Astronauts As Alien Life Hunters?

astroengine writes "Ever since the last NASA space shuttle mission touched down in Florida on July 21, there has been a spirited debate in articles and blogs across the Internet over the future of humans in space. Everyone seems to be asking: What's the point of spending shedloads of cash getting mankind into space when robots can do it at a fraction of the cost? Well, pending any great (and unexpected) advance in robotics, our adaptability in space may be our biggest asset. Ultimately, the hunt for extraterrestrial life may need an astronaut to physically push deeper into space." Also, who wants to let the robots have all the fun?

Comments

True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[elrous0]

Yes, humans would certainly be a lot better at searching for and finding life in person than any remote robot. But without at least some hint that such life even EXISTS in our solar system outside of earth, that's a pretty bizarre justification for a very expensive and resource-intensive manned space program. And even if it were a reason, if wouldn't justify the last 40 years of the manned space program. If life is out there in this solar system, it's sure as hell not sitting in low earth orbit. You're going to have to go to other planets and moons if you want to find life. And that's going to require a huge investment. Good luck getting that kind of scratch out of a bunch of first-world governments *already* spending way beyond their means.

This guy is actually proposing building research stations on the moon and Mars. And that's going to be an even bigger investment than just getting there. Is that doable? With enough motivation and money, sure. But that's the kind of motivation that's going to require sacrifice. Would you be willing to see your taxes double to pay for it? Would you be willing to give up one of the big government expenses/entitlements (Social Security, the military, Medicare) and funnel that money to NASA? If your answer is "no" to both of those questions, you can probably forget about your Mars bases. Exploration and colonization that far out isn't going to come cheap. That's going to be a pretty tough sell just to answer the philosophical question "Are we alone?" (especially when the answer may well turn out to be "Yes," at least in this solar system).

And for anyone who might suggest going *beyond* our solar system, well that's even more crazy/expensive. With the kind of propulsion we have now, even in the best case scenario it would take tens of thousands of years to reach even the closest other solar system. So unless you have a warp engine on the drawing board, you can pretty much forget that.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[genner]

. So unless you have a warp engine on the drawing board, you can pretty much forget that.

All we need to do is build a ship entirely out of neutrinos.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[elrous0]

All we need to do is build a ship entirely out of neutrinos.

We will. It arrived there several years ago.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[drakaan]

Put me down on the list of people who would gladly give up his social security benefits and pay double his current tax rate if my government would build research stations on the moon and/or mars. I'd bump that up to 2.5x my current rate if they'd relax FAA restrictions on private spaceflight and pump cash into commercial spacecraft development.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[danlip]

Put me down as someone who would give up 90% of our military budget for just about any decent science investment (or even indecent ones, like a Mars colony)

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[Jeremi]

Yes, humans would certainly be a lot better at searching for and finding life in person than any remote robot.

I'm not sure even that is true. Yes, Earth-bound humans are better than software at reasoning things out -- but that can largely be done remotely, as we have seen with the Mars rovers.

Earth-bound Humans are currently better at many impomptu, lightweight manual tasks than Earth-bound robots -- but are they still better when encumbered in a 200-pound spacesuit, with gloves like oven mitts? I'd argue that a robot (either locally or remotely controlled) might be more agile than a human in that situation, if only because the robot doesn't need to be hermetically sealed into a life-support system that inhibits its movements.

Which leads to the biggest problem with humans-in-space: humans aren't expendable. If a robot breaks down in space, you can just let it hobble along as best it can, and/or abandon it and send out an identical replacement. If a human being gets sick or dies in space, that is a potential mission-ender, from both a technical and political perspective. Look how long it took NASA to recover from the Challenger disaster -- years of reviews and finger-pointing. With robot missions, OTOH, even a catastrophic failure just means money down the drain, not flag-draped empty coffins and tearful "My Fellow Americans" speeches on the TV. (yes, I know, death is noble and part of the Grand Adventure and all, but it wouldn't take too many iterations of "watch a beloved astronaut die a slow, horrible death on live TV, with bugger all that anyone can do about it" to convince the American public that their dime is better spent elsewhere)

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[ThunderBird89]

I'm not a US citizen, but I'd even donate money to the US government, if it meant they'd go public with the Cheyenne mountain complex...

Joke aside, both you and grandparent make a good point. However, the legal framework for space exploration/exploitation must be laid down first. The one we ahve right now is not exactly conducive, nor enforceable. We need one that lets nations take ownership/stewardship of extraterrestrial territories, an empowered UN authority to oversee spaceflight and extraterrestrial resource extraction, and shares the fruits of the exploration in a just and justifiable manner to encourage participation.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[couchslug]

"Yes, humans would certainly be a lot better at searching for and finding life in person than any remote robot."

Bullshit. Your asserted conclusion doesn't apply to present tech because supporting humans is so expensive and resource-intensive that they can barely be sent off-earth.

Your asserted conclusion won't apply to future tech because it will continue to improve very quickly since its life-cycle need not be prolonged like the Space Shuttle.

Humans MUST interact with the totally hostile off-earth environment by using machines of varying complexity. The need for an onsite operator is diminishing, so that leaves "tourism" as a reason to send meat into space.

Space "exploration" isn't any different from combat airpower in the respect that putting the operator up-front is an expensive liability entailing a massive logistic tail. It's dull and dangerous, ideal for remotely-operated and eventually autonomous systems.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[xstonedogx]

Government is not the answer. NASA has neither the will nor the ability to build stations on the moon or even to reach Mars. Now if China were to land a man on the moon...

Put your money where your mouth is and donate to or invest in a private organization that shares your goals. They are not only more likely to succeed, but more likely to spend that money wisely and in a way that reflects your interests. Bonus: you might see profits someday.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[Anonymous Coward]

As a scientist whose DoD funded research supports the operations of several non-DoD government agencies, you may not get the bang for the buck you expect here.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[ColdWetDog]

I'd hit it.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[the gnat]

Would you be willing to see your taxes double to pay for it? Would you be willing to give up one of the big government expenses/entitlements (Social Security, the military, Medicare) and funnel that money to NASA?

Well, I wouldn't be willing to see my taxes double, and since I'll never get to go on any of these space missions, I'd prefer to keep at least some insurance against dying on the streets at age 70. Given the choice, I'd prefer to see most of the $1 trillion or so we're flushing away on our military used to pay of the national debt, and/or refunded to taxpayers. But if the money needs to be spent, I'd prefer to see it go to the space program, and I think you'll find a lot of people in agreement.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[ColdWetDog]

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter....

But I'm not giving you a dime until you come up with some sort of not-insane business plan. Too bad you can't. There IS NO economic justification for space exploration as of yet. The technology is nowhere near advanced enough. Now, go find some Unobtanium and maybe that will change things. But absent that, it will be governments doing it for government reasons - only a small bit of that will be the advancement of mankind.

