but that's so rare that it kind of requires explicit statements to that end.
See, that's the odd assumption to me. I never found that to be the rare case on slashdot. Ah well, I suppose everyone reads different articles on here.
So far as I know, there is no requirement for life to exist that needs water in a liquid state. For all we know, there could be some micro-bacteria something-anothers that could thrive by floating about in gaseous water.
The whole damn thing looks like a sham at this point.
I've been voting for 8 years now in the USA. I've never voted for a democrat or a republican for any office above state-congress level representation. After my poly sci class my senior year of high school I just couldn't bring myself to support either of the candidates fueled by so much, 'special interest money,' (read rich man's bribes). Everyone I've told this to has always criticized me for throwing away my vote, but so far as I see it, voting for third party candidates or write-ins is the only viable means we, as Americans, have to stand up and say, "None of the above," on our ballots. I'd mush rather tell my government, "Screw you, you're all doing it wrong," and be ignored than know that I cast a vote for an idiot, a sociopath, or a psycho.
The only reason I bring this up is that, if you ask me, it's looked like a sham from the beginning. Then again I am very young, and perhaps there were some decades before my time where politicians and the electoral system didn't suck nearly as badly as they do today.
While I agree with your general notion, I would suggest that most slashdotters are pretty good about not getting tangled up in the D-party vs. R-party politics. I've never seen more ire for the two party system expressed anywhere as explicitly as it is on this site. Of course, both parties have their cheerleaders here on slashdot, but I don't think there are enough of them to associate the term slasbot with a lover for the two-party system. Then again, this is merely an opinion on my part and, of course, YMMV.;)
You really can't be that stupid can you? He's not implying that a GOP vote would be better. He said, explicitly, this administration is no different from the last one. Meaning both are equal, whether that be in evil or good content. Since he didn't explicitly say he disproved of the previous administration, I can't tell for certain that he disproves of both (as there hasn't been any change). However, given the foreboding tone and the general nature of these kinds of comments on slashdot my wager would be that he approved of neither administrations actions and, thus, no change meant that Obama was bad because he was not a change from Bush who was bad. Or, to put it in broader terms, Democrat candidates are bad because they are really no different than Republican candidates that are also bad.
Hence, his point in saying that he hopes most slashbots will change their votes, to me, implied that he wants folk to stop voting for both the GOP and the Democratic party. However, those last bits are inferred from guesses on my part as to how the OP actually felt about the previous administration.
For the record, the mere fact that I, or anybody else, has to spell something out like this for you explicitly is terribly pathetic. Try not to knee jerk so much and you may find less posts to be offensive and, thus, worthy of your ire.
If you can't do that, then I guarantee that you and your voting habits, indeed, are part of the problem, not a solution.;)
...
-Much more advanced closed loop control algorithms requiring more lines of code needed.
-Autonomous station keeping capabilities needed requiring more motors and more lines of code, requiring more mass and more complexity, repeat as needed
-Inability to account for non-perceived emergencies possibly resulting in total equipment failure before any data is even downlinked to Earth
-Absolutely no science regarding biology of humans can be conducted limiting any advances that can develop in the fields of medicine or human survivability
-No real time navigation/piloting forbidding instantaneous collision avoidance maneuvers or emergency reorientation due to thermal and/or power subsystem failures
-No science returned regarding most efficient ways to keep a man alive in space which, to this day, is still the most inhibiting factor of spaceflight. Thus, if we EVER want to put men in space cheaply, we have to be researching this NOW. We can't research every other space access technology and then just pretend that one day in the future, poof, magic, we will be able to conquer space ourselves because we did so already with robots. It makes infinitely more sense to develop organic in space and robotic in space technologies concurrently, so that the lessons learned from one paradigm will be relevant and useful for the other paradigm
-I can keep going if you like...
you are not bright, or a very good troll: its hard to feign stupidity in a sustained manner as you seem to be doing
Do not question my intelligence due to your own inadequacy and inability to account for realistic, complicated design issues. Oversimplifying something on slashdot makes you look stupid. Oversimplifying the actual design of a spacecraft means all your science and data comes crashing down in pretty flames. The only lesson you learn is not to be so quick and whimsical about decisions and analysis.
It could have a surface temperature as low as 400 Kelvin, even cooler than the team's previous record of slightly below 500 K
That's only ~127 Celsius, 27 degrees above water's boiling point. That temperature range is far from uninhabitable. Combine the organic compounds with methane and water and a relatively moderate surface temperature and I would say that we have a prime example of one very possible location for life outside of our own solar system. That's pretty damn exciting.
I'd be curious to know what technology he is talking about. Do you think you could get the name(s) of whatever types of things he is thinking of for me? I'd like to do some further research.
insanely obvious as the fact that a probe is a hell of a lot cheaper than sending up something that needs to support a human being?
