*Real* space exploration these days is performed by robots. Humans have the wrong senses, the wrong body form, and needs that are very difficult to satisfy in space. But we're very good at building and directing robots, and getting better very fast.
The shuttle? Absolute garbage engineering. Sold as the cheapest way to get to space, it wound up the most expensive of all time. It was supposed to be as safe and easy to operate as an airliner, but it proved extremely dangerous. It proved the capability of the USA only in the sense that no other entity could possibly have thrown enough resources at it to make it work at all. NASA has finally come to its collective senses and decided to quit "throwing good money after bad", a decision that's about 35 years too late.
Human beings will have a future in space when the resources and infrastructure to support them can be gathered, constructed, and maintained by robots. But we have proven beyond any reasonable argument that using human beings as "space laborers" is hyper-expensive and counterproductive.
One big problem is that too many professors of science are narrow, impractical specialists. We have physicists who can't figure out how to make a circuit with a battery and a light bulb. We have computer scientists who can't actually write a program to do anything. They all invent their own jargon for their narrow specialties, so it's difficult for the student to discern the general principles behind the specialized knowledge (but those are what's important). How are such people going to train students to succeed outside of of the ivory tower?
"Everything can be done in a GUI. I don't see why not. "
Because automation by functional composition is clumsy and unnatural in a GUI. But automation by functional composition is the way you efficiently synthesize what *you* need, not what some code monkey hallucinated your needs are.
They landed a probe on an asteroid, and returned it to Earth.
They made measurements and took pictures in incredible detail. That Itokawa is apparently a low-density "rubble pile" was a surprise, and surprising science is the best kind!
They did this on a budget that was tiny by NASA's standards.
They learned a lot about the strengths and limitations of their technology. If Japan can recover the political courage to support this kind of ambitious mission, and if JAXA can recover the courage to let its scientists and engineers do the best possible job without management interference, they'll most likely do much better the next time around.
Why is there so much negativity about this incredible mission?
"I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership... to seek knowledge. Curiosity's the essence of human existence."
Apollo's technology was at the cutting edge. But today? It takes decades to get a new idea into space. NASA's leadership is as frightened of 21st century technology as any superstitious savage.
Curiosity? Anybody who works with NASA these days knows that it has comprehensively institutionalized the murder of curiosity.
Seek knowledge? The joke inside the walls is that "NASA" stands for "Not A Science Agency".
"Personally I think it will have catastrophic consequences in our ability to explore space and the spin-offs we get from space technology."
Spin-offs? Very rare these days. You can't have spin-offs if you're not pushing the technology envelope, and NASA simply isn't. You want advanced technology, peek inside an iPhone.
The relationship between NASA and its contractors is rigorously legal, and thoroughly dishonest.
NASA is very good at PR, and totally committed to using it to get taxpayer money to spend (and its private contractors are experts at capturing the money without having to deliver corresponding value). They are also good at international cooperation, which they use as a vehicle to inflict their stagnant practices on the potential competition.
Within NASA, the human program is the most stagnant of all. The space station has the highest ratio of cost to actual accomplishment of anything NASA has ever done (but it gets great PR). The return to the Moon was never a genuinely serious program, just more institutional welfare.
In the great age of European exploration, it took about a year of human labor on the shore to equip a sailor for a one year journey. In NASA's system, that ratio is thousands to one. With that inefficiency, there's no way that space travel can become a truly significant human activity. If you look at the advances in the supporting technologies since 1969, it might be possible to reduce costs that much, but having institutionalized layers and layers of barriers to even trying means it cannot happen.
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"By abandoning the shuttle, that human intellect is being dumped on the streets with nothing but promises for the future."
How can abandoning the most expensive engineering *failure* in human history be considered dumping human intellect on the streets?
*Real* space exploration these days is performed by robots. Humans have the wrong senses, the wrong body form, and needs that are very difficult to satisfy in space. But we're very good at building and directing robots, and getting better very fast.
The shuttle? Absolute garbage engineering. Sold as the cheapest way to get to space, it wound up the most expensive of all time. It was supposed to be as safe and easy to operate as an airliner, but it proved extremely dangerous. It proved the capability of the USA only in the sense that no other entity could possibly have thrown enough resources at it to make it work at all. NASA has finally come to its collective senses and decided to quit "throwing good money after bad", a decision that's about 35 years too late.
Human beings will have a future in space when the resources and infrastructure to support them can be gathered, constructed, and maintained by robots. But we have proven beyond any reasonable argument that using human beings as "space laborers" is hyper-expensive and counterproductive.
One big problem is that too many professors of science are narrow, impractical specialists. We have physicists who can't figure out how to make a circuit with a battery and a light bulb. We have computer scientists who can't actually write a program to do anything. They all invent their own jargon for their narrow specialties, so it's difficult for the student to discern the general principles behind the specialized knowledge (but those are what's important). How are such people going to train students to succeed outside of of the ivory tower?
"Everything can be done in a GUI. I don't see why not. "
Because automation by functional composition is clumsy and unnatural in a GUI. But automation by functional composition is the way you efficiently synthesize what *you* need, not what some code monkey hallucinated your needs are.
They landed a probe on an asteroid, and returned it to Earth.
They made measurements and took pictures in incredible detail. That Itokawa is apparently a low-density "rubble pile" was a surprise, and surprising science is the best kind!
They did this on a budget that was tiny by NASA's standards.
They learned a lot about the strengths and limitations of their technology. If Japan can recover the political courage to support this kind of ambitious mission, and if JAXA can recover the courage to let its scientists and engineers do the best possible job without management interference, they'll most likely do much better the next time around.
Why is there so much negativity about this incredible mission?
"I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership... to seek knowledge. Curiosity's the essence of human existence."
Apollo's technology was at the cutting edge. But today? It takes decades to get a new idea into space. NASA's leadership is as frightened of 21st century technology as any superstitious savage.
Curiosity? Anybody who works with NASA these days knows that it has comprehensively institutionalized the murder of curiosity.
Seek knowledge? The joke inside the walls is that "NASA" stands for "Not A Science Agency".
"Personally I think it will have catastrophic consequences in our ability to explore space and the spin-offs we get from space technology."
Spin-offs? Very rare these days. You can't have spin-offs if you're not pushing the technology envelope, and NASA simply isn't. You want advanced technology, peek inside an iPhone.
The relationship between NASA and its contractors is rigorously legal, and thoroughly dishonest.
NASA is very good at PR, and totally committed to using it to get taxpayer money to spend (and its private contractors are experts at capturing the money without having to deliver corresponding value). They are also good at international cooperation, which they use as a vehicle to inflict their stagnant practices on the potential competition.
Within NASA, the human program is the most stagnant of all. The space station has the highest ratio of cost to actual accomplishment of anything NASA has ever done (but it gets great PR). The return to the Moon was never a genuinely serious program, just more institutional welfare.
In the great age of European exploration, it took about a year of human labor on the shore to equip a sailor for a one year journey. In NASA's system, that ratio is thousands to one. With that inefficiency, there's no way that space travel can become a truly significant human activity. If you look at the advances in the supporting technologies since 1969, it might be possible to reduce costs that much, but having institutionalized layers and layers of barriers to even trying means it cannot happen.