We need a credible enemy. Either the Chinese or aliens, take your pick. I personally prefer the latter since we can control them with decades old hardware.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[Hentes]

The title of the article is just being sensationalist. Truth is, human astronauts do better than robots in any research.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[xstonedogx]

GP didn't say anything about the economics of it. He said research base. He said donate. Imagine what NASA could do with twice the funds and none of the Congressional oversight. Now imagine what NASA as we have it now would do with twice the funds (but not guaranteed) and the same amount of Congressional oversight.

As for a 'not-insane business plan' it seems pretty obvious to me that if you think what is lacking is the technology than that is where you should put your money first.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[bobamu]

Surely it's preferable for space transport projects not to go bang.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[turbidostato]

"it wouldn't take too many iterations of "watch a beloved astronaut die a slow, horrible death on live TV, with bugger all that anyone can do about it" to convince the American public that their dime is better spent elsewhere"

Then how is it that not even 2000 iterations of "watch your beloved GI Joe die a horrible death" did manage to convince your American public to expend their dimes anywhere but Iraq/Afghanistan?

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[holmstar]

Would you be willing to see your taxes double to pay for it? Would you be willing to give up one of the big government expenses/entitlements (Social Security, the military, Medicare) and funnel that money to NASA? If your answer is "no" to both of those questions, you can probably forget about your Mars bases. Exploration and colonization that far out isn't going to come cheap.

No it won't be cheap, but it's a different scale of expense than what your suggesting. We're talking about a cost of probably something around $100 billion. While that's many times the current NASA budget, it's still only a small fraction of the total Federal budget. It would be less than $1000 per tax payer per year. Not to downplay the value of $1000, but i'd certainly be willing to give that if it meant "boldly going" to places like Mars, Europa, etc.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[Jeremi]

Then how is it that not even 2000 iterations of "watch your beloved GI Joe die a horrible death" did manage to convince your American public to expend their dimes anywhere but Iraq/Afghanistan?

That's a good question... the difference is that the government can sell war to the American public by convincing them that it's necessary to keep them safe... the old "better over there than here" argument.

NASA, OTOH, can't play the fear card. The public (rightly) views space exploration as a non-necessity.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[bertok]

You're off by a digit.

The James Webb Space Telescope is going to cost about 10 Billion by itself, and it's just a single-rocket unmanned mission that doesn't go anywhere near as far as Mars!

NASA's yearly budget is already over 15 Billion. It's a safe bet that a mission to the Moon or Mars would take at least a decade, and NASA's budget would have to double at a minimum. That's a 150 Billion right there, as a lower bound. More realistically, like you said, NASA's budget would have to increase manyfold, and mission would take longer. That implies a cost of over a trillion dollars.

Note that this isn't like the bailout, which were loans that were eventually repaid. This is a trillion dollars that are going to be launched into space, never to come back.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[CanHasDIY]

NASA, OTOH, can't play the fear card.

Wag the Dog.

Hey, don't knock it; after all, it worked for Bush...

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[ColdWetDog]

Well you mention a 'private organization who shares your goals' and I'd like to subscribe to their newsletter. Giving some tax deferred money to the government department of your choice, be it NASA, the DEA or whatever floats your boat is a wonderful idea. Some states use that method to fund parks and such. I doubt it would give you as much money as a dedicated lottery however (now that's an idea, a NASA lottery. You get some money, you push the 'launch' button).

But the kind of money we're talking about to get out of LEO is going to be well beyond anything other than a government. Sad but true. I suppose IBM, Microsoft and Apple could collectively go insane and take all their money and dump it into space exploration, but I find that less credible than a Sarah Palin presidency, if quite a bit more palatable.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[qeveren]

Of course humans are expendable. You just can't shove it in the public's faces like the Challenger incident (I dunno that 'disaster' is the appropriate word) did.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[Grishnakh]

Would you be willing to give up one of the big government expenses/entitlements (Social Security, the military, Medicare) and funnel that money to NASA?

I'll say "yes" to giving up the military (or at least drastically downsizing it). There's no credible threat from other humans that can't be handled by 1) a very small and technologically advanced defensive force and 2) getting the USA's nose out of other countries' business, so we don't create fanatics who hate us. However, there IS a credible threat from earth-crossing asteroids, and we need a real space program to deal with those. There's still a chance that Apophis is going to impact Earth in 2036, but if we just sit around here pursuing wars in the middle east and doing our best to destroy the middle class, there won't be anything that can be done about it by the time they figure out their calculations were wrong and it really is going to hit us.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[symbolset]

The rockets would very quickly become Chinese rockets, and not in a nice friendly "outsourcing" way.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[khallow]

There IS NO economic justification for space exploration as of yet.

Why say this? We know there are resources in space that are valuable on Earth. The current reason that these aren't viable to extract is because the cost of doing so is too high. That's not going to stay that way. So, for example, we can mine gold in space and sell it on Earth. That's a concrete business plan. The only problem is that currently, the effort probably would cost two or so orders of magnitude more than the return. But there's no reason to expect cost to stay this high.

And so, it makes some sense to look for where extractable gold deposits lie, so that down the road, when the costs have dropped enough, we can extract it.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[gmhowell]

Note that this isn't like the bailout, which were loans that were eventually repaid. This is a trillion dollars that are going to be launched into space, never to come back.

Oh, what bs. Certainly we'll get Tang 2.0.

(BTW, am I the only one who found that stuff vile?)

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[khallow]

It's a solved problem. We use shielding to protect astronauts against radiation. And if we should need more mass to shield against radiation, then launch more mass.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[khallow]

Earth-bound Humans are currently better at many impomptu, lightweight manual tasks than Earth-bound robots -- but are they still better when encumbered in a 200-pound spacesuit, with gloves like oven mitts?

We don't have to guess. The outcome of the Apollo program demonstrate that humans still do better than robots for this sort of task.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[Jeremi]

Of course humans are expendable. You just can't shove it in the public's faces like the Challenger incident (I dunno that 'disaster' is the appropriate word) did.

The problem is that if you are going to use the drama of human spaceflight as a selling point (as what was advocated in the article) then you pretty much have to "shove it in the public's face". You can't spend weeks and weeks building up the public's interest, and then when something goes wrong simply cut to a commercial and never come back. Doing that would only make the situation worse, since then the TV networks would spend all their time talking about "the coverup" instead. ;^)

For better or worse, NASA uses the human element of its manned missions to boost political support. But doing that is a double-edged sword. Could NASA get enough funding if it became "just another government agency" that was rarely or never in the news? I doubt it.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[Jeremi]

The outcome of the Apollo program demonstrate that humans still do better than robots for this sort of task.

The Apollo program ended in 1972. I don't think you can use 1960's-era technology to draw useful conclusions about the robots of today. Keep in mind that the primary challenge for robots is cognition, and that the $300 smart phone sitting in your pocket has more computing capability than all the computers in the Apollo program combined.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[History's Coming To]

All we need is something that can provide a sustained 1g acceleration. A bunch of medical problems go out of the window, and the crew will be able to traverse the galaxy in 12 years subjective time. Doesn't help the rest of us any, but it can be done. Yes, the engineering issues are quite big, but hey.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[khallow]

I don't think you can use 1960's-era technology to draw useful conclusions about the robots of today.