Because right now it's not. See above:
It's more the other way around. Current seat price on the Shuttle (which is already pretty darn expensive) is something like $100 million, perhaps a bit more. The Discovery class probes are around half a billion dollars. This is as close to "cut rate" as NASA gets. That's five astronauts in space. You're off by a factor of 200.
Those were off the cuff numbers turned up by a guy that did a simple Google search and even THAT is more relevant than what you've been posting.
"i want studies! i want scientific proof! i want a demonstration!"
dude, none of these things are a replacement for THOUGHT
Yes, they are. Do you want to know why? Because a thousand years ago we THOUGHT that the Earth was the center of the solar system. 200 years ago we THOUGHT that Newton's laws explained all motion in the universe. Prior to LRO, we THOUGHT Pluto was the coldest place in the solar system (it turns out our own moon's craters probably are). Just over 50 years ago we THOUGHT it was impossible for a man to get to the moon.
All of those thoughts were shattered by engineers using studies, science, and demonstrating technologies whom were trying to show that things people often THINK are wrong. I am not saying what you are asserting is, necessarily incorrect. However, just because you THINK it is correct is not true that it is.
Before I took a curriculum in aerospace engineering I THOUGHT the most restrictive parameter in achieving orbit was altitude. I was wrong. It took science and math to show me that, in fact, velocity is more important.
THINKING something doesn't count for shit against the cold, hard reality that we face everyday. When you grow up you'll eventually learn skepticism, then criticism, and then you will realize just why your championing of a cause in ignorance is absolutely absurd.
However, until you grow mature enough to even attempt to learn such things, there is little I can do to help you. You're just going to have to wallow in your own ignorance justified by your own hubris and sloth. I gave you some links in one of my other posts to some decent sources that detail the technical aspects of designing spacecraft, both manned and unmanned. If you want to educate yourself, get started. If not, have fun living in fantasy land with your unicorn farts and pixie dust.
So rather than back up any of your claims, because you fail the technical expertise to demonstrate that developing millions of lines of infallible code to control a spacecraft is, according to you, cheaper than keeping a sentient, problem solving organism alive in space, you are going to copy-paste your insults from one of your other responses in this thread and hope that, in some way, validates your complete fucking ignorance on spacecraft design? Jesus Christ people like you just need to shoot themselves. Either learn a thing or two about spacecraft design and survivability analysis or shut the hell up.
I really don't get it. I've seen you post some pretty insightful stuff on other topics, but on this particular thread you are displaying a total lack of knowledge. I've posted, several times, the technical drawbacks to designing unmanned probes that keeps them from being incredibly cheap. You haven't posted jack shit to back up what you are claiming. Did you forget to eat your Wheaties this morning or something?
And millions of lines of infallible code to account for hundreds of potential failure scenarios. Code that takes time and money to test and debug and develop.
are you feigning incredulity or do you genuinely lack enough cognitive facilites to deduce the fucking obvious?
As an engineer, I cannot use, "obvious," as a reason for a design decision. I have already seen numbers to refute your guess that unmanned missions are cheaper than manned ones posted above. That is to say, unmanned probes are very expensive to develop, just like manned missions. If you want to refute those numbers, then show me some of your oww. I can use numbers, math, and historical cases to backup a design decision. Provide me one of those three if you are going to be making any claim as to what path we, as engineers, should be taking to ensure progress. If you can't do that, then you're the one lacking cognitive facilities you zealous twat.
Can't wait to see how people blame the victim on this one.
The problem was clearly that the victim was born in the first place. Arrogant bastard with his sense of entitlement to life. Hell, in my day we had to earn our way to being alive by clawing our way through 15 miles of snow out of our mother's vagina. Only the tough ones that wouldn't fall for this kind of fraud could survive that ordeal. Nowadays just any ol' sperm can waltz its way into an egg. Sad really.
i think my anger is justified: are you passionate about space exploration? then why aren't YOU angry at this stupid obsession with meatbags in space?
I am passionate, which is why I work in the field and study the design issues at hand before ranting like some lunatic religious idiot trying to sell Jesus or Mohammed or whatever. Because well thought out, rational, developed thinking is what is required to do any amount of space exploration. Not batshit insane preaching on the internet like a fucking used car salesman.
As for why I am not angry about manned space exploration, because so far nobody has every demonstrated that manned exploration is, indeed more cost for less science than unmanned. Putting people in space is expensive, but, arguably, you get more science out of it. The only stupid obsession and chest thumping going on right now is the actions you are partaking in yourself, declaring loudly and proudly to anyone stupid enough to listen, that you have this great idea that just has to work because you said so.
