“I would get up and walk away from my computer at this instant
if NASA called and said they needed someone to fly the Shuttle.”
Hell yes, call me now and I’d go. Not to fly it, because there are many people better at that than me, but I’d go. I’d take a few minutes to call my mother first.
Charge me all the money I have and I’d still go.
I only need one argument - because it’s there. Space travel in a cramped and rather dangerous jury-rigged(*) old craft is still space travel.
Space travel is the symbol of some apes who strive to be more and that’s why we should carry on doing it.
As yet, it is of no practical use. It’s not going to solve overpopulation, even if we found a habitable planet nearby - the birthrate for the humans is far greater than the rate at which humans could be moved to another planet. The other practical arguments have already been dismissed.
The Shuttle is not the original design, which was much more elegant and efficient. It’s a compromise made to work by some ingenious engineers.
This topic has brought one more newbie out from the lurker woodwork.
What I think Cecil was referring to was the institution of NASA. And for that I agree with him. NASA as an institution is outdated and irrevelant in today’s society.
But I also agree with the poster’s consesus that space exploration/research/yada yada yada should continue. There’s a line around the world of people that want to be an astronaut and I’m in it. So what I think should happen is that space travel should be privatized. Those that want to support it can and those that don’t, don’t have to. The government has no place in space.
It’s true that science doesn’t know all. But it never claimed to. There really are no scientific “truths” since this is not how science works. It tries to present a working model of reality that is always adapting to new data. That is the great strength of science - it changes when it has to.
But we first need the new data before current science changes. It will alway change, but we can’t put the cart before the horse. We can’t throw out what we currently believe simply because we want to. I’ll be the first to admit that interstellar travel could greatly benefit us. But the need for it does not create the existence of it.
This issue of space travel is not like the Church’s opposition to Galileo or people’s opposition to Columbus. They never voiced valid scientific criticism. Butting heads with the Pope is very different from butting up against the laws of physics as we now know them. Yes, our understanding may change, but a change should be based on solid theory.
Interstellar travel may indeed be possible. It just seems very unlikely that it will happen. Valid reasons against it aren’t being addressed here. It’s not enough to just say, “Anything is possible!” Any research done into the possibility of advanced space travel will involve things like particle accelerators and comfortable chairs, not chemical powered rockets. It’s not a matter of coming up with better technology for space travel. The space program as we now know it has almost nothing to do with the possibility of interstellar travel. Any solution will involve serious theoretical physics. How does giving NASA money to build rockets do this?
Oblivion…I believe the idea of a “space elevator” was conceived
by Larry Niven, who wrote a sci-fi novel (very hard sci-fi) about one using the name “skyhook”.
It certainly wasn’t Arthur C. Clarke, who addressed a convention about the subject in 1979. Hans Moravec devised detailed equations concerning the forces on a skyhook in 1976.
Hmm…it appears I was wrong. The earliest reference I can find dates back to 1895, by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
I was around for many years under a different name, but I forgot all the info I used to post under. I then became a lurker because there were already so many more worthy posters hitting the truth. I am no longer a lurker but a poster again, ah how the circles keeping circling.
I was born in December, 1957, right after Sputnik. [snip long diatribe where I extoll the space program’s influence on me personally.] So yes, I would go up in the next shuttle. In a second.
But I still believe that the manned space program should be phased out for a few hundred years. (Not forever, just a few dozen decades.)
Note the word “manned”. I think that the SPACE PROGRAM should have its funding INCREASED. You know all those wonderful spinoffs whose development was accelerated by the race for the moon? (Accelerated, not created.) The vast majority of that technology is in just as high demand for unmanned space flight. In fact, unmanned exploration will push the technological envelope even further. We need better AI to robotically explore the surfaces of our Solar System. And we need better material science (and AI) to put drones in flight in Jupiter’s atmosphere. And much better propulsion technology to get samples of all the planets back here (mostly to get them out of the planets’ gravity wells).
One argument that is made for the ISS that Cecil didn’t mention is that it gives jobs to Russian scientists who would otherwise (according to the argument) be making weapons of mass destruction for the highest bidder. I strongly suspect that the ISS program isn’t putting much of a dent in Russian scientific unemployment lines, but even if its true, they could just as easily be our partners in unmanned exploration. Russian computer science is in many ways more advanced than in the US; I would like to see them let loose on the autonomous robot AI hardware/software.