However, I can use 2010's era technology though for the source of my conclusions. Sure, I think there will be some point when robots surpass current humans in agility and cognitive ability. But that hasn't happened yet. And when that happens, there's no reason for future humans to have the same capabilities of current humans.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[waveclaw]

Earth-bound Humans are currently better at many impomptu, lightweight manual tasks than Earth-bound robots -- but are they still better when encumbered in a 200-pound spacesuit, with gloves like oven mitts?

Quite simply: yes.

The exact quote escapes me, but one geologist said that if you combine all the works of all the mars landers in history, it amounts to about a good day for an average geology student.

While it is inconvenient to have to send into space all the arms, legs and guts meant for living at around 1 atmosphere of pressure and not that much far from 24 C, it is really hard to beat having a working human brain when it comes to exploring.

Our global reach is proof enough of that.

We marvel at what our robotic tools can do, but mustn't forget they are but longer, sharper hammers today. There is still a human behind them.

But then, I'm biased. Like whalers who used to leave their families for years at a time, today I wouldn't mind being one of those stuck on a rock seeing things noone has ever seen before. Learning things noone knew before. And yes, probably dying for that chance like people die every day for less. In the meantime my battle.net ping times might suck, but then there's always [rock] porn right out the window.

To quote Albert Szent-Györgi (1893-1986) U. S. biochemist: "If any student comes to me and says he wants to be useful to mankind and go into research to alleviate human suffering, I advise him to go into charity instead. Research wants real egotists who seek their own pleasure and satisfaction, but find it in solving the puzzles of nature."

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[murdocj]

The even bigger problem with humans searching for life is the risk of contamination. It's very difficult to sterilize robotic probes to other planets. Sterilizing human-occupied spacecraft and spacesuits is just plain impossible. When we detect life on another world (and I do expect that at some point we will detect it) I'd like to be certain that it really is alien life, and not something we brought along.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[scottrocket]

"This is a trillion dollars that are going to be launched into space, never to come back."

This will be a trillion dollars spent down here, on Earth. Of all of the gazillions of space images I have seen, I've never seen bags with $ signs floating around. With luck and perseverance, that will change someday ; )

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[LingNoi]

Would you be willing to see your taxes double to pay for it?

That's such bullshit, NASA costs were a drop in the ocean even before the cut backs.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[mrxak]

NASA does have the will. They just don't have the sorts of guaranteed funding to carry out what they want to do.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[Jeremi]

Sure, I think there will be some point when robots surpass current humans in agility and cognitive ability. But that hasn't happened yet

Accepted -- but note that the send-robots-instead-of-humans side of the argument doesn't require that robots be as effective as humans.... it only requires that robots be "effective enough" that their remaining performance disadvantages (relative to sending humans) are outweighed by their advantages (lower cost, longer service lifetime, relaxed ethical concerns, no need to return them to Earth, etc).

Or to put it another way.... say sending a robot to Mars is only 5% as scientifically useful as sending a human, but sending a robot also only costs 5% as much. In that case, NASA might well opt to send a team of 20 robots to Mars, rather than sending a single human on a near-suicide mission. That way the eggs aren't all in one basket; a catastrophe still leaves 19 functioning robots, rather than a dead human and a failed mission.

(Btw one thing those 19 remaining robots could do is set up habitation and life-support systems on Mars (or the moon, or wherever) and start producing rocket fuel for future manned missions to use. Once most of the necessary materials for human life (and a return trip) are known to be in place already at the destination, a manned mission becomes much less risky and less expensive)

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[LingNoi]

There IS NO economic justification for space exploration as of yet.

Not everything is about money. Billions didn't get poured into CERN to look for the Higgs Boson because they thought they'd make trillions back. We do these things because we think they further our knowledge of the universe.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[khallow]

say sending a robot to Mars is only 5% as scientifically useful as sending a human

The thing is, robots aren't anywhere near that close in capability. For example, the lunar rovers traveled as far in three days as the Mars Expedition Rovers did in six years. That's more like 0.2% as scientifically useful as sending a pair of humans.

And we also ignore here the time value of research. We have six successful surface missions (plus a few failures) on Mars in the past forty years. At current rates, it's going to take decades to send that "team" of 20 robots. Even if we wait a couple of decades for an economical launcher, we'll still get more science much faster than with a trickle of robotic missions.

rather than sending a single human on a near-suicide mission.

Modest suggestion here. How about we send them to Mars on a different kind of mission that isn't near-suicidal? I think that would be better.

(Btw one thing those 19 remaining robots could do is set up habitation and life-support systems on Mars (or the moon, or wherever) and start producing rocket fuel for future manned missions to use.

Bingo. There's also sample return missions and some more MER level surveying (looking for landing sites).

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[benjamindees]

an empowered UN authority to oversee spaceflight and extraterrestrial resource extraction, and shares the fruits of the exploration in a just and justifiable manner to encourage participation.

Yeah, that's what we need, space communism. I'm sure that will spur investment.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[GrayNimic]

Earth-bound Humans are currently better at many impomptu, lightweight manual tasks than Earth-bound robots -- but are they still better when encumbered in a 200-pound spacesuit, with gloves like oven mitts? I'd argue that a robot (either locally or remotely controlled) might be more agile than a human in that situation, if only because the robot doesn't need to be hermetically sealed into a life-support system that inhibits its movements.

The one counter example was the final Hubble servicing mission, where for a while there were plans to do it with a robot instead of astronauts (and hence why it had so many unusual, specialized, robot-like tools involved). In the actual mission, several parts did not go as planned, with the most extreme being the removal of a handle - it was supposed to be 4 simple screws, but they wound up having to physically flex-and-yank it to break it off. If it had been a robot, the question is if it could've exerted that much force on the object, since there were no planned tasks requiring something similar.

Essentially, humans bring with them a decent sized generic skills & capabilities toolbox, that you generally can't leave behind (presuming a sufficiently generalized spacesuit). Robots are unlikely to have capabilities outside the scope of their predicted mission (including that mission's contingency cases). That grants humans an extra degree of versatility.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[kmoser]

Space travel? No, thanks. I predict space ship security will be so tight that alien anal probes will be a welcome relief compared to TSA's standard procedure. Luckily, in space, nobody can hear you scream.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[khallow]

I think a far bigger problem than the human versus machine debate is that we don't have a coherent plan for what to do in space. I think the current effort is token, with a few niches (such as Mars, the Sun, and the gas giants) that are usually filled by a mission and occasionally other things. At this scale, individual robotics missions are the only thing that makes sense.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[dryeo]

"it wouldn't take too many iterations of "watch a beloved astronaut die a slow, horrible death on live TV, with bugger all that anyone can do about it" to convince the American public that their dime is better spent elsewhere"

I understood NASA's plan during Apollo if something went terribly wrong such as the LEM upper-stage not being able to launch, was to just cut of all communication.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[Electricity Likes Me]

Well, they also have large indirect returns. The simple process of building data collection for the LHC has led to the development a huge amount of distributed data transfer and management technology, and a whole bunch of research into the limitations of TCP/IP over fiber with respect to sustaining maximum throughput rates. That's the data side alone. The possible, very long term products of that research are staggering.

