Cancel manned space exploration, use budget for energy development instead?

[Posaune_Pat]

@Stranger_On_A_Train

While there is essentially no justification for a manned program on a scientific basis above and beyond supporting further manned efforts, it is a valid point that manned missions garner more public interest and prestige. On that basis, manned programs might be valuable in and of themselves (especially compared to other avenues of national pride, such as suppressing representative democracies, threatening to incinerate millions of innocent people, and brutally repressing ethnic minorities on the basis of a poorly thought out and self-contractory socioeconomic paradigm that welcomes people to enjoy the benefits of centralized planning such as bread shortages and Trebants) but only, of course, if they’re actually performing something that holds the public interest. Banging around in a bunch of oversized beer cans in Low Earth Orbit for fifteen years, producing less in terms of noteworthy research than a third tier engineering school at a cost that rivals the gross national product of a small European nation does not exactly qualify.

Funding new energy research is justifiable in and of itself, both for national security (in making us independent of outside influence) and because of other advances it may bring, quite aside from space exploration. It’s not really an ‘or’ proposition, frankly; the question is, at the state of technology, is there any scientific or prestige advantage to manned exploration. The answer to the first argument is clearly ‘no’; to the second, is a weak ‘maybe’.

Stranger

I agree with you 98%. I’d go a little further and say the answer to the second argument is a very, very weak ‘maybe’. There’s certainly other avenues of national pride we can pursue without threatening to incinerate millions of people, and I think we’re well past the point of diminishing returns when it comes to astronaut pride (really, since the end of the Apollo program when, amazingly, the novelty had began to wear off).

I hear the “we have to stay in space to learn to live in space” argument over and over, and I have a harder and harder time buying it. I don’t have a problem with the goal of reaching for the stars; it just seems that we’re going about it the wrong way. Do we really need to prove that we can live in tin cans within Earth’s protective magnetic shield but needing constant resupply? We’ve proven that. The next steps require much, much more difficult hurdles, and solving them would have much clearer benefit for humankind then zero g insect research and Tang.

To reach the stars will require almost limitless clean energy, superhero level protection from the elements, perfect recycling of air and water, and complete food security. If we solve those, then we have the answer to world hunger, water shortages, pollution, etc. Rather then focus on leaving the planet and hoping for side benefits for everyone on Earth, why don’t we focus on solving these problems on Earth and then use that knowledge on space travel? That would inspire some national pride, wouldn’t it?

[Grumman]

@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies

I find it difficult to believe that there would not be significant discoveries/research enabled by exploring anywhere, whether those discoveries come in the realm of astronomy, transport, propulsion, power and resource management, the effects of prolonged exposure on earthly things (animal, vegetable, mineral) in space, etc.

Exploring does not enable discoveries in the realm of transport, propulsion, power and resource management, discoveries in the realm of transport, propulsion, power and resource management enable exploration. Until your manned exploration actually has something to do that can’t be done better and cheaper by unmanned craft, you’re better off staying on the ground and working on the technology that might some day make manned space flight worthwhile.

[godix]

Do you realize how tiny the spending for NASA really is? Just for comparison sake:

• Americans spend twice as much a year on pet toys than we do on space exploration
• We also spend twice as much on cigarettes
• and three times as much on booze
• The NASA budget would cover about half a month of social security
• a month and a half of Afghanistan
• a couple weeks of medicare
• Less than one month of interest on the nation debt
• Less than 2% of the stimulus
• Half the GM bailout, nevermind the Chrysler one
• If the US buys one less stealth bomber, we could totally fund NASA and still have 2/3 the stealth bombers cost left over
• If the Department of Health and Human Services could become 1% more efficient it’d cover NASA’s budget
• Congress franking privileges (them sending out junk mail) would have covered the annual cost of the Mars Pathfinder
• The border fence could have funded NASA for three years

etc. etc. etc.

Really, NASA’s budget is so tiny in the scale of the total US budget (0.58% to be exact) that I really gotta wonder why you don’t think you could get more money elsewhere, with less drawbacks, than canceling the entire space program. If you really want more money handed to private companies to research what they’re already researching anyway, just don’t drink or smoke this week and send that cash to Toyota instead. If everyone did that, it’d actually be far more money than NASA’s funding is.

