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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."
Where heated debate does sometimes arise is specifically in those instances where it is zero-sum: for instance when NASA is considering its budget, trying to decide how many dollars to spend on manned missions and how many dollars to spend on robotic missions. This heated debate is not usually conflict, but rather the very process by which scientific and technical consensus is reached. I'm not saying that there is no such thing as conflict in these domains, or that everyone always gets along... but I don't see massive ill-will, either. Most of the people debating want the same thing: expansion of knowledge.
TFA makes curious statements like: I'm no expert in the politics of space exploration... but who are these "interest groups" really? As far as I know, NASA pursues both manned and robotic missions... and so NASA is composed of people from both "interest groups." So, really, isn't NASA very much a "joint activity" between these "interest groups" ?? Everytime that NASA uses humans to effectuate repairs on automated space systems (e.g. Hubble), it is a joint activity between the human-exploration and robot-exploration projects.
So... where is this conflict of which TFA speaks?
Now the real question is why do I list Apollo 1 as kind of? Because NASA does. You see, they were not going to launch. They were simply checking out the system. As such NASA only kind of counts their deaths. If you check out the history, you will find that a number of Americans have died on the ground during the early days. Sometimes from accidents (similar to Scaled's, or Brazil's recent accident). Others, have died from simple things such as car accidents or plane crashes during simulations.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
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.
Heavy-lift need not be manned. The "manned" part can be payload. I'll let the people in the astronaut program handle the 'fan-boy' line, and I'll let "sci-fi fanboi" Rusty Schweickart (Apollo 9) handle the "once in a million year" line.
I will also let you decide if an astronaut citing a book considers The Little Prince "sci-fi"
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.)