In the same respect, this is also true of space exploration: the spin-off technologies from being forced to solve problems in unusual areas are immense, the social benefits to zeitgeist from a large, high impact scientific project are immense. I'm not saying you *have* to shoot people into space, but the way we plan and conduct robotic missions at the moment could certainly be far more long term then it is at present: a lot of infrastructure which could benefit eventual manned missions would also benefit from robotic missions (such as producing fuel on the surface of Mars - that could do things other then fly rockets, such as say, power long range gliders or a rover with jump jets to get out of craters).

The sad thing is, NASA knows this too. They've written reports detailing ideas exactly like this - about installing long term infrastructure on our nearby exploration targets. GPS and communication satellites above Mars to benefit future missions etc.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[ThunderBird89]

"Just and justifiable": Meaning those countries who obviously cannot benefit from the extracted resources (for example due to not having the infrastructure to refine and use them) get less or nothing, while those countries that put in the brunt of the work (those with manned space programs) get more.
The only way to invite participation is to acknowledge it, but the hands of future lawmakers are tied by the current Outer Space Agreement, which needs to be taken into account when creating the new framework, and which says that "Outer space and all celestial objects are the common province of all mankind".

So whether you think it's communism (which it isn't), or not, this is the only way it can go.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[rossy]

I'm not sure, but if you built a private spaceship, you would be hard to chase, given that the US government has no official space flying capability. If you leave US airspace before leaving 18,000 feet, I think your probably fine. My point is that if you can solve the technical problems, you can just go. Join an EAA chapter, and build a spaceship in your garage, start the open source mars project...let's do it.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[khallow]

Would you be willing to see your taxes double to pay for it? Would you be willing to give up one of the big government expenses/entitlements (Social Security, the military, Medicare) and funnel that money to NASA?

No and yes. I'd be willing to see large cuts in all three of the programs you mention. I don't see the need for huge tax increases. What are we going to do with another two trillion dollars a year? Move a few hundred thousand people a year to Mars?

If your answer is "no" to both of those questions, you can probably forget about your Mars bases. Exploration and colonization that far out isn't going to come cheap.

Or we can spend a lot less than that on Mars bases and skip the false dilemmas presented here. Personally, I think US commercial space launch will by itself have lowered the cost of space access to the point where questions like the above would be completely obsoleted and too embarrassing to ask.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[AmiMoJo]

It looks like there will be another space race soon, with Japan, China, India, Iran, both Koreas, the EU and the US all competing.

It would be nice if we could work together. Back in the early 60s Kennedy was discussing the possibility of a joint moon mission with the USSR, but his assassination put a stop to that.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[elrous0]

That's why I coupled motivation AND money in my post. Wanting to go to Mars is not enough. If you called up the average American and asked them "Do you want to see us go to Mars?" You would probably get an 80%+ positive response. But if you followed that up with "Okay, will you send us $200 to help fund it?" that response rate would drop close to 0.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[elrous0]

BTW, am I the only one who found that stuff vile?

No, you weren't. Pretty much the only reason any kid ever drank that swill was because the astronauts had. Of course, that was back when kids really looked up to astronauts, and thought we would keep progressing in space.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[elrous0]

Just make sure to avoid the ones with acid for blood. Trust me, you DO NOT want to hit that, no matter how desperate you are.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[jafac]

There IS NO short term economic justification for space exploration as of yet

There. Fixed that for you. You can thank me later. The day after "Columbus day". Oh right, that's TODAY.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[Jeremi]

. At current rates, it's going to take decades to send that "team" of 20 robots.

Well, if you can design and build one robot (and we have shown that we can), then stamping out the next 19 copies of the same design is straightforward. Once created, they can be sent to Mars together or separately.

At current rates, it's going to take decades to send that "team" of 20 robots.

That same issue also applies to sending humans. The main obstacle is the cost of lifting mass into orbit, and each human you send to Mars will require much more mass than each robot, since for the human you also have to send along several years' worth of food, water, medical supplies, life support equipment, and so on. The robot only needs a power supply.

How about we send them to Mars on a different kind of mission that isn't near-suicidal? I think that would be better.

It would be better, but is it practical? The only manned Mars missions I can foresee right now are (a) on-the-cheap ones where the chances of anyone returning alive are small or zero ... or (b) really really expensive ones, which our nation probably isn't willing to underwrite.

Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell

[khallow]

I really can't see anything to disagree with here. My view is that manned space flight to Mars doesn't make sense right now due to the cost of getting something to space and Congress's current obsession with throwing pork to ATK and other traditional contractors. We'll have to get past that and start doing stuff that makes sense (such as making 20 copies of proven space probe technology) before any sort of serious manned program makes sense.

Really that's the best you got?

[ElitistWhiner]

No accounting for the fact that putting a man in space is the most expense and bassackwards excuse to self-indulgence, now there's a new holier than robots excuse. Well keep at it NASA! Anything to get funded one more decade, right?

Re:Really that's the best you got?

[swanzilla]

Weak argument for sure. The best part of TFA was the epic Photoshopped picture of astronauts exploring a space volcano.

Human space travel

[JWSmythe]

    I'm a believer that humans will need to be involved (i.e., on the ship) as we continue space exploration. Partly it's so we can say "We did this."

    Think of it on a smaller context. Do you want to look at pictures of the Grand Canyon, or do you want to be there? I saw plenty of pictures before I went. Standing on the edge, with my toes just over the edge and my girlfriend saying that I was fucking nuts, was something I won't ever forget.

    I've been to a lot of places. Sometimes, no matter how many photos you see, it will never be the same as being there.

  As the post was about alien hunting, consider this. We make first contact with an intelligent alien species. Should that first contact be a robot claw reproducing the sound of our voice, or a human in a suit.

    That's not to say I expect it to happen any time soon, but with as large as the universe is, there is a very good chance that it will happen eventually. The whole idea that we can send robots out to do it for us, while we sit in the air conditioned comfort of our homes and offices, just doesn't sit well with me.

Re:Human space travel

[elrous0]

We make first contact with an intelligent alien species. Should that first contact be a robot claw reproducing the sound of our voice, or a human in a suit.

That depends on whether they're Vulcans or Romulans, of course.

Re:Human space travel

[xstonedogx]

Think of it on a smaller context. Do you want to look at pictures of the Grand Canyon, or do you want to be there?

No, think of it like this: Do you want a person to take pictures of the Grand Canyon or do you want a robot to do it. You going to the Grand Canyon isn't really an option. I'm sure all of NASA's astronauts are in favor of a Mars mission. Since I'm not one, your argument isn't very compelling.

As the post was about alien hunting, consider this. We make first contact with an intelligent alien species. Should that first contact be a robot claw reproducing the sound of our voice, or a human in a suit.

