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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?
. 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.
All we need to do is build a ship entirely out of neutrinos.
We will. It arrived there several years ago.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
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.
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)
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)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
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.
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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
Surely it's preferable for space transport projects not to go bang.
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.