A corrilary to Cecil’s “coolness” argument is that public support is needed for the space program. And the only way to get that public support is the coolness factor. But lets face it - nobody pays any attention to the space shuttle any more. But there was certainly some public excitment when the Gallileo spacecraft went into orbit around Jupiter and sent back awe-inspiring pictures and scientific data. Same with the primitive Mars rover. My geek friends were glued to the science news outlets when those two events happened (and will be glued again when Cassini gets to Saturn). I don’t have a single geek friend to pays any attention to the shuttle launches.
If there are scientific breakthroughs in our future that will get us to other stars and galaxies, the unmanned program will push just as hard for it as the manned. Harder perhaps, since the technology won’t have to be bio-friendly. We would need to send robotic ships to all these other star systems anyway to find the ones with suitable planets for colonization.
The romantic in me wants to see human bootprints on as many surfaces as possible in this Solar System.
The technologist/scientist/realist in me wants all that money re-directed where it will produce far more scientific knowledge and technological advancement per dollar - unmanned spaceflight.
Just the beginning of the claptrap in this thread. Columbus was wrong; he thought the world was much smaller than it was, and he convinced the Spanish throne that there was money to be made by listening to him. Had anyone had the incredible prescience to foresee the actual consequences of Columbus’s plans, they’d have killed him immediately. Remember, the brief spurt of gold coming into the Spanish coffers only briefly financed Spain’s ambitions; in the long run, the overextension caused by defending their interests, protecting their treasure ships, and financing their armada left Spain vulnerable to England and France, who drove Spain out of contention as a world power (And there’s something for Exgineer’s iridium miners to think about). Today Spain is a marginal state, a poor cousin to Europe. What good has the 500 year history of the Americas done them? What good has it done Britain, who briefly held supremacy as “the empire on which the sun never sets”? They lost their American holdings as soon as they became profitable. Shall we, then, consider colonization of space a success if it leads to a powerful space-based economy that oppresses and impoverishes those remaining on Earth? I think not.
More nonsense: “They said man would never fly”; not true. Certainly some people did, but no one who had any business holding opinions on the subject ever argued that powered manned flight was physically impossible; unfeasible, perhaps, and certainly uneconomical, but not impossible. Not the way supraluminal flight is impossible – it’s not a matter of a lighter engine or stronger materials, it’s impossible, by everything we know about space itself. Every conceivable workaround, every theoretical excursion, has led to nothing. Even time travel is more likely.
More nonsense: Some respondents have accused Cecil of advocating the end of space exploration. Not so. He has said that MANNED space exploration has no net benefits, and he’s right. There’s nothing coming from manned flight that doesn’t come from unmanned flight at a fraction of the cost, in lives and money. Miniaturization, materials, theoretical advances, and exploration – all of these can be tested and advanced by unmanned spacecraft.
Look, I love this stuff too. I wanna fly in space, and I wanna walk on the moon. But the space program doesn’t exist so that I can indulge an expensive hobby. Partly it exists so that we can project our power on the national stage without hurting anyone and making enemies, but it’s always been financed by people who want a return of some kind – even if it’s only the opportunity to have better telephone service.
Yeah, there might be some use for a limited amount of flying out there: to make repairs, do maintenance, or just do things that can’t be done any other way. But the idea that manned space flight has goals of its own that can’t be acheived in any other way is being oversold. The International Space Station is a result – a costly boondoggle that is already obsolete, that will never achieve much, and will be superseded as soon as it is finished. For this, we killed the Superconducting Supercollider, a truly useful tool of basic research whose death is setting back our understanding of the universe.
You guys are something else. I’m not going to respond in detail, because mostly what I’m seeing here are emotional arguments. The space program is one area where otherwise rational people become completely unhinged. So I’ll confine myself to a few general comments.
I was talking about the manned space program, not space exploration in general. I’m all in favor of unmanned probes, space telescopes, etc. I think we should explore distant stars. To that end I support research into new propulsion systems, advanced robotics, all that stuff, with a view to sending our surrogates to places we can’t go. I quite agree that it’s human nature to push back the frontier, and that we should continue to do so even if the immediate benefits aren’t obvious. We should do it just because it’s cool. I assure you, I was not being sarcastic when I said that in the column, and I’m not being sarcastic now.