This post is really about Mars. We won't be sending humans to Europa or other distant points. There's no life on Mars that is going to care one way or the other. I'm not sure even intelligent life would know the difference unless it was sufficiently technologically advanced and there is no evidence that any life like that is in our solar system.

...there is a very good chance that it will happen eventually.

Once the technology and economic incentives are in place for human space travel doing this type of research will be relatively trivial.

But we're talking about the present. Now, we should be sending robots. They are relatively cheap, expendable, and more adapted to hostile environments since we design them that way. They only lack imagination, but we augment that remotely using humans on Earth.

Re:Human space travel

[innerweb]

If the aliens are intelligent, they will avoid us for now anyway.

Right tools for the right jobs.

[Dutchmaan]

Personally sending men into orbit serves it's purpose right now, which is basically testing and perfecting how to keep human beings sustained in space and performing zero-g experiements and other assorted advances in science that couldn't be achieved on the surface. Robots are ideal for reaching further out into space, they don't need to be fed, they don't get tired, no physiological mental or emotional hurdles to overcome. Granted there's a trade off that machines are very limited in their abilities, or more accurately very specific in their abilities. The more comfortable we feel getting vehicles up and returned from space reliably and cheaply, the further out we'll push with human exploration, it's just a matter of time.

And if you read to the end of the article

[PNutts]

Everything beyond Mars is a telescope or robot.

Re:And if you read to the end of the article

[gmhowell]

Wait. So first Pluto is a planet. Then it's a dwarf planet. Now it's either a telescope or a robot?!

Idiot. Everyone knows Pluto is a dog.

No!

[MightyMartian]

No! We need more money for foreign wars, keeping Wall Street afloat and Congressional pork!

Humans are the most adaptable *on earth now*

[buybuydandavis]

But let's see them adapt to vacuum. To cosmic rays. To a year of hibernation.

A human mission requires orders of magnitude more cost and complexity than a robotic mission. For the same lift requirements, you could set up a robotic science center good for years if not decades of experiments.

And robots are getting better every year. Computers are getting better every year. It's really no contest at this point.

Re:Humans are the most adaptable *on earth now*

[internerdj]

Not to mention that a manned mission would be much easier with in situ resource utilization that would necessitate a lot of unmanned research and prep work.

Re:Humans are the most adaptable *on earth now*

[internerdj]

If you have to interface with the environment through a machine, does it make sense to do it on location versus remotely? There is an analytical way to answer this (and NASA is really good at it.) Furthermore, does your dream of value outweigh someone's dream of no human starving to death here? Does your dream of value outweigh someone else's nightmare of Iran blowing up our only real ally in a region that hates us? Does your dream of value outweigh the risk of not supporting failing industries that are core to our nation's economy? Those are even bigger questions with even more difficult answers.

Re:Humans are the most adaptable *on earth now*

[Fned]

But let's see them adapt to vacuum. To cosmic rays. To a year of hibernation.

Yes, lets!

A mission to another planet could do for biological transhumanism what the first space race did for materials science.

Re:Humans are the most adaptable *on earth now*

[bertok]

Let me rephrase that for you: ...I want to be able to hear the nuclear engineer talk about what it was like to be inside the reactor, shrug off the risk, and feel proud that someday people will go where I would never have dared. Robots have their place to prepare the areas to live and all that, but there is no substitute for actual people.

It sounds stupid, but it's directly comparable. Space is full of deadly, ionising radiation, and that is actually the least of the hazards! How is it a good thing to send someone into that environment needlessly, when there are robots available to do it? Should we decommission the robots used in nuclear engineering so that the brave engineers' widows can be proud of their noble sacrifice?

Every time some science fiction fan like you gets all dreamy about space colonisation, ignoring the harsh realities glossed over in fiction, I like to give this challenge:

If you think it's so fantastic living isolated from the rest of humanity on a cold rock in a hard vacuum, and that you'd just "jump" at the opportunity, then move to Bouvet Island, with the following rules: you have to carry everything you'll ever need with you (including air), delay radio communications by ten minutes, have a one year delay on any visits or assistance, the building at the destination has to be airtight, and you never get to leave it unless dressed in a head-to-toe scuba gear. Also, for every pound of material you take with you, donate $100 to your favourite charity. For extra realism, sprinkle some radioactive material around your dwelling and take medication that causes osteoporosis.

All the fun of space, for a fraction of the cost, and you can do it right now! Why delay?

Re:Humans are the most adaptable *on earth now*

[CalcuttaWala]

An even better solution would be to adopt the "Avatar" route and have robotic avatars explore space under the control of guidance of sentients on Earth. In fact the drone operators hammering the Taliban in Af-Pak are the precursors to this.

Re:Humans are the most adaptable *on earth now*

[mikael_j]

It sounds stupid, but it's directly comparable.

Not really, it's like saying we shouldn't light campfires because they are made of fire and so is the sun and being instantly transported to the sun would result in you burning up. See? Danger! And that's not even mentioning that you might get a splinter from the firewood or any of a thousand other things that could go wrong with your campfire...

Clearly you are not the kind of person who would ever do anything simply to see if you could (travel to Bouvet island is pretty easy, a lone adventurer who saves up for a few years could easily go there and stay there for a few months, travel to Mars or further out is a lot harder).

Re:Humans are the most adaptable *on earth now*

[khallow]

If you have to interface with the environment through a machine, does it make sense to do it on location versus remotely?

How "remotely"? One of the big obstacles is the lag in communication between Earth and location. For the Moon, it's just three seconds round trip. You can run things almost real time with that short a time lag. For Mars, the communication delay is more like 15 minutes. Remote interfacing with a 15 minute round trip delay just doesn't make sense.

Re:Humans are the most adaptable *on earth now*

[internerdj]

Yeah but others do and they don't care one bit about sending a single person into orbit much less to another planet. You have to sell the benefit of sending anything and you have to sell the benefit of sending a person.

lets stay where we are

[Anonymous Coward]

it worked for the dinosaurs

oh...

I watched a TV show about that

[mykos]

It was pretty good and had the guy who played Professor Xavier in it. I'd love to see it happen in real life.

Re:I watched a TV show about that

[trum4n]

Picard sucked. James T. Kirk wins. QED. Also, i agree fully.

Re:I watched a TV show about that

[elrous0]

James T. Kirk wins.

Only at sucking Benjamin Sisko's dick.

Hooey. We don't even know what we're looking for.

[gestalt_n_pepper]

We have telescopic data galore. It never occurs to look for something that might be an artifact. I doubt we've identified all the intelligences on Earth yet, much less extraterrestrials? If a species of club moss was intelligent, how, (other than with a zipf analysis of its chemical exchanges), would we know? Ditto for large bacteria colonies, squid or mushrooms.

What would a human physical presence add unless we happened to meet up with a recognizable, tool using, creature, and why would we not use a semi-autonomous avatar/robot to interact with it anyway?

why do we want to find aliens?

[cod3r_]

I mean seriously. If we ever did find aliens we'd probably wish we hadn't. Hasn't NASA seen the movies?