[Grumman]

@godix

Really, NASA’s budget is so tiny in the scale of the total US budget (0.58% to be exact) that I really gotta wonder why you don’t think you could get more money elsewhere, with less drawbacks, than canceling the entire space program.

First, nobody wants to cancel the entire space program, only the manned missions. We want the unmanned missions to continue, as well as the R&D that would support future manned missions.

Second, we’re arguing that there aren’t significant drawbacks to cancelling the manned space program, so claiming that other sources have even less drawbacks isn’t a compelling response.

If you really want more money handed to private companies to research what they’re already researching anyway, just don’t drink or smoke this week and send that cash to Toyota instead. If everyone did that, it’d actually be far more money than NASA’s funding is.

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that the entire population of the United States could be persuaded to give up these vices, and we know from experience that people don’t take too kindly to them being removed by force. So this isn’t an option.

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

@Posaune_Pat

“Just” four light years, and we have no reason to believe the Centauris system is worth visiting in person. I think we would need something beyond traditional propulsion to go anywhere interesting.

Is the primary post that prompted my response. I suppose my bias is that I can’t think of anywhere in space not worth visiting in person at some point in time, assuming survivable conditions for crew and vessel.

Perhaps I read too much into Pat’s statement though. He didn’t say “ever worth visiting” but that is kinda how I read it.

[godix]

@Grumman

First, nobody wants to cancel the entire space program, only the manned missions. We want the unmanned missions to continue, as well as the R&D that would support future manned missions.

In that case, the numbers get even worse. For the cost of the manned programs, you could afford to hire an extra lawyer to fight the Kennedy clan over a wind farm.

Second, we’re arguing that there aren’t significant drawbacks to cancelling the manned space program, so claiming that other sources have even less drawbacks isn’t a compelling response.

Hopefully those robots that we will still be using, until we need to hire a few more lawyers to fight over a wind farm at least, won’t break down and require a human to fix. I mean it was a total fluke the Hubble needed humans to perform repairs. What are the odds of that happening twice?

It’d be nice if those robots we’ll be sending get a lot more versatile too. Consider the Spirit and Opportunity martian rovers, both of which were hugely successful, traveled about 20km total and only had 8 rather specialized instruments. A man could duplicate their years of work in a couple days. Even if that man was an American distracted by worry that our power supply might go out and reset his microwaves clock.

Perhaps when the Chinese start mining the asteroids they’ll be kind enough to let us have some of the resources. America isn’t to proud to beg for a handout after all.

If China was really generous, they would give us the superior tech they’ll develop, the scientific information they find, any advances in materials science or medicines they discover, and if we’re really lucky they might even promise to not shoot down our satellites in a conflict from their unrivaled mastery of space.

Hopefully the devastating world wide disaster, you know the type that has happened repeatedly throughout earths history, will occur when some Russians will be in space. It’ll be nice to know someone is capable of surviving an asteroid impact, even though it won’t be us.

It’ll also be nice when the Russians give us back of flag on the moon. A nation with a belief in science and advancement making a touching tribute to a nation of has beens who only want to a cheaper way to power their iPhone.

But yeah, you’re right, there’s absolutely no drawback to giving up manned space flight. It’s not like explorers have ever discovered anything useful. Plus with our amazing new batteries we’ll be able to watch tons of youtube videos of Chinese and Russians in space before we have to charge that iPhone! Totally worth it.

[Xema]

@godix

I mean it was a total fluke the Hubble needed humans to perform repairs. What are the odds of that happening twice?

Note that Hubble was designed from the get-go to be serviceable - given its technology and planned lifetime, this was essential.

Should problems develop with probes that aren’t serviceable (e.g. the Webb telescope), the right response is the obvious one: analyse the problem, then build and launch a better version.

Consider the Spirit and Opportunity martian rovers, both of which were hugely successful, traveled about 20km total and only had 8 rather specialized instruments. A man could duplicate their years of work in a couple days.

He’d have a very tough time duplicating the work of, say, 20 such robotic missions, all of which could be done for a total cost that’s a fraction of one manned mission’s.

