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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."
You know your right, no one has ever died under the watchful eye of NASA.
You mad
Doesn't matter - the Chinese will get there first.
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
Zing!, considering the private sector is just getting into the gig i would expect some complications, and it is always inevitable that someone is going to die do anything. But with NASA the public will never be able to go into space flight, where as with private companies, it may be expensive, but the public can go into space for a brief moment.
Hopefully with privately owned space flight in the works, it may help with the travel times across the globe.
Today's Tomorrow is Yesterday's Future! --- "Where Ever You Go, There You Are" -- Diablo 1
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
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
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...
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?
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.
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?
HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Pirates v. Ninjas
Chuck Norris v. Vin Diesel
Horde v. Alliance
Atari ST v. Amiga
vi v. emacs
Eris v. FSM
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
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
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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.
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.
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.)
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
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/
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