Big downside to humans on Mars

[tbonefrog]

Let's forget about the dead heroes in the epic quest to get men to Mars and back (See the race for the South Pole for how it goes.) Lets forget about the quadrillions of dollars. Let's forget about the speed of advances in robotics that have made it possible to explore the Titanic and the deepest points in the ocean with no risk and at low cost.
We do not know what kind of life may still exist on Mars. It may be anywhere in the top couple hundred kilometers of the surface.
I went to Antarctica and saw first-hand what even a bunch of careful scientists can do to trash a place, and it is entirely possible we could destroy all life on Mars before we even knew it was there, if we go in person.
We might also bring back something that we did not consider alive. Andromeda Strain, Alien, etc.
We are being more careful to avoid corrupting Lake Vostok (google it) than we are planning to be with a far more exotic place. There could be entirely new approaches to DNA-based and non-DNA-based life on Mars. The last thing we want to do is go charging in there with guns blazing.
If you want to spend some money, build a huge solar array and send a humongous laser beam to an unmanned vehicle to get it going really fast and lets get something in orbit around a nearby star in the next hundred years or so. Make up some really long-baseline interferometry telescopy application for it when it gets there.
Or play around on the moon. slightly less deadly, get to work on solar powered self-replicating robots to build massive underground habitats for us where we'll be a little safer from impacts and radiation. Start growing a stockpile of food. And then send people up there if you really have to.
DO NOT POOP ON MARS.

Re:Big downside to humans on Mars

[symbolset]

Oh come on now. Mars is only one planet. There are billions of them.

Robot comes back from far away...

[captainpanic]

My robot discovered alien life, but all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

Re:You can't adapt to a hard vacuum.

[couchslug]

Why post AC?

You are right. The purpose of sending humans so VERY, VERY early when they will only ever be able to interact with their totally hostile environment by using machines ANYWAY is not more than entertainment.

When wooden ships and iron men were expendable and routinely expended, one could throw away a ship and crew. Now, humans are a burden to the exploratory process so leave them at home.

First probes, then tourism.

Hard to adapt to a vacuum.

[mspohr]

There are some basic problems with human space travel.

First, there is that whole "speed of light" business. Unless we can figure a way around that, we aren't going anywhere useful.

Second, life support. It's just real hard to survive without air, water and food. Robots don't need these.

From the way things are going here on earth, it doesn't look like we'll even be able to survive here much longer, not to mention in space.

Re:Hard to adapt to a vacuum.

[farble1670]

First, there is that whole "speed of light" business

which is no less a problem for robots.

Re:Hard to adapt to a vacuum.

[innerweb]

Yes and no. True, it will still take decades to centuries to get anywhere. Robots don't have to worry about biological functions though, so those waits are mere seconds to a robot. And, machines can handle much higher accelerations than people. So, they can get to a higher speed faster than a manned flight could.

Re:Hard to adapt to a vacuum.

[mspohr]

So we probably shouldn't expect robots to go anywhere useful either.

Re:Hard to adapt to a vacuum.

[Grishnakh]

First, there is that whole "speed of light" business. Unless we can figure a way around that, we aren't going anywhere useful.

One way is the generation ship. Build a giant ship and put a colony of humans in there. Eventually, their ancestors will reach another planet. Obviously, not that many people would be willing to take such a trip (and doom their children and ancestors to lives confined to a spacecraft), but if the Earth is crapping out, it might seem like a reasonable alternative.

For feasibility, it'd probably make a lot of sense to build the spacecraft inside a hollowed-out asteroid.

The main problem with the idea is where to get enough energy to last the whole trip, as you need energy to run all the life-support systems as well as grow food, in addition to propulsion. Currently, we get most of our energy for these things in the form of photonic energy from a large conveniently-located nuclear reactor called "the Sun", but out in interstellar space this wouldn't be an option.

Re:Hard to adapt to a vacuum.

[RussR42]

Also, 1g is enough to get you anywhere in the galaxy and back in your own life span. You don't even have to start all that young or live to an unusual age and you still have time to stop and smell the flowers when you get to the destination*. If anything, robotic probes would use lower accelerations over interstellar distances as it will save on fuel/reaction mass and doesn't make a whole lot of difference to the objective time of the trip. For example, that 4ly trip at 1g takes 5.6 years, at 0.1g it's around 13 years.

* Looks like about 22 years to cross the milky way. And when you get home you can look forward to a couple hundred thousand years of interest on your bank accounts :)

Another way to look at it

[koan]

If robots do all of our space exploration then when it comes time to move into space permanently we will be behind the medical and psych knowledge curve required to adapt the human form, the more time in space a human has the more they know what space (micro gravity, vacuum, radiation) will do to them and how to adapt.

Frankly I think any human living in micro-G for a lifetime would have to be genetically modified, or we need to get to the engineering level of moving and spinning large rocks so we have a livable space for the current gene pool.

Ant colonies!

[martin-boundary]

Why not send ant colonies into space? They're cheaper than robots, and more adaptable than humans. The individual ants are easily dispensable, and with their fast breeding cycle we just let evolution do the mission design work for us. There's really no downside once you think about it for a minute, citizen.

Re:Ant colonies!

[genner]

Why not send ant colonies into space? They're cheaper than robots, and more adaptable than humans. The individual ants are easily dispensable, and with their fast breeding cycle we just let evolution do the mission design work for us. There's really no downside once you think about it for a minute, citizen.

Ant's still need life support. There not cheaper than robots if you take that into consideration.

Re:Ant colonies!

[RussR42]

It's all fun and games until they return to enslave us and force us to toil in their underground sugar mines...

Re:Ant colonies!

[Opyros]

There's really no downside once you think about it for a minute, citizen.

You're right – what could possibly go wrong? I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords!

nonsense

[farble1670]

Ultimately, the hunt for extraterrestrial life may need an astronaut to physically push deeper into space.

ultimately astronauts would be relying on manual, hand-held versions of the the same sensors present on robots to do their "life detection". every "sensor" on a human is outperformed by the non-bio version that can be carried by robots.

Robots first, then human colonists

[roca]

Send robots to explore. Send robots to build a base with power supply, mining and manufacturing to build more robots. Build a bigger base with air, water and plants to eat. Then, and only then, send human colonists on a one-way trip.

Re:Robots first, then human colonists

[wierd_w]

I can tell you don't work in manufacturing. There is a reason why even with CNC mills and lathes, the machine operator is an integral component.

That reason is because computer control systems used for manufacturing fuck up, and do so frequently.

A fully robotic factory is currently a pipdream, and if it ever became possible, it would place thousands of people out of work.

To build a space colony on the moon or on mars, the only sensible way to do it would be to soft land all the parts, tools, and heavy equipment there, then send a dual purpose shuttle\shelter ship containing workers, food, and supplies on a one way trip. The workers live in the landed shuttle while they build the base, then move in.

No other way is remotely possible with current machine intelligence or technology.

Re:Robots first, then human colonists

[roca]

Machine intelligence is not required for a moon base, because robots can be teleoperated from Earth at that distance.

