll find that artic exploration was at least an order of magnitude easier than space travel is today.
Who Cares? I have no wish for my grandchildren to be dominated by a space faring, space mining China. If a government is involved with managing the solar system, I hope that it is at the very least a incompetent democratic one rather than a communistic government, competent or not. The principle is more important than the application.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Why not Helium-3? For one, it is considerably harder to do than D-T (Deuterium-Tritium) fusion, which is still in its infancy.
I am somewhat surprised there isn't a manned research station though... I would think there would be a lot of scientists interested in staying there in a relatively comfortable lab for an extended period of time.
Oh, there is. Sealab 2021.
Have robotized cameras in a manned flight. It should be funded by fox and be made to be a big brother type reality show. Then, everybody's happy!
Think about this: Axe and Dove are actually the same company. Vincent L.B.
It's a very different set of technologies though. It's comparitively easier to get to the bottom of the ocean: be heavier than water. However, the engineering of craft is much more difficult for undersea vehicles. In space you only need to contain one atmosphere (~14psi) pressure. Underwater, at the bottom of the Mariana trench you're trying to keep out a thousand times that.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
All of those arctic explorations you mentioned were trivial compared to space travel. How many full-time engineers were required to design a 18th century artic-seaworthy ship?. Several. They were called master shipbuilders in those days. For the reference the Bering expedition is unique in world naval history as it carried one of them onboard (engineering crew) and after the ship was wrecked on what is nowdays Bering Island in the Commodores, he personally redesigned and rebuilt the ship into a smaller one out of the wreckage.
How many ground crew were needed for every mission? This is probably the only difference between then and now. Ground crew is a function of communications, which people in those days did not possess. In those days the ship left port and disapeared for years on end.
How long could a voyage conceiveably last without resupplies? Many years for major resupplies, several months for minor prior to the 19th century. The aforementioned Bering journey continued for 7 years with the ship being rebuilt from scratch through the process without a major resupply.
How much dedicated training time was required per crewmember?5 years, more for "engineering" positions like the carpenters and sailmasters. Exploratory ships as a general rule did not sail with many ensigns on board.
How expensive was the entire voyage (how many top-5% wealthy people would it take to completely fund the trip)?. One actually. Not top-5%, top-0.0001%. The Russian or British emperor. Prior to that the British or the Spanish. Your choice. Prior to the late 19 century they were the only ones with enough money to finance an expedition of this type. Just read your history books. Do you think Cook travelled around the world for free? He also needed a fat (by those days) budget. Do you think Columbus would have sailed to America under a Spanish flag if he could find a budget in his native Italy?
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
What do you care? No one is forcing you to fly in a private spacecraft. If other, more adventurous souls are willing to try their luck, what's it to you? Or are you of the mindset that any activity too risky for YOU is worth banning outright?
I'm with you, but I think we should have clear goals and not just a budget line.
> One actually. Not top-5%, top-0.0001%. The Russian or British emperor.
I wasn't asking who *did* finance the trip, but rather, who *could* finance the trip. Assume a collective group of top-5% 18th century patrons got together, pooled their yearly salary, and decided to fund an artic exploration voyage. How many would it take? I'm guessing not too many. Certainly not more than 50. Now ask yourself, how many top-5% people would it take to completely fund a manned voyage to the moon today? 500? 5000?
>The aforementioned Bering journey continued for 7 years with the ship being rebuilt from scratch through the process without a major resupply.
I'm not quite sure you're grasping the point. How long could the Apollo crew last if they had been marooned on the moon? I doubt 7 weeks, much less 7 years.
> Who Cares? I have no wish for my grandchildren to be dominated by a space faring, space mining China. > Relax. Firstly, it ain't gonna happen. Secondly... you'll be dead by then.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
1. Not sure why you might believe China to incapable of dominating space, they have rhyme and reason.
2. My state of being is irrelevant to the legacy of governance I would want to leave for subsequent generations.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Oh god have I got to spell it out for you... I don't think *anyone* can "dominate space" in some sort of geo-political, military/industrial sense, for any value of space further out that geo-sync orbits. Does China "dominate" the Gobi Desert? They do. Who cares? It's nothing but what the Australians call "GAFA" - great areas of fuck-all. There's nothing to dominate!! You people all seem obsessed with the idea that Space == the US West in the 18th and 19th centuries. Guess what - they're fundamentally different. There's no reason at all to go to Mars (or anywhere else) apart from scientific curiousity and simple prestige value.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...