I think it’s time to accept the fact that the (continuing) rapid advance in robotics has marginalized the utility of manned space exploration. Manned missions will necessarily yield much less useful data and science - at a much higher cost.

[Grumman]

@godix

It’d be nice if those robots we’ll be sending get a lot more versatile too. Consider the Spirit and Opportunity martian rovers, both of which were hugely successful, traveled about 20km total and only had 8 rather specialized instruments. A man could duplicate their years of work in a couple days. Even if that man was an American distracted by worry that our power supply might go out and reset his microwaves clock.

And what are you planning on doing with that man once he’s done? Leave him there?

If you want to kill the manned space program, leaving the first man on Mars to slowly suffocate to death seems like a sure-fire way of doing it.

Perhaps when the Chinese start mining the asteroids they’ll be kind enough to let us have some of the resources. America isn’t to proud to beg for a handout after all.

How does faffing about in Low Earth Orbit now help us to achieve that goal?

Hopefully the devastating world wide disaster, you know the type that has happened repeatedly throughout earths history, will occur when some Russians will be in space. It’ll be nice to know someone is capable of surviving an asteroid impact, even though it won’t be us.

This is the worst argument yet. If you want to save humanity from such a disaster, the half-dozen guys that happen to be in space at the time aren’t going to cut it, morally or logically. Spending a billion dollars to save the last 6 people is no more a moral imperative than spending a billion dollars to save the first 6, and they’re all going to die anyway without the infrastructure of Earth to sustain them.

It’ll also be nice when the Russians give us back of flag on the moon. A nation with a belief in science and advancement making a touching tribute to a nation of has beens who only want to a cheaper way to power their iPhone.

But yeah, you’re right, there’s absolutely no drawback to giving up manned space flight. It’s not like explorers have ever discovered anything useful. Plus with our amazing new batteries we’ll be able to watch tons of youtube videos of Chinese and Russians in space before we have to charge that iPhone! Totally worth it.

For someone who claims to value science and advancement, you seem to place a lot of importance on patriotic dick-waving.

[Walker_in_Eternity]

@Stranger_On_A_Train

@gonzomax

A lot of the technology we use today was initiated in the space program.

What technology (aside from satellite telecommunications and meteorology) is that?

Stranger

Well velcro for starters. Just think of all the hoodies who would otherwise have had to learn to tie laces.

[even_sven]

NASA is funded like it is because the current generation of politicians grew up reading too many sci-fi magazines and assume that their desire to wank off about childhood space fantasies is an objectively good thing that the whole world can appreciate.

That and the equally childish idea that the only way to show our dick is bigger than the Russians (oh, sorry, I guess now it’s the Chinese) is to do it from space.

@godix

Really, NASA’s budget is so tiny in the scale of the total US budget (0.58% to be exact) that I really gotta wonder why you don’t think you could get more money elsewhere, with less drawbacks, than canceling the entire space program.

Uh, that’s a ton of money. At least with my pet toy and alcohol budget, I get the benefit of having pet toys and alcohol. With the NASA budget, I get…?

Really, in perspective, that is around the entire budget for USAID, the US development agency. That’s the money the US spends fighting AIDS, malaria, pushing for good governance, helping poor farmers, overseas disaster relief, etc. These efforts do a huge amount of measurable good, and millions of people are alive and thriving today because of some of these efforts.

For another comparison, malaria kills more people in Africa than AIDS. Think about that- all those people you hear about dying of AIDS in Africa- that is passed right up by malaria. It is relatively easy to prevent and cure- which is why the US doesn’t have malaria any more. The worldwide malaria budget is about one billion dollars, of which America contributes a paltry four million. Bumping it up to two billion would probably cut malaria in half. Raising it to 3-4 billion could probably cut malaria by 75%. This is a disease that kills on the scale of AIDS, remember. And we could stop it with a fraction of the NASA budget.

Yeah, the money could come from somewhere else, but as far as I know NASA is the only US agency that literally sends money up into space for no good reason at all.

[Death_of_Rats]

@Walker_in_Eternity

@Stranger_On_A_Train

What technology (aside from satellite telecommunications and meteorology) is that?

Stranger

Well velcro for starters. Just think of all the hoodies who would otherwise have had to learn to tie laces.

