It's Baaack! XB-37B Finally Lands

ColdWetDog writes "The US Air Force / DARPA 'baby shuttle,' the Boeing-built XB-37B has just landed after 469 days in orbit. No official explanation of why controllers kept the mission going past the original duration of 270 days other than 'because we could.' I, for one, welcome our long duration, unmanned orbital overlords."

Comments

Re:The future of spaceflight is robotic

[CRCulver]

Lets face it, it's just too expensive to keep puny humans alive in orbit, the advent of highly advanced space faring robotics will see the end of long endurance human spaceflight.

20 years ago, I was all rah-rah for human spaceflight. Then I started reading more speculations of technological singularities and the integration of man and machine. I now see two futures as much more likely than manned spaceflight with life support systems as traditionally conceived.

If wacky AI prophets like Kurzweil are right, the human race that expands to the stars and robotic unmanned exploration might be one and the same. If humans transcend biology, there is no longer a need for packing oxygen, radiation shielding and water into a spacecraft.

Another possibility, proposed by Vernor Vinge in Marooned in Realtime is that an intelligent race like ours might simply move into a virtual reality, populating and exploring that inner world of infinite possibilities instead of the cold, hard reality of outer space. Yeah, yeah, there's the possibilities of a catastrophic asteroid strike etc., but the human face is not especially adept at planning for the very longterm future, and simply moving towards the core of the planet might prove an attractive solution for the shorter term.

Incidentally, the AC who also responded to you is a well-known troll (easily distinguished by his use of the term "space nutter"). While I agree with him that manned space exploration is not a likely future, his purpose here is more to mock and tear down than to contribute to meaningful discussion. Avoid his trap.