You're a zealot, an idiot, and an all around butt-fucking crazy person. If you seriously want to understand spacecraft design, please read some of the other, rather lengthy posts I have put up in response to you previously. I even provided some nice references for learning spacecraft design. I hope, however, you learn to STFU before you know something of substance regarding the subject you are talking about or else you are never going to be taken seriously.
I, for one, am not wasting anymore time reading your unfounded lunatic bullshit. You've been absolutely disgraceful to both science and engineering if you think this kind of ranting is in anyway productive, useful, or realistic.
because we did 10,000x that amount of science in other fields for 100x less money instead!
Other fields don't have to do science in a location of about 7,000 km away in a state of perpetual falling that involves passing through boiling hot and near 0 K temperatures. Please stop trolling this thread with pesudo-analogues and made up comparisons. Space is an entirely unique environment with entirely unique design specifications. Even deep sea exploration doesn't come close because that environment, at least, gives you a surrounding fluid to piddle about in. Operating in a radiation soaked vacuum with limited to no communication capabilities is particular only to the space environment, stop trying to compare it to other stuff.
think of sending probes as the same as sending astronauts, but the astronaut is sitting in a room in cape canaveral using a probe to see, hear, feel, and touch FOR ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE LESS MONEY
why don't people see this?
Because nobody has ever shown, definitively, that that is the case. Probes are expensive. Manned space exploration is expensive. The only thing that will make one cheaper than the other is whether or not we decide to develop one more than the other. We could always develop them both similarly...
face facts: we only have extremely primitive spacefaring technologies.
Exactly, which is why BOTH manned and unmanned space exploration are prohibitively expensive.
the fan boys have inculcated star wars and star trek as the only cognitive model that makes sense to them.....
it really is a no brainer: no more astronauts. stop wasting your time and money on that conceit, please
The only fan boy I have seen on this thread so far is you, a fanboy of some fantastical notion that successful probes cost a few hundred bucks to develop. That's not true. The only no brainer you have successfully displayed on this thread so far is yourself, and refusing to use your brain to think things through to a developed level.
you adhere to the idea of astronauts out of passion, not logic and reason.
You have failed to demonstrate, in my opinion, any sufficient knowledge, reason, or expertise to back up your position. Please put your frothing made fanaticism aside and get out of the way while we real engineers, that have to work in the real world, try to solve the problems that are encountered by all spaceflight scenarios, both manned and unmanned.
You keep saying this. Either provide a citation or back up your argument with numbers. Otherwise I just have to assume you are making shit up for your own ego boost or something equally ludicrous.
why is the us military using unmanned drones above waziristan?
Because you don't have to coat those unmanned drones in radiation protective thermal layering. Because every screw on those drones doesn't cost tens of dollars due to very precise, exotic material needs. Because you don't have to strictly control every harmonic oscillation of every boom structure on those drones with a thousand dollar motor since the atmosphere provides its own method of damping said oscillations. Because those drones can use combustible fuels for a power source and don't have to have a greater than 80% incidence angle with the sun to survive. Because those drones don't operate in a thermal environment that varies between getting baked in raw solar radiation to passing through some of the coldest areas in the known universe. Because those drones get to talk to one GEO satellite that is in a relatively common position, as opposed to having to talk to multiple satellite networks with a time delay that can vary between less than a second and more than twelve hours over a lifetime. Because those drones don't need gold plating to help manage the thermal state of your vehicle.....
Do you really want me to keep going?
UAV's are impressive vehicles with their own set of design criteria. They are not, however, spacecraft. Basing an argument that calls for a revamp of an entire industry on such a tenuous analog is not good engineering.
You seem very interested in spacecraft in general. I suggest pick up a copy of SMAD and The Fundamentals of Space Systems and trying to learn a bit more about what it takes to design spacecraft. It will help you strengthen your positions, or, possibly, adopt new ones.
Hmmm, well that's a great dream and it would be cool to see, I agree. However, the parent poster put up some real numbers regarding cost of current capabilities.
It's more the other way around. Current seat price on the Shuttle (which is already pretty darn expensive) is something like $100 million, perhaps a bit more. The Discovery class probes are around half a billion dollars. This is as close to "cut rate" as NASA gets. That's five astronauts in space. You're off by a factor of 200.
Whereas your argument is based on passion and some nice hand-waving:
when you don't have to deal with something that eats, drinks, breathes, shits, and pisses, you can get a hell of lot more bang for your buck. surely you can see this ...