The question is whether the manned space program materially advances the exploration of space. Let me frame that even more narrowly. The question is whether the manned space program as currently conceived, and given the limits of current technology, materially advances the exploration of space. I don’t think it does. As I suggested in the column, I’m happy to reverse that view if someone comes up with a plausible mission. Right now we don’t have one. The purpose of the space shuttle program is to develop a practical space truck. To what end? Who knows? Columbus didn’t just sail off into the ocean blue hoping he’d find something; he had a specific goal in mind, finding a more economical route to the Indies. Make a reasonably persuasive case that (a) life once existed on Mars, and (b) a manned (OK, staffed) mission is the best way to confirm it … bingo, I’m there. Let’s go to Mars. Life is the coolest thing in the universe, and if we could find evidence that it evolved independently someplace besides here … whoa. In the absence of such a goal - and the Mars thing is just an example, I’m sure it’s possible to conceive others - what we’re doing isn’t science, it’s bungee-jumping.
But you say: We’ve got a mission! We need to develop an escape route in case we’re hit by an asteroid! Please. A columnist here in Chicago suggested it was important to keep the Space Shuttle program going because in 10 billion years the sun will explode and we don’t want to get snuffed. Honestly, this is the kind of thing you expect to hear from children.
Let me bring up a point no one has raised yet. An argument can be made that one good reason to keep sending people into space is that it helps maintain public support for the larger and more important mission of space exploration in general. I’m not sure I buy that. Seeing all those cool pictures of distant nebula sent back by Hubble is enough to keep my blood a-bubbling. But I can see where a lot of the other little cowboys won’t think it’s worthwhile unless we can go out there in person. So if I were the prez, here’s what I’d do - and again, let me assure you I’m not being facetious in saying this. I’d call in all my top space people and say, look, I want to keep sending people up there. Just give me a better excuse.
I would disagree. While there are some (“It’s humanity’s destiny!”), the long-term argument is perfectly valid from a logical standpoint. Just because there are no immediate significant benefits to manned spaceflight, that doesn’t mean that there will never be.
However, I will agree that we’ve learned just about everything we need to about how space will affect a human body. What’s needed right now is, essentially, better engines, and that’s not gonna happen whilst we’re watching perfectly spherical flames or spiders making webs in microgravity.
Did you decide to just not read everyone else’s responses, some of which address the false claim that there have been “no documented spinoffs,” or do you disagree with them?
Standing up and repeating a lie over and over without further support doesn’t make it true. The scientific benefits are there, and some have been already mentioned. Where’s the evidence for your claims?
I’ll await your comparative analysis of the cost of the American space program per capita as opposed to the cost of social programs such as welfare. Maybe those “10,000 people” should all be on unemployment instead.
Ron, who is typing this response on a PC that also owes its compact size to Microminiaturization.
You’re quite right to state that a goal of mere exploration would be better served by unmanned missions.
Where you and I part company is on the matter of manned missions-- if I’m reading you right, you are saying (in effect) that manned missions are largely useless. I disagree-- if we’re going to take advantage (primarily economically) of what we find via the unmanned exploration (it’s a natural-resource bonanza out there), we’re going to have to put people out there. And the only way we can do that is if we already have some experience of living and working in space.
Certainly, the Space Shuttle should be grounded, soon and permanently. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and do away with manned exploration entirely.
Yawn. The “everyone” you mention are two posters. One is Midas, who takes the rational and defensible view that Velcro and Teflon may not have been created without NASA. Of course, the opposite is also true.
The other poster was you. And I’m sorry, but you are not much of a cite to use in a later post of your own.
A link might have helped you cause, but since you provided no way for me to verify your claim (short of driving to the library), I have no way to evalute your source. Therefore I ignored you.
A group of exhacerbated Dopers that included numerous first-post newbies drew out the Perfect Master.
Wow.
First prostrating myself on the floor before Cecil, upon his allowing me to get back up, and after toasting his long life, I bow and raise my glass before you all.