And Tang! and advancements in freeze-dried Ice Cream!

[Sam_Stone]

The greatest advantage of human spaceflight today is that it’s good for our souls.

Seriously. I can’t think of anything the Department of Education has done that has had 1/10 of the impact on science education than that of NASA’s manned space program, and especially the Apollo program. It inspired a generation of children to become scientists and engineers. The entire cost of Apollo was worth it just for the effect it had on the national psyche.

How often have you heard the phrase, “If we can put a man on the moon, we can do <insert difficult thing here>”? The manned space program has boosted public optimism, it has created a culture that reveres a ‘can-do’ spirit.

Manned spaceflight does for science and technology what the Olympics do for amateur athletics - it provides goals for children, role models to look up to, and barriers to conquer.

A society that stops looking outward and reaching for new frontiers is a society that becomes a collection of risk-averse navel gazers. It’s a terrible thing to replace, “If we can put a man on the moon we can do X” with, “Why would you think we can do X? We can’t even put a man on the moon anymore.”

NASA is the biggest bargain the American taxpayers have ever gotten. Its budget is trivial compared to other big federal agencies that have returned little or no value to the taxpayer.

As for doubling the energy budget by scavenging the manned space flight budget, that’s assuming that government is the only entity funding energy research right now. In fact, the government is a small player in energy R&D. In any given year, the private sector spends between 4 billion and 8 billion dollars on alternative energy R&D. In addition, in 2006 (the year I have data for), about 8 billion dollars was raised in IPO’s for alternative energy companies.

Add in the R&D that goes into efficiency, conservation, electric and hybrid vehicle technology, low-power electionics, and other research that affects energy use, and you get a really, really big number. The Chevy Volt alone cost $750 million to develop. There are currently 60 nuclear power plants under construction in the world, representing a development cost of over 200 billion dollars. Billions are being spent on solar and wind installations.

Gutting manned space flight to throw another 2 billion into the mix would do next to nothing. Especially considering that the 2 billion would be allocated by congress and would likely land in the hands of companies connected to powerful politicians, and not necessarily to companies who are best able to use it.

[Una_Persson]

Good God, people, Tang and Velcro were not invented by or for the Space Program. Nor was Teflon, to head someone else off at the pass.

Is NASA the only federal agency that makes a profit?

Will this silly story never die? I’ve mentioned previously that NASA didn’t invent Teflon, Velcro, or Tang; we therefore deduce that it can’t be making money on the patents. This evidently made no impression the first time, so let’s go over it again:

* Teflon was invented by Roy J. Plunkett in 1938 while he was experimenting with refrigerants at DuPont Labs. His patent was granted in 1941.
* Velcro was invented by Swiss electrical engineer Georges de Mestral, who said he got the idea from burrs he picked up on a hike. He obtained a patent on his hook-and-loop fabric fastener in 1955.
* Tang was invented in 1957 by General Foods researcher William A. Mitchell.

Tang did go into orbit with John Glenn in 1962, and NASA’s use of all three items heightened their profile. Had NASA been a little more hip to the product-placement possibilities, I suppose it might have extracted fees from the lucky vendors, or at least gotten a break on price. However, I find no evidence it got either.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@godix

It’d be nice if those robots we’ll be sending get a lot more versatile too. Consider the Spirit and Opportunity martian rovers, both of which were hugely successful, traveled about 20km total and only had 8 rather specialized instruments. A man could duplicate their years of work in a couple days. Even if that man was an American distracted by worry that our power supply might go out and reset his microwaves clock.

In fact, they are getting more versatile; see the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), which will be able to operate for a longer duration without being dependent upon solar energy to charge batteries and has a much more substantial scientific instrument package and experiment manifest, far more than could be carried by an individual astronaut. [post=12142238]Here[/post] is a comparison between the capabilities and limitations of a human astronaut versus the MSL.

