Exactly. I personally enjoy watching the Shuttle missions, although after take off the rest is pretty mundane.
When you look into it, the systems required to put the shuttle into space and support the ISS are very complex. Just controlling 2.5 million pounds of thrust at Mach 3 alone is a testimony to the NASA engineers.
However, it is a massively expensive program. I watched the interviews from the Discovery astronaughts. You can see they were excited about going up. Good for them. Anyone would be. But when asked why it was important, much of what was said was romance. The vast bulk of learning about space was achieved in the 60's and early 70's, when the robotic and communications technology was in its infancy. The rest of the learning since has been incremental. If NASA put its mind to robotics and comms with the same kind of budget that it has for manned flight, I can't imagine a scenario where experiments could not be performed remotely. If medical operations on humans can be performed remotely on earth via comms links then I do not see why it could not be extended to space.
A large portion of the Discovery mission to the ISS was simply removing waste from the ISS inhabitants and restocking it with human consumables. An operation simply to keep it inhabitable.
Anyway, as I said, the ISS has virtually ensured that we HAVE to keep up manned flight.
Marvelous as it is, manned space flight serves no purpose.
Since the ISS cannot operate unmanned, we are stuck with it.
With the Shuttle grounded until at least 2006, no replacement design confirmed and if the scheduled life does terminate at 2010, I expect Russia will become the stock carrier until at least 2015.
All with 1960's technology. There's a lesson for us all there.
By that stage the US may have developed some horrendously expensive alternative to meet the same end.
It's showbiz, folks. I'm fascinated. I marvel at it. And no American who struggles to educate their kids would miss it.
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Exactly. I personally enjoy watching the Shuttle missions, although after take off the rest is pretty mundane. When you look into it, the systems required to put the shuttle into space and support the ISS are very complex. Just controlling 2.5 million pounds of thrust at Mach 3 alone is a testimony to the NASA engineers. However, it is a massively expensive program. I watched the interviews from the Discovery astronaughts. You can see they were excited about going up. Good for them. Anyone would be. But when asked why it was important, much of what was said was romance. The vast bulk of learning about space was achieved in the 60's and early 70's, when the robotic and communications technology was in its infancy. The rest of the learning since has been incremental. If NASA put its mind to robotics and comms with the same kind of budget that it has for manned flight, I can't imagine a scenario where experiments could not be performed remotely. If medical operations on humans can be performed remotely on earth via comms links then I do not see why it could not be extended to space. A large portion of the Discovery mission to the ISS was simply removing waste from the ISS inhabitants and restocking it with human consumables. An operation simply to keep it inhabitable. Anyway, as I said, the ISS has virtually ensured that we HAVE to keep up manned flight.
Marvelous as it is, manned space flight serves no purpose. Since the ISS cannot operate unmanned, we are stuck with it. With the Shuttle grounded until at least 2006, no replacement design confirmed and if the scheduled life does terminate at 2010, I expect Russia will become the stock carrier until at least 2015. All with 1960's technology. There's a lesson for us all there. By that stage the US may have developed some horrendously expensive alternative to meet the same end. It's showbiz, folks. I'm fascinated. I marvel at it. And no American who struggles to educate their kids would miss it.