AND WE CAN DO ALL OF THIS FOR FAR LESS MONEY THAN ONE OR TWO MISSIONS OF MEATBAGS TO MARS
That's a great sentiment, but so far you haven't convinced me of anything. And if you can't convince me, I guarantee you that you will be unable to convince the various Congress folk that fund these projects, much less the project engineers that manage them. So if you want your dream to come true, prove that it's possible. Prove to me that we actually can launch dozens of probes for dirt-rate cheap and get some valuable science out of them.
Yah see, the reason why NASA's cut-rate probes are prohibitively expensive still is because autonomous space robots (probes) really are not cheap. To design a vehicle that can survive in space, you have to use exotic materials in your thermal blankets to help manage the thermal conditions of your spacecraft. You have to use advanced, complicated control algorithms on all of your motors that control your booms (solar panels, antennae, etc.) so that you get the pointing accuracy you want. Hell, half your screws have to be made from titanium just so that they will be strong, light, and non-reactive.
It's all fun and games to say that we COULD build spacecraft for crazy insane cheap, but in reality, it doesn't really work that way. You made the point that when putting men in space you have to account for all of their biological flaws. That's true. However, when you put unmanned craft in space you have to account for all of their non-biological flaws (ie inability to come up with creative solutions, inability to react to new situations, inability to understand what context it is operating in). The best method of doing this so far, is to develop lots of computer code to account for as many situations as you can think of. Well, that works out as long as you have the computers on board to support such heavy operations, which adds mass to a system. Also, it means you have to debug, test, and retest your code, which increases the time of development significantly. On top of that, both manned and unmanned missions have to be launched into space. The most recent figures that I know of show the best option to be about $10,000/kg, so don't go kidding yourself into thinking that anyone is going to be launching a probe for $200 that they hacked together in their backyard. It just doesn't work that way yet.
Now, I am not saying your method shouldn't be tried. In fact, it already is. Look into the various cubesat projects that universities around the world are working on. Hell, students are developing small spacecraft for a few thousand bucks and piggy backing them on GPS launches and the like. They don't get much past a few hundred kilometers of altitude, but its a start. The problem is, however, that of the few hundred cubesats launched, something like 20 have been successfully tracked and operational. That's the price you pay for cheap in space. If you don't invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in reliability and testing, well, your probes die. Like you said, if they are cheap enough, it's nothing to worry about. However, an "approximately less than 5%" success rate isn't going to get you anywhere no matter how cheap your probes are. So, sure, your idea could
You know why Apollo worked? We set goals and a date, and the figuring out took care of itself.
You know what another important point of Apollo was? At the time, Congress-critters were too concerned with other things to pretend they were technical specialists that had a role in over-litigating/over-regulating NASA. That is to say, the politicians worked out the politics and the engineers were given the freedom to do engineering. Today, that is not the case. Today, Congress-critters feel that, somehow, in their political science education, they managed to gain the technical knowledge and expertise to litigate, through budget finagling, what type of rocket propellant to use, what type of technologies are reusable and sustainable, and what types of technologies needed to be rebrewed from scratch. So to be clear, we have a few budget committees in Congress, made up of business and poly sci majors, telling NASA that it's engineers are allowed to do engineering, as long as they work on a completely unreliable, unsafe, stack of solid rocket boosters with a heavy pod on the tip (for those of you that haven't figured it out yet, I am talking about Ares I).
You see, when Congress folk feel that they are informed and authoritative on matters of science and technology, they pass budgets that require money be spent on, "stupid engineering project X because it creates jobs in my district and gets me reelected," rather than passing budgets that give X dollars to engineers and scientists with the stipulation, "do something badass by year 2020." The amount of hubris displayed by the incompetent retards in Congress is infuriating. I work as an Aerospace Engineer. As such, I know that I don't know shit about making pharmaceuticals industrially, so I wouldn't even attempt to tell one of my friends in the pharmaceuticals research industry how they should do their research. I would hope that folk who are politicians would have a decent level of humility to have the same respect for other fields. Unfortunately, they don't. They get it stuck in their heads that, just because they are in a position of power, they are somehow all-knowing. Thus, they make broad, sweeping claims as to what an organization like NASA needs to do to achieve its goals and it leaves real engineers and scientists dumbfounded, hindered, and screwed.
So you're right, the reason Apollo worked was because Congress said, "Here's some money and a goal, figure out the best way to do it."
That's a significant difference from, "Here's a few thousand line item budget detailing exactly how much money you can spend on these projects only."
Slashdot Mirror
but that's so rare that it kind of requires explicit statements to that end.
See, that's the odd assumption to me. I never found that to be the rare case on slashdot. Ah well, I suppose everyone reads different articles on here.
So far as I know, there is no requirement for life to exist that needs water in a liquid state. For all we know, there could be some micro-bacteria something-anothers that could thrive by floating about in gaseous water.