It’s somewhat unfair to directly compare the accomplishments of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers with the presumed capabilities of a human explorer without considering the relative cost and complexity of the different missions. For a pricetag of less than US$1B, we placed two rovers on disparate points of the surface of Mars that have operated more or less continually for over six years. MSL will have about a US$2.3B cost for an approximately 2 year planned mission duration. The most optimistic estimates of sending a minimal manned mission to Mars (crew size 3-4 people) is that it would cost at least US$150B for a 520 day mission duration with about a 30-60 day window for actual operations on Mars, much of which will likely be taken up by erecting shelters and equipment and other maintenance activities to support temporary habitation. So a very conservative estimate is that you could send 300 MERs or 65 MSLs for the cost of sending three or four astronauts, and a projected duration of a robotic mission of 12 to 36 times what a manned mission would possibly be capable of. It would be hard for any advantage of a single human mission to achieve the same depth and breadth of scientific objectives of such a wide range of possible robotic missions for the same cost, notwithstanding the greater scrutiny and hand wringing involved in any manned mission and the difficulty and frankly waste of effort (in purely scientific objectives) in returning astronauts to Earth.

And moreover, the robotic missions can be done with extant technology and knowledge without issue toward our lack of understanding of the effect of long term freefall and radiation exposure of humans, the need to provide provisions for a nearly two year trip, et cetera. It would not be unrealistic to assume that teh $150B price tag could easily swell up to $500B or more before sufficient confidence exists to embark on such a mission. In terms of expanding scientific knowledge outside the limited scope of how to better keep people alive in space, it is clear that robotic exploration is far more advantageous and cost effective.

@even_sven

NASA is funded like it is because the current generation of politicians grew up reading too many sci-fi magazines and assume that their desire to wank off about childhood space fantasies is an objectively good thing that the whole world can appreciate.

That and the equally childish idea that the only way to show our dick is bigger than the Russians (oh, sorry, I guess now it’s the Chinese) is to do it from space.

This may possibly be the most ignorantly obtuse opinion I’ve ever seen expressed about the space program, consisting as it does of little more than ad hominem and an almost utter lack of knowledge about the technical and political impulses for the space program. Setting up a false dichotomy (that it’s either astronauts hanging about playing free-fall ping-pong in the ISS versus caring for starving malaria-stricken children in Angola) is just another disingenuous argument. The advantages of space-based observation of climate and ocean conditions alone is an enormous advantage to humanity, as is satellite telecommunication.

Stranger

[Posaune_Pat]

@Sam_Stone

How often have you heard the phrase, “If we can put a man on the moon, we can do <insert difficult thing here>”? The manned space program has boosted public optimism, it has created a culture that reveres a ‘can-do’ spirit.

The moon landings were an inspirational human achievement which wouldn’t be negated by suspending human spaceflight now. It’s not like we’d be canceling all future and past missions.

A society that stops looking outward and reaching for new frontiers is a society that becomes a collection of risk-averse navel gazers. It’s a terrible thing to replace, “If we can put a man on the moon we can do X” with, “Why would you think we can do X? We can’t even put a man on the moon anymore.”

I certainly don’t consider putting humans into space the only (or best) way to look outward and reach for new frontiers. And it’s not that we can’t put a man on the moon anymore, it’s a question of “what’s the point?”. And billions per launch is a little much to be spending to prop up a clichéd phrase.

NASA is the biggest bargain the American taxpayers have ever gotten. Its budget is trivial compared to other big federal agencies that have returned little or no value to the taxpayer.

If you’re talking about NASA’s nonmanned programs, I agree! It’s amazing what we’ve learned about the universe from our probes and space telescopes, and they’re relatively cheap. What has returned little to know value to the taxpayer is the cost of putting people into space for no reason other than “it’s cool!”. How many Hubbles could we have put up for the cost of the shuttle program?

[godix]

How does faffing about in Low Earth Orbit now help us to achieve that goal?

I can not and will not defend what we’ve done with the manned program since Apollo was canceled. Sometimes I think NASA gets off by shooting itself in the foot. I definately believe that if Hubble didn’t produce pretty pictures then by now our space program would be one guy trying to get into orbit with a huge rubber band strapped between a couple trees.

However, scrapping the whole thing because the ISS is a waste of time and money makes about as much sense as scrapping the entire idea of health care because doctors perform unneeded tests. The solution is to stop the waste and do a productive program, not just give up on it all. Write off the last couple decades as ‘Space - the lost years’ and move on to manned missions that actually might have some value.