There are definitely a bunch of technological obstacles, mainly on the robotics side, but the work required to overcome them doesn't have to be incredibly expensive (unlike building stupidly large rockets to launch lots of mass from Earth), and it would have significant spin-off benefits on Earth.

Re:Robots first, then human colonists

[benjamindees]

A fully robotic factory is currently a pipdream

LOL wrong.

Re:Humans will one day be obsolete for everything

[xstonedogx]

Would a thinking computer want to design a system that would make itself obsolete?

Re:Robot cannot become star child

[innerweb]

Point the telescope away from Hollywood.

Still holding PR as the real arguments...

[wierd_w]

It still looks like the real arguments for and against sending humans to live and work at permanent space colonies are ones of pure PR.

On the one hand, you have the "Nya nya! We built one first!" Dick waving type PR, and the other, which I suspect holds more weight, is the "you sent joe sixpack and everything he finds necessary to live and work into space to clutter up another planet. Bravo." type PR.

This is because a space colony is much more than scientists, engineers, and MIT grad astronauts. A space colony is welders, riveters, janitors, (hookers, they WILL turn up), and all the other blue collar labor needed to have things built, and further, all the things they need to be happy doing it, like beer, porn, sports, etc.

The logistics of builing a bonafide space colony are astronomical in comparison to sending robots, even absurdly priced ones, and the robots don't demand hookers and beer.

The real reason why an actual colony is unlikely to be built by any world government is exactly that reason. No self respecting politician wants to be seen as supporting that kind of lifestyle, or worse, showing segregationalist eliteism by screening for only "cookie cutter straight laced" types, regardless of other work qualifications. (That would be a violation of equal employment laws...)

This makes the issue a poisonous one to politicians and governments. They sent astronauts, since those were already on a silver PR platter as being ivy league types. They will never send joe sixpack into space, as long as they can avoid it.

Humans breed faster than Robots

[Kittenman]

... so it's humans that need to get out there and find more places to live and breed. 7 billion down here now ...

By all means use robots to find a good sport to build a house, plant the corn and corral the critters - but it's humans that need to live. Robots can't even do that.

Said it before, I'll say it again

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Humans have no business being in space. Period. Robots are cheaper and easier and outside the circle of empathy - they are just machines.Did the robot miss something? Send another one with a different design. Robots are making massive strides in terms of movement and capabilities. Send robots to Mars. Send robots to the moon. Robots don't get grouchy. Robots don't have mental breakdowns half way to Jupiter (fiction not withstanding), robots don't need to eat or shit or breathe. They just need energy and a plan. They don't need to fuck or get pregnant. They don't have to worry about getting cancer from a solar flare. Robots don't have to sleep. Robots don't need recreation or entertainment. . Very simply, humans have no business being in space. Get over it.

Fortunately there are other reasons

[perpenso]

That's going to be a pretty tough sell just to answer the philosophical question "Are we alone?"

Fortunately there are other reasons. Scientific research that potentially offers economic benefits, this includes basic research (benefit is later rather than sooner). Energy production, solar power is far more viable outside the atmosphere. Speaking of outside the atmosphere, how about production of materials and goods that involve processes that are polluting or otherwise present a health or environmental risk. Production of materials or goods that would greatly benefit from low gravity environments. Access to immense amount of resources (asteroids - metals, chemicals), note that such access also *dramatically* reduces the cost of future space based endeavors. And of course there are other things like, oh, a military "high ground" advantage.

Now I'm sure some are tempted to dismiss producing goods in orbit due to "shipping costs" but consider this. Shipping goods across the ocean was once prohibitively expensive except for the most expensive or rare goods. That has changed dramatically. Shipping the cheapest goods across the ocean is now economically viable. Space based production will most likely follow a similar pattern.

Again, I am not claiming an immediate economic benefit (beyond employment and dual use technological advances - perhaps these should be included as factors offsetting the cost of a space based endeavors). I am merely pointing out motivations that are a bit more viable than the discovery of alien life. Of course I am curious too, but its something pretty low on the priority list.

Re:Fortunately there are other reasons

[murdocj]

There simply isn't any comparison between "shipping across the ocean" and "shipping across space". When Columbus sailed the ocean blue, he didn't need a new, expensive technology. Ships could be built fairly rapidly and manned by the criminals off the docks. Airplanes were originally flown by a couple of (very intelligent and persistent) guys as an amateur hobby. It's clear from the work private companies are doing today that even suborbital flight s many orders of magnitude more difficult than travel by ship or plane.

To think of it another way, the first humans went into space over 50 years ago. From 1903 to 1953, we went from cloth and wood biplanes to routine travel in jet planes. Despite massive investment from governments and now private industry, we simply haven't made that kind of progress in space flight... not because the people trying to do it are bunch of idiots, but because it is really, REALLY hard, and VERY expensive. Even if we discovered an asteroid made of solid gold, it wouldn't be worth it to go to it, unless, of course, we were menaced by Cybermen.

Humans In Space

[hackus]

I can tell you why it is important to have human access to space.

Lets start by looking around at how everything is so f*cked up.

You know, a long time ago, you use to be able to flee to foreign lands, or undiscovered countries to get rid of the socia/pschyo inbred leaders that enjoy watching people starve, live in misery or otherwise think because what comes out of their dick makes them royal.

We seem to have come to a impasse now. You can't run anywhere. Tyranny is _EVERYWHERE_. From the nut cases in China who find it is perfectly legit to corral people into pens and work them to death or a democrat, republican, tea party psychopath/socio paths who scramble at the drop of a bankers phone call for more bail out money 10 generations from now will be still paying.

With access to space I can leave. Or, better yet, with access to space we can tell these people TO LEAVE.

That is of itself would be incredibly useful, and worth it to expand humans into space.

-Hack

It's go or die

[symbolset]

Mankind will journey to the stars or it will die out and all this will have been for nothing.

Re:It's go or die

[Arlet]

It has always been for nothing. Get over it.

Re:Humans In Space

[Greyfox]

And... establish tyranny in space?

Permanent space station

[Twinbee]

Semi-random question: What obstacles are stopping us from permanently having a space-station that's completely cut off from the Earth?

Lack of water is the obvious thing, since energy can be provided by solar. Sigh, we'll be needing energy to matter converters by the looks of it...

Re:Permanent space station

[benjamindees]

What obstacles are stopping us from permanently having a space-station that's completely cut off from the Earth?

Probably just eventual damage due to micrometeorite impacts. Water can be recycled. ISS could be mostly self-sufficient if only it were at a higher orbit and hadn't been designed to come crashing back down to Earth.

Got It Backward

[shawnhcorey]

If astronauts are hunting indigenous life, then they're the aliens. One would think that Slashdot would get that right.

Re:Got It Backward

[benjamindees]

Listen, buddy. You're either with us or you're with the aliens.

Re:You can't adapt to a hard vacuum.

[History's Coming To]

Or skip a part and use tourists as probes. If a spaceship and science mission can be made relatively idiot-proof then I'm sure there'd be no shortage of willing volunteers to stick in the can, and they'd pay for the privilege.