The whole damn thing looks like a sham at this point.
I've been voting for 8 years now in the USA. I've never voted for a democrat or a republican for any office above state-congress level representation. After my poly sci class my senior year of high school I just couldn't bring myself to support either of the candidates fueled by so much, 'special interest money,' (read rich man's bribes). Everyone I've told this to has always criticized me for throwing away my vote, but so far as I see it, voting for third party candidates or write-ins is the only viable means we, as Americans, have to stand up and say, "None of the above," on our ballots. I'd mush rather tell my government, "Screw you, you're all doing it wrong," and be ignored than know that I cast a vote for an idiot, a sociopath, or a psycho.
The only reason I bring this up is that, if you ask me, it's looked like a sham from the beginning. Then again I am very young, and perhaps there were some decades before my time where politicians and the electoral system didn't suck nearly as badly as they do today.
While I agree with your general notion, I would suggest that most slashdotters are pretty good about not getting tangled up in the D-party vs. R-party politics. I've never seen more ire for the two party system expressed anywhere as explicitly as it is on this site. Of course, both parties have their cheerleaders here on slashdot, but I don't think there are enough of them to associate the term slasbot with a lover for the two-party system. Then again, this is merely an opinion on my part and, of course, YMMV. ;)
You really can't be that stupid can you? He's not implying that a GOP vote would be better. He said, explicitly, this administration is no different from the last one. Meaning both are equal, whether that be in evil or good content. Since he didn't explicitly say he disproved of the previous administration, I can't tell for certain that he disproves of both (as there hasn't been any change). However, given the foreboding tone and the general nature of these kinds of comments on slashdot my wager would be that he approved of neither administrations actions and, thus, no change meant that Obama was bad because he was not a change from Bush who was bad. Or, to put it in broader terms, Democrat candidates are bad because they are really no different than Republican candidates that are also bad.
;)
Hence, his point in saying that he hopes most slashbots will change their votes, to me, implied that he wants folk to stop voting for both the GOP and the Democratic party. However, those last bits are inferred from guesses on my part as to how the OP actually felt about the previous administration.
For the record, the mere fact that I, or anybody else, has to spell something out like this for you explicitly is terribly pathetic. Try not to knee jerk so much and you may find less posts to be offensive and, thus, worthy of your ire.
If you can't do that, then I guarantee that you and your voting habits, indeed, are part of the problem, not a solution.
probe: electrical (much tinier amount needed)
-Much more advanced closed loop control algorithms requiring more lines of code needed.
-Autonomous station keeping capabilities needed requiring more motors and more lines of code, requiring more mass and more complexity, repeat as needed
-Inability to account for non-perceived emergencies possibly resulting in total equipment failure before any data is even downlinked to Earth
-Absolutely no science regarding biology of humans can be conducted limiting any advances that can develop in the fields of medicine or human survivability
-No real time navigation/piloting forbidding instantaneous collision avoidance maneuvers or emergency reorientation due to thermal and/or power subsystem failures -No science returned regarding most efficient ways to keep a man alive in space which, to this day, is still the most inhibiting factor of spaceflight. Thus, if we EVER want to put men in space cheaply, we have to be researching this NOW. We can't research every other space access technology and then just pretend that one day in the future, poof, magic, we will be able to conquer space ourselves because we did so already with robots. It makes infinitely more sense to develop organic in space and robotic in space technologies concurrently, so that the lessons learned from one paradigm will be relevant and useful for the other paradigm
-I can keep going if you like...
you are not bright, or a very good troll: its hard to feign stupidity in a sustained manner as you seem to be doing
Do not question my intelligence due to your own inadequacy and inability to account for realistic, complicated design issues. Oversimplifying something on slashdot makes you look stupid. Oversimplifying the actual design of a spacecraft means all your science and data comes crashing down in pretty flames. The only lesson you learn is not to be so quick and whimsical about decisions and analysis.
Yeah, but it came from Confucius so it can't be trusted.
It could have a surface temperature as low as 400 Kelvin, even cooler than the team's previous record of slightly below 500 K
That's only ~127 Celsius, 27 degrees above water's boiling point. That temperature range is far from uninhabitable. Combine the organic compounds with methane and water and a relatively moderate surface temperature and I would say that we have a prime example of one very possible location for life outside of our own solar system. That's pretty damn exciting.
I'd be curious to know what technology he is talking about. Do you think you could get the name(s) of whatever types of things he is thinking of for me? I'd like to do some further research.
insanely obvious as the fact that a probe is a hell of a lot cheaper than sending up something that needs to support a human being?