This is the worst argument yet. If you want to save humanity from such a disaster, the half-dozen guys that happen to be in space at the time aren’t going to cut it, morally or logically. Spending a billion dollars to save the last 6 people is no more a moral imperative than spending a billion dollars to save the first 6, and they’re all going to die anyway without the infrastructure of Earth to sustain them.

So what you’re saying is that we should vastly expand resources to the manned program so we can build entire communities in space without bothering with the intermediate step of small crewed missions? Sounds like a decent plan to me.

For someone who claims to value science and advancement, you seem to place a lot of importance on patriotic dick-waving.

It’s a fact of human nature that patriotic dick-waving gets shit done. It tamed the wild west, it got us nuclear power, it got us to the moon, it got us the tea party. Okay, perhaps that last one isn’t such a great example. Still, there are plenty of people in the world that get more motivated by 5 minutes of flag waving than they would by days of facts and figures. While I don’t particularly like that human trait, I don’t see a reason to shut my eyes and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Although actually, I’m a strong supporter of international co-operation in space missions. I like how the ISS is a joint project for example, I just wish it were a useful joint project…

[ralph124c]

I have always been intrigued by the idea of humans exploring Mars. But, I don’t see this happening, anytime soon. The expense and risk are simply too high, at the present level of technology.
Maybe, in 50-100 years (when we have nuclear propulsion), a trip to Mars will be feasible.
But not now.

[villa]

@godix

Do you realize how tiny the spending for NASA really is? Just for comparison sake:

• Americans spend twice as much a year on pet toys than we do on space exploration
• We also spend twice as much on cigarettes
• and three times as much on booze
• The NASA budget would cover about half a month of social security
• a month and a half of Afghanistan
• a couple weeks of medicare
• Less than one month of interest on the nation debt
• Less than 2% of the stimulus
• Half the GM bailout, nevermind the Chrysler one
• If the US buys one less stealth bomber, we could totally fund NASA and still have 2/3 the stealth bombers cost left over
• If the Department of Health and Human Services could become 1% more efficient it’d cover NASA’s budget
• Congress franking privileges (them sending out junk mail) would have covered the annual cost of the Mars Pathfinder
• The border fence could have funded NASA for three years

etc. etc. etc.

I am shocked and appalled to learn that Americans spend as much on pet toys as they do on cigarettes, and only 50% more on booze than they do on pet toys. No wonder the country is screwed up.

@godix

Really, NASA’s budget is so tiny in the scale of the total US budget (0.58% to be exact) that I really gotta wonder why you don’t think you could get more money elsewhere, with less drawbacks, than canceling the entire space program. If you really want more money handed to private companies to research what they’re already researching anyway, just don’t drink or smoke this week and send that cash to Toyota instead. If everyone did that, it’d actually be far more money than NASA’s funding is.

I hate this kind of argument. It doesn’t matter if it is only a small percentage of what government spends, it needs to be justified. Hell, buying me a night out on the lager will cost, let’s say $60. It is foolish of me to say the government should pay for it because it is such a tiny percentage of their overall spending. I’d need to justify how the benefit to society of the government paying for me to get messed up is at least equal to the cost. Otherwise, it simply doesn’t matter how cheap it is. If the manned space program should be continued, justify it. And saying how “cheap” it is compared with other programs is meaningless, unless you also look at the benefits of those programs in comparison to those of manned space flight.

[Grey]

Well scrap investing in it and you’ll definitely get your wish.

I’m not exactly sure why NASA always gets dragged into these hypotheticals.

Instead of debating why the only money allocated to spaceflight has to be redirected to the pile of money already tagged to energy research let’s flip it around. Justify why adding human spaceflight money to energy research is a valid use of that money.

[villa]

@godix

• If the US buys one less stealth bomber, we could totally fund NASA and still have 2/3 the stealth bombers cost left over

NASA budget for 2010 is $18,724,000,000.

Cost of the B-2 Spirit is $2,100,000,000 per 'plane.

Are the rest of the comparisons similarly accurate? Admittedly, the B-2 cost is in 1997 dollars, but I doubt we have had that much inflation. For your idea to be right, the cost of a stealth bomber has to be over $56 billion per plane.