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A Vigorous Discussion of Our Future In Space
Nethead writes "At TAM 2011, presented by The James Randi Foundation (JREF), a panel with Pamela Gay, Lawrence Krauss, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and moderated by Phil Plait, discussed our future in space in an environment where they could freely express their opinions. This is an hour-long video (so lay off first-posts until you've watched it) with humor, depth and frank realism. Where do we spend our dwindling monetary science funding, manned or robotic exploration?"
hour has already passed.
Where's the link to the transcript?
This is SlashDot, not CNN.com. We don't have an hour of free time to blow - we scan, pick out the important bits and GTF on with our day.
Yeah, I'm really just going to watch an hour long video, think about it, and then comment in an insightful manner about the topic. :P
Please, this is slashdot, I'll just wait for someone else to tell me the good parts or at least ramble on about something good related to the topic who also didn't watch the video.
No, that link you posted to a web comic we've all seen a hundred times is not "obligatory."
And should we spend it in the first place?
Robots have done great with Mars. The cost to any space program of an astronaut being supported all the way out and back is staggering - let alone if something should happen to him/her.
Besides, we can send dozens of robots for the cost of development and embarking on a single manned mission.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I know these names from some of my favorite podcasts. I'm going to toss them out here for people who aren't familiar with them, and please respond with similar podcasts if you love some.
The Skeptics Guide To The Universe (sponsored by JREF)
AstronomyCast (Pamela Gay)
NOVA scienceNOW or NOVA|PBS (often features Tyson)
Planetary Radio (Bill Nye The Planetary Guy)
Skeptoid (related topics by Brian Dunning)
Radiolab (related topics, best of the best of the best)
Excuse the half-off-topic post, please.
1. There's many places a person can't go, manned missions are limited to LEO, Moon and possibly Mars. I do assume we want to explore the rest of the solar system?
2. Even if we send manned missions, we will probably want lots of robotics to make it work well. So it's not robotics or humans, it's more should we have humans at all.
3. What about missions vs telescopes? Pardon me for saying so, but right now the solar system isn't where the most exciting news are happening. Apart from absurdly outliving all lifetime expectations, I haven't heard of any revolutionary news from the rovers.
Apart from exoplanets, I'd be most interested in a dry-run dome construction on Mars with pressure, temperature, oxygen, radiation controls and so on. Build astronaut replacements that burn oxygen and otherwise mimics an actual astronaut living there. In other words, a complete on-site simulation through robotics. If all goes well, then send humans.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
As a rocket scientist, I think we should spend our dwindling resources on pure research 10%, development of new components 25%, 15% to co-payments to privately funded manned and unmanned missions, with another magical contingent 15% (leading to 115%) going to insurance to replentish capital on 70% of flight losses. That's 50%. The remaining 50% should be continued payments to contractors for hardware and launch services. The contractor base should be actively widened for some of that to smaller and newer suppliers with reduced burden to sign-on.
The recent $10m offered to 7 or so sub-orbital companies was a true pittance and should be expanded to 14 more.
The Lord's Resistance Army is a fine, upstanding Christian organization.
It's right there in the name.
proof that drugs are bad and drug addicts should be safely locked up where they can't harm society.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Space is the last frontier. But I am not sure if we humans actually deserve to conquer space and spread our greed and selfishness around the universe.
Just out of curiosity, if you have OpenGL 2.1 support in your Windows PC, you can explore entire planets right now: http://www.etereo.com.br.
You're against spending any more money on space exploration yet you offer no logical reasons for this. Space has shown to be immensely profitable, we have hundreds of satellites up there, orbiting the earth, providing vital roles to keep our modern world going. The potential for energy generation and mineral extraction are tantalizing. Thanks to Virgin Galactic and other private ventures, in the next five years, we are going to have more humans go to space than we have had in the past fifty years! A Luddite such as yourself would probably deride tourism, but that doesn't change the fact that this is positively groundbreaking! You yourself may lack the vision and fortitude to tackle the challenges of space exploration and exploitation, but thankfully there are many individuals out there who are up to it.
But you're a broken part or a line of code away from blowing 300 million dollars.
> Maybe if you spent less time vying for first post you would
Maybe a good Ask Slashdot question would be:
What are the best practices for achieving first post?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I'm only 20 minutes into watching the video and I find it quite a fascinating discussion.
If you have ANY interest in government involvement in space exploration, I urge you to take the time to watch this video.
Bye - I'm goin' back to watch the video...
The cake is a lie.
The only way humans will go to Mars will be if a new Cold War starts. I'm happy that Neil deGrasse Tyson eloquently raised this point with the audience (~minute 28). To get more funding for science, we really need to play up the geo-political advantages. Appealing to the love of knowledge might convince the Slashdot crowd, but it won't pry open the coffers of any nation.