Because right now it's not. See above:
It's more the other way around. Current seat price on the Shuttle (which is already pretty darn expensive) is something like $100 million, perhaps a bit more. The Discovery class probes are around half a billion dollars. This is as close to "cut rate" as NASA gets. That's five astronauts in space. You're off by a factor of 200.
Those were off the cuff numbers turned up by a guy that did a simple Google search and even THAT is more relevant than what you've been posting.
"i want studies! i want scientific proof! i want a demonstration!"
dude, none of these things are a replacement for THOUGHT
Yes, they are. Do you want to know why? Because a thousand years ago we THOUGHT that the Earth was the center of the solar system. 200 years ago we THOUGHT that Newton's laws explained all motion in the universe. Prior to LRO, we THOUGHT Pluto was the coldest place in the solar system (it turns out our own moon's craters probably are). Just over 50 years ago we THOUGHT it was impossible for a man to get to the moon.
All of those thoughts were shattered by engineers using studies, science, and demonstrating technologies whom were trying to show that things people often THINK are wrong. I am not saying what you are asserting is, necessarily incorrect. However, just because you THINK it is correct is not true that it is.
Before I took a curriculum in aerospace engineering I THOUGHT the most restrictive parameter in achieving orbit was altitude. I was wrong. It took science and math to show me that, in fact, velocity is more important.
THINKING something doesn't count for shit against the cold, hard reality that we face everyday. When you grow up you'll eventually learn skepticism, then criticism, and then you will realize just why your championing of a cause in ignorance is absolutely absurd.
However, until you grow mature enough to even attempt to learn such things, there is little I can do to help you. You're just going to have to wallow in your own ignorance justified by your own hubris and sloth. I gave you some links in one of my other posts to some decent sources that detail the technical aspects of designing spacecraft, both manned and unmanned. If you want to educate yourself, get started. If not, have fun living in fantasy land with your unicorn farts and pixie dust.
So rather than back up any of your claims, because you fail the technical expertise to demonstrate that developing millions of lines of infallible code to control a spacecraft is, according to you, cheaper than keeping a sentient, problem solving organism alive in space, you are going to copy-paste your insults from one of your other responses in this thread and hope that, in some way, validates your complete fucking ignorance on spacecraft design? Jesus Christ people like you just need to shoot themselves. Either learn a thing or two about spacecraft design and survivability analysis or shut the hell up.
I really don't get it. I've seen you post some pretty insightful stuff on other topics, but on this particular thread you are displaying a total lack of knowledge. I've posted, several times, the technical drawbacks to designing unmanned probes that keeps them from being incredibly cheap. You haven't posted jack shit to back up what you are claiming. Did you forget to eat your Wheaties this morning or something?
2. or something that needs DC current
And millions of lines of infallible code to account for hundreds of potential failure scenarios. Code that takes time and money to test and debug and develop.
are you feigning incredulity or do you genuinely lack enough cognitive facilites to deduce the fucking obvious?
As an engineer, I cannot use, "obvious," as a reason for a design decision. I have already seen numbers to refute your guess that unmanned missions are cheaper than manned ones posted above. That is to say, unmanned probes are very expensive to develop, just like manned missions. If you want to refute those numbers, then show me some of your oww. I can use numbers, math, and historical cases to backup a design decision. Provide me one of those three if you are going to be making any claim as to what path we, as engineers, should be taking to ensure progress. If you can't do that, then you're the one lacking cognitive facilities you zealous twat.
Can't wait to see how people blame the victim on this one.
The problem was clearly that the victim was born in the first place. Arrogant bastard with his sense of entitlement to life. Hell, in my day we had to earn our way to being alive by clawing our way through 15 miles of snow out of our mother's vagina. Only the tough ones that wouldn't fall for this kind of fraud could survive that ordeal. Nowadays just any ol' sperm can waltz its way into an egg. Sad really.
=P
i think my anger is justified: are you passionate about space exploration? then why aren't YOU angry at this stupid obsession with meatbags in space?
I am passionate, which is why I work in the field and study the design issues at hand before ranting like some lunatic religious idiot trying to sell Jesus or Mohammed or whatever. Because well thought out, rational, developed thinking is what is required to do any amount of space exploration. Not batshit insane preaching on the internet like a fucking used car salesman.
As for why I am not angry about manned space exploration, because so far nobody has every demonstrated that manned exploration is, indeed more cost for less science than unmanned. Putting people in space is expensive, but, arguably, you get more science out of it. The only stupid obsession and chest thumping going on right now is the actions you are partaking in yourself, declaring loudly and proudly to anyone stupid enough to listen, that you have this great idea that just has to work because you said so.
You're a zealot, an idiot, and an all around butt-fucking crazy person. If you seriously want to understand spacecraft design, please read some of the other, rather lengthy posts I have put up in response to you previously. I even provided some nice references for learning spacecraft design. I hope, however, you learn to STFU before you know something of substance regarding the subject you are talking about or else you are never going to be taken seriously.