Thinking about it wrong

[uvajed_ekil]

We do have a high adaptability to tasks in space, but we have a decidedly low adaptability to being in space. Long stints in space (meaning as little as a few months) are linked to muscle atrophy, loss of bone density, depression, sleep disturbances and a number of other problems that may or may not prove to be seriously detrimental to the health and abilities of astronauts. And with trips of greater duration and distance there are increasing concerns over cancer and other things, as well as a higher probability of accidents. And of course there are the technical conerns, like the necessity of 100% protection from even short-term radiation and 100% uptime for life support systems - having oxygen and a pressurized environment 99.9% of the time is not good enough for humans.

The answer is to continue to develop both manned and unmanned space travel, progressing as technological advancements allow while pushing the envelope, within reason, and assuming some level of risk and tolerating occasional losses. Our goals should continue to be to better understand the universe, find life, and find intelligent life, and also to eventually colonize other worlds. This will take great patience, but equally great resolve to push on relentlessly.

I Have Just One Question

[Jawnn]

Is this going to be a standup fight, sir, or another bug hunt?

justification for spaceflight

[vmaldia]

A more practical justification for spaceflight is orbital solar power plants. due to the deep gravity well of the earth, its much easier and cheaper to send a rocket filled with construction materials from an asteroid or from the moon to an orbital solar construction site. And there's the possibility of using mass drivers to send material from moon to LEO with no expense except the cost of making the mass driver and solar panel. a lunar mining operation implies a lunar colony unless you can go full AI or telepresence its not easy and there are many details, but in principle it works

That's who

[Shoe Puppet]

Also, who wants to let the robots have all the fun?

Suits.

Logic of Robotic Exploration

[ks*nut]

Why send a human to do a robot's job? Robotic interplanetary probes should be assembled and sent out from low earth orbit and then we wouldn't need to re-invent the Saturn V. We actually can overcome the mistaken thinking that led to the billions wasted on programs like the shuttle and ISS.

Remember Fukushima

[XrayJunkie]

Robots werent that helpfull at all. They failed in different tasks and needed a lot of maintenance ... despite the fun factor.

Anything but animals, please!

[Evtim]

Robots or humans, no matter. Just stay away from animals.

Now you are thinking "oh no, some crazy environmentalist calling". But no.

My first though after reading the head line was about a hilarious short story from , if I remember correctly, Robert Shakely. We read about the thoughts of an astronaut who's ship is failing and he will soon be burned to crisps. Already at this stage of the story you kind of get puzzled that apparently the people who send this astronaut did not in fact take very good care about his life-support and kind of not really care if he dies. At that moment a huge alien ship appears and the astronaut is saved by the aliens. On board their ship though he goes into great detail telling them what a horrible, irresponsible, warmongering species we are and that if the aliens value their piece and way of life they should destroy us. The aliens are shocked and discus what to do for a long time. At the end they tell him that they cannot destroy us because it is against their principles but since we are such a dangerous species they will make a bomb but the button must be pressed by the astronaut. He agrees gladly. The last paragraph states roughly "They led me to the room with the bomb , showed be the button and I immediately pressed it without hesitation. Soon, the mankind will be no more. That is what you deserve, you arrogant humans, for thinking that just because I am an ape, you can do whatever you please with me"!

So, we should be careful that the first account of our deeds to the aliens is given by a human rather than any other species from Earth, cause we will get the same fate as in the story. I mean, the way we conduct our affairs even the ants probably have a grudge against us....

Human weaknesses

[gx5000]

Let's not forget all the nice little things we've learned since NASA became a little more open in what happened during the moon missions. From those spooky mini Elmo's fire incidents to the fact that low or no gravity can blind us, and surely a Mars mission now is out of the realm of possibility until we get a rotating mid section ship, unless we don't care about blind astronauts (yes go read about it, was quite disturbing)

Private organisation

[LongearedBat]

donate to or invest in a private organization that shares your goals. They are not only more likely to succeed, but more likely to spend that money wisely and in a way that reflects your interests. Bonus: you might see profits someday.

Drax Industries was pretty big a few years back, but they had some unfortunate setbacks.

Well, if we dont, someone else will...

[bbroerman]

At least there are other countries out there that have the will and the means. The US doesn't have to be the biggest and best any longer, and won't be for much longer anyway... China, India, and who knows who else will be out there long before we go back... Pretty soon, all the big announcements, advancements, etc. will be coming from them. Who knows, maybe one day we will be humbly asking China if they'll take us along, or let us spend time on their moon base.

When I read the title:

[Hartree]

I can't be the only one to have imagined ALF as a trophy hanging on the wall and some guy in a space suit kicked back in an arm chair underneath.

The economic argument. . .

[jafac]

The argument that keeps coming up, that says that we can't afford it (as a public service) - is really a bunch of crap.

Yes - it is TRUE, that if a space program is run as a pork-barrel project (like STS was), then it will be an unsafe, money-suck. Meaningful science will be done, and it will still be FAR cheaper than your imperial war machine. But, please, politicians, sit the FUCK down, and let the engineers do the rocket science. Thanks.

The argument that it must be a sound business proposition, is also a great big pile of crap.

How much did Queen Isabella "invest" in exploring the new world? (not really all that much, in the big scheme of things. I'm sure her jewels were precious to her - but as monarchs and royalty go. . . it was fucking peanuts, and was a no-brainer). What was HER PERSONAL RETURN on that investment? BUPKUS! (actually really awful, since Columbus gets blamed for the extermination of all the indiginous people. It really wasn't solely HIS doing. . . he was a sailor and navigator, not a conqueror or exterminator. I think you're confusing him with someone else. Clearly - extermination HAPPENED. Genocide HAPPENED. But Columbus wasn't really directly responsible.)
But overall - as an ROI to Western Civilization, what was the New World worth?

You can't even estimate that.

Listen - our monetary system - this banking crisis, it's all fucking manufactured. It's ridiculous. A farce. The people who are in charge now, are in charge, because we allow them to be in charge. Their currency has value, because we believe it has value. They preferentially lend it to whomever or whatever, continues their hegemony. So don't fall for the bullshit that we don't have enough money for NASA or space exploration.

The argument that we don't currently have the technology - IS A VALID ARGUMENT. Oh my!
So do we roll over and die? Do we crawl back into the slime at the bottom of the ocean? Or do we choose to do the hard things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard? Sounds like an easy decision to me.

Personally - I believe that robots will make much better "searchers" for extraterrestrial life. But I also believe that humans need to be there, to manage the robotic systems. Spirit and Opportunity could both use a tune-up right about now. A new wheel, maybe some upgraded sensors, faster RAM, etc. Those are probably overy-simplistic examples as a model for the future. Almost anywhere within our solar system, the economics probably favor sending new robots. The capabilities of sensors, mobility and longevity of telerobotic platforms, favor robotics over direct human observation by tens of thousands to one. But someday, we'll be expanding our operations beyond that range.

Just as soon as we solve the technical problem of how we keep bankers from wetting their beds every time the business cycle flips. I believe that this is a psychopharmaceutical problem. Not an economic problem.