Too long; didn't watch. Can someone with more free time please summarise, since TFS didn't bother to?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
There is a fabulous oration by Neil deGrasse Tyson during the Q&A, in response to a statement that "we can't afford" space exploration. Alone this makes the 53 minutes a worthwhile investment in time.
but spending a trillion dollars to win a pissing contest while we're cutting Social Security, selling off parks, and laying off tens of thousands of government employees seems, I don't know, kind of stupid.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I think all this arguing over cost helps to illustrate my frustrations with the manned space programs thus far. While I support manned exploration if for only that fact that it is hugely inspiring to a people (and don't discount the intangible effects of morale) their prohibitive cost and single mindedness of national pride keeps us from being able to successfully pursue it. All of the detractors in here keep going on and on about how expensive it is to send people into space and all of the supporters keep going on and on about how it's worth it and we'll never go if we don't just suck it up and spend Portugal's GDP on getting there already and to both of you groups I say GROW THE FUCK UP, COMPROMISE, AND FIND A WAY TO MAKE IT WORK FOR BOTH OF YOU!
The main reason WHY its so damned expensive to send men into space and to other places in the solar system is because its stupidly expensive to get things into LEO, all this talk about escaping earth's gravity well is expensive is bullshit, once you're up there, you can choose just about any means of propulsion you want and it will move you out of orbit, just a question of what speed you want to do so at. If you want to get a permanent manned presence in space what you need to do is lower the cost of getting into orbit, plain and simple. I bet if we could lower the cost of getting into orbit by 50% or so (not inconceivable in our lifetimes) we can seriously start to build up an infrastructure from which we can make a business case for exploiting resources in other locations in our solar system.
If we're going to have a manned future in space, and I think we all realize that we need to in the long run, we need to focus on building up our ability to get there cheaply, and this just hasn't been a priority for any government agency since spaceflight's inception. I know that there are many corporations out there right now, SpaceX specifically, that are focused on doing just that but they're still using the same technologies which are more or less proven to not be mass producible in any way to provide us with truly inexpensive access to space and I dont think that they will ever be successful in getting us a useful foothold in LEO for us to expand off of. For us to be really able to expand out of LEO, we need to shift our focus away from the romantic missions to moon/mars/asteroid for a while and start focusing on developing new technologies and methods for getting into ORBIT cheaply, from there we can start to look at going other places and reaping the wealth that is present in so many ways in our own system and beyond.
Personally I'd rather have my idiots at home glued to the TV than out doing idiotic things
"Where do we spend our dwindling monetary science funding, manned or robotic exploration?"
That's easy. Both.
Position manned spacecraft in intermediate positions between distant robotic craft and the earth to ameliorate the time lag for missions that require timely human intervention. Certainly in the case of Jupiter where the radiation and magnetic fields are very harsh robotic spacecraft will be necessary. But Jupiter is where mind-boggling amounts of energy is so that's probably where we'll want to go.
Life? Who cares about life. We already have too much life. That's all we'll need to do is bring weed-eaters and bug spray with us to outer-space.
For direct download:
http://av.vimeo.com/48323/967/69379567.mp4?token=1319148574_68f532a970ac33e3a5fb0a2b7cb02a82
If it does not work you can use this: http://savevideo.me/
What about keeping all our eggs in a single basket, and chewing the shit out of it. What chance does humanity have here? GTFO or behave like You do, like You're all dead allready.
Maybe a prior generation could have pulled this off. Not us. It's cold out there, and dark. The planets are far, the fare is steep. Space is not ours.
Let the Chinese go, or India, or Russia. When they come back they'll tell us what they found - won't they?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I am in the same boat, I don't have an hour to spare. That's why I'll be listening to this in the background while at my desk tomorrow. Thank you Nethead.
We've got millions of unemployed people with nothing better to do with their day.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Anyone else pick up from his body language that he cant stand Bill Nye. His posture and face just read "I am superior to this buffoon in a bow tie"
Excellent video! This is exactly news for nerds and stuff that matters.
In all seriousness, not to stereotype, but two very distinct groups of people are beginning to form in the United States, the Democrats and the Republicans. I say we split the United States into its two halves (not physically, but virtually), let each citizen choose the half they would like, and have them compete with one another. The competition will spur innovation and job creation like we've never seen before. As we've seen, unless we have a CLEAR competitor, we tend to conserve our effort. And, perhaps, that's the smart choice. It's like running. Unless you're in a race, or you are battling your weight, you're probably not going to run very much. As another example, what do you personally do when you need motivation? For me, the best motivator is to either imagine or realize I am in a competition against someone or some group of people. I'm certain we could kill 100 birds with one stone if we just create two (virtual) halves to the country and compete with ourselves.