I, for one, am not wasting anymore time reading your unfounded lunatic bullshit. You've been absolutely disgraceful to both science and engineering if you think this kind of ranting is in anyway productive, useful, or realistic.
and if we can send out 100 probes, or 1 meatbag to mars, for the same price
We can't.
'spread the word, evangelize with me
Zealotry is realm of religion, not good hard engineering. How long are you going to keep this dribble up?
MORE CHEAPLY
Says you.
because we did 10,000x that amount of science in other fields for 100x less money instead!
Other fields don't have to do science in a location of about 7,000 km away in a state of perpetual falling that involves passing through boiling hot and near 0 K temperatures. Please stop trolling this thread with pesudo-analogues and made up comparisons. Space is an entirely unique environment with entirely unique design specifications. Even deep sea exploration doesn't come close because that environment, at least, gives you a surrounding fluid to piddle about in. Operating in a radiation soaked vacuum with limited to no communication capabilities is particular only to the space environment, stop trying to compare it to other stuff.
think of sending probes as the same as sending astronauts, but the astronaut is sitting in a room in cape canaveral using a probe to see, hear, feel, and touch FOR ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE LESS MONEY
why don't people see this?
Because nobody has ever shown, definitively, that that is the case. Probes are expensive. Manned space exploration is expensive. The only thing that will make one cheaper than the other is whether or not we decide to develop one more than the other. We could always develop them both similarly...
face facts: we only have extremely primitive spacefaring technologies.
Exactly, which is why BOTH manned and unmanned space exploration are prohibitively expensive.
the fan boys have inculcated star wars and star trek as the only cognitive model that makes sense to them. ....
it really is a no brainer: no more astronauts. stop wasting your time and money on that conceit, please
The only fan boy I have seen on this thread so far is you, a fanboy of some fantastical notion that successful probes cost a few hundred bucks to develop. That's not true. The only no brainer you have successfully displayed on this thread so far is yourself, and refusing to use your brain to think things through to a developed level.
you adhere to the idea of astronauts out of passion, not logic and reason.
You have failed to demonstrate, in my opinion, any sufficient knowledge, reason, or expertise to back up your position. Please put your frothing made fanaticism aside and get out of the way while we real engineers, that have to work in the real world, try to solve the problems that are encountered by all spaceflight scenarios, both manned and unmanned.
sending 1 meat bag to mars=sending 100 probes
You keep saying this. Either provide a citation or back up your argument with numbers. Otherwise I just have to assume you are making shit up for your own ego boost or something equally ludicrous.
why is the us military using unmanned drones above waziristan?
Because you don't have to coat those unmanned drones in radiation protective thermal layering. Because every screw on those drones doesn't cost tens of dollars due to very precise, exotic material needs. Because you don't have to strictly control every harmonic oscillation of every boom structure on those drones with a thousand dollar motor since the atmosphere provides its own method of damping said oscillations. Because those drones can use combustible fuels for a power source and don't have to have a greater than 80% incidence angle with the sun to survive. Because those drones don't operate in a thermal environment that varies between getting baked in raw solar radiation to passing through some of the coldest areas in the known universe. Because those drones get to talk to one GEO satellite that is in a relatively common position, as opposed to having to talk to multiple satellite networks with a time delay that can vary between less than a second and more than twelve hours over a lifetime. Because those drones don't need gold plating to help manage the thermal state of your vehicle.....
Do you really want me to keep going?
UAV's are impressive vehicles with their own set of design criteria. They are not, however, spacecraft. Basing an argument that calls for a revamp of an entire industry on such a tenuous analog is not good engineering.
You seem very interested in spacecraft in general. I suggest pick up a copy of SMAD and The Fundamentals of Space Systems and trying to learn a bit more about what it takes to design spacecraft. It will help you strengthen your positions, or, possibly, adopt new ones.
It's more the other way around. Current seat price on the Shuttle (which is already pretty darn expensive) is something like $100 million, perhaps a bit more. The Discovery class probes are around half a billion dollars. This is as close to "cut rate" as NASA gets. That's five astronauts in space. You're off by a factor of 200.
Whereas your argument is based on passion and some nice hand-waving:
when you don't have to deal with something that eats, drinks, breathes, shits, and pisses, you can get a hell of lot more bang for your buck. surely you can see this
...
AND WE CAN DO ALL OF THIS FOR FAR LESS MONEY THAN ONE OR TWO MISSIONS OF MEATBAGS TO MARS
That's a great sentiment, but so far you haven't convinced me of anything. And if you can't convince me, I guarantee you that you will be unable to convince the various Congress folk that fund these projects, much less the project engineers that manage them. So if you want your dream to come true, prove that it's possible. Prove to me that we actually can launch dozens of probes for dirt-rate cheap and get some valuable science out of them.
Yah see, the reason why NASA's cut-rate probes are prohibitively expensive still is because autonomous space robots (probes) really are not cheap. To design a vehicle that can survive in space, you have to use exotic materials in your thermal blankets to help manage the thermal conditions of your spacecraft. You have to use advanced, complicated control algorithms on all of your motors that control your booms (solar panels, antennae, etc.) so that you get the pointing accuracy you want. Hell, half your screws have to be made from titanium just so that they will be strong, light, and non-reactive.
It's all fun and games to say that we COULD build spacecraft for crazy insane cheap, but in reality, it doesn't really work that way. You made the point that when putting men in space you have to account for all of their biological flaws. That's true. However, when you put unmanned craft in space you have to account for all of their non-biological flaws (ie inability to come up with creative solutions, inability to react to new situations, inability to understand what context it is operating in). The best method of doing this so far, is to develop lots of computer code to account for as many situations as you can think of. Well, that works out as long as you have the computers on board to support such heavy operations, which adds mass to a system. Also, it means you have to debug, test, and retest your code, which increases the time of development significantly. On top of that, both manned and unmanned missions have to be launched into space. The most recent figures that I know of show the best option to be about $10,000/kg, so don't go kidding yourself into thinking that anyone is going to be launching a probe for $200 that they hacked together in their backyard. It just doesn't work that way yet.
Now, I am not saying your method shouldn't be tried. In fact, it already is. Look into the various cubesat projects that universities around the world are working on. Hell, students are developing small spacecraft for a few thousand bucks and piggy backing them on GPS launches and the like. They don't get much past a few hundred kilometers of altitude, but its a start. The problem is, however, that of the few hundred cubesats launched, something like 20 have been successfully tracked and operational. That's the price you pay for cheap in space. If you don't invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in reliability and testing, well, your probes die. Like you said, if they are cheap enough, it's nothing to worry about. However, an "approximately less than 5%" success rate isn't going to get you anywhere no matter how cheap your probes are. So, sure, your idea could
You know why Apollo worked? We set goals and a date, and the figuring out took care of itself.
You know what another important point of Apollo was? At the time, Congress-critters were too concerned with other things to pretend they were technical specialists that had a role in over-litigating/over-regulating NASA. That is to say, the politicians worked out the politics and the engineers were given the freedom to do engineering. Today, that is not the case. Today, Congress-critters feel that, somehow, in their political science education, they managed to gain the technical knowledge and expertise to litigate, through budget finagling, what type of rocket propellant to use, what type of technologies are reusable and sustainable, and what types of technologies needed to be rebrewed from scratch. So to be clear, we have a few budget committees in Congress, made up of business and poly sci majors, telling NASA that it's engineers are allowed to do engineering, as long as they work on a completely unreliable, unsafe, stack of solid rocket boosters with a heavy pod on the tip (for those of you that haven't figured it out yet, I am talking about Ares I).
You see, when Congress folk feel that they are informed and authoritative on matters of science and technology, they pass budgets that require money be spent on, "stupid engineering project X because it creates jobs in my district and gets me reelected," rather than passing budgets that give X dollars to engineers and scientists with the stipulation, "do something badass by year 2020." The amount of hubris displayed by the incompetent retards in Congress is infuriating. I work as an Aerospace Engineer. As such, I know that I don't know shit about making pharmaceuticals industrially, so I wouldn't even attempt to tell one of my friends in the pharmaceuticals research industry how they should do their research. I would hope that folk who are politicians would have a decent level of humility to have the same respect for other fields. Unfortunately, they don't. They get it stuck in their heads that, just because they are in a position of power, they are somehow all-knowing. Thus, they make broad, sweeping claims as to what an organization like NASA needs to do to achieve its goals and it leaves real engineers and scientists dumbfounded, hindered, and screwed.
So you're right, the reason Apollo worked was because Congress said, "Here's some money and a goal, figure out the best way to do it."
That's a significant difference from, "Here's a few thousand line item budget detailing exactly how much money you can spend on these projects only."
The latter is what happens now.
Caverly, who worked on the bank's IT staff, allegedly withdrew cash untraceably from the ATMs over a period of 7 months last year.
Someone watched Officespace one too many times.
And in response to:
But thanks for assuming that I haven't done anything and being sarcastic. Hey it's ok - there's different ways to karma-whore.
See from my original post:
Now, I am not implying that you haven't done anything, but please, if you are really concerned, start taking action
So thanks for doing so. ;)