But yes, the current manned spaceflight program is essentially a policy clusterf**k, whose continuance is based on a (very real) fear that if you take a “hiatus” from it, the “hiatus” will become a permanent abandonment. But Cecil said, “find me a better excuse”. It’s up to us who favor manned spaceflight to come up with the “better excuse”: public money is allocated politically whether we like it or not. We have got to come up with that “good excuse”, because there are many who, like Cecil, are skeptical.
At the very least, survival of manned spaceflight until we get our act together may depend on us adopting realistic expectations. Experiments in long-term human exposure to space conditions could be conducted with MIR-class orbital platforms and Soyuz/Shenzou-class crew vehicles (and the current ISS is so far mostly a MIR 2.0 with an aftermarket “options package”; after “Space Station Liberty” ate up its budget just getting on the drawing board) but we’d have to commit to paying for just that and nothing but that.
If we really want a manned reusable system, let private companies take the chance to come up with a smaller, simpler spaceplane based on what can work, not on meeting some arbitrary NASA “requirement” pulled out of some committee’s collective hindquarters; and then sell or lease it not just to NASA but to anyone who wants it – ESA, RKK-E, China, Bill Gates, whoever. But manned spaceflight can be expected to remain an experimental, “X-treme” activity, and should be recognized as such. “Routine” spaceflight is for my grandchildren’s generation at best.
If/when you have a specific project to go and look in person for Martian fossils, and the political will to see it to the end, then you WILL have a raison d’etre for a large, do-everything, heavy-duty space station/STS combo.
As for “wasting lives” I must join those who have disagreed with that view. The spacemen and spacewomen are all volunteers conscious of the risks involved. While every casualty is a major loss and should be studied as to how to avoid it in the future, we get nowhere if we declare that only an infinitessimal casualty rate is acceptable.
Don’t worry, Cecil, I didn’t expect you to carefully read every post.
He used the Hubble as his example of an unmanned blood-boiler, but i don’t think it’s the best example. Earth-based telescopes using adaptive optics and optical interferometer technology (VLT) are now more powerful for most purposes than Hubble (they just don’t have as well-funded PR departments as NASA). Hubble was designed the way it was BECAUSE of the shuttle. Without the shuttle, there would still be an orbiting telescope. Probably quite a few by now, with the most recently launched being better than Hubble is now. And FYI - the planned successor to Hubble will not be servicable by the shuttle. It will orbit at the L2 point, far beyond the Moon.
I still think that the Mars rover and Gallileo are better examples of programs that give good “gee whiz” feelings. I mean, shoot, I remember when Viking landed on Mars and extended its little scoop just as well as I remember Apollo landing on the moon!
P.S. - let’s everybody say a fond goodby to Gallileo and Pioneer 10. And lets stop sending whole humans into low-Earth-orbit and instead send our eyes to distant galaxies and our fingertips to the planets.
Oooops! My bad! I misread that column for sure (I tend to read the paper pretty quickly). Sorry about that. But, hey, at least I brought out a bunch of newbies & lurkers.
Anyway, I think your final point here is very true, that we need staffed space flight to keep interest in the program up. I think that if we stopped manned flights, interest and money would dry up extremely quickly for anything except commercial satellite launches.
Another issue. Let’s say that someday your wish does come true, that we use some unmanned method to determine that there was once life on Mars (or whatever cool thing to make manned spaceflight worthwhile in your mind). So, then we want to send some researchers there to dig stuff and and see what it’s all about. So, let’s say this happens 50 years from now, and in all that time we haven’t done any more manned missions, just unmanned stuff. So, at that point then, we have to pick up from where we left off and work to develop a Mars-capable manned craft, and we are down 50 years of research. As you well know, only so much can be accomplished with theories and simulations. For anything, whether it be a new drug or a spaceship, eventually you are going to have to try it out on humans. So, really, the only way we are really going to improve manned space flight enough to where we can go do other cool stuff is to keep doing it. I guess there’s not really much of a time crunch, in the long run, so what’s another 50 years or so give or take, right?
While I felt the entire column was quite closed-minded and ignorant, I was specifically referring to Cecil’s statement that “Talk of hyperdrives and such is just Hollywood fantasy.” Many things that were once Hollywood fantasy (or just plain fantasy before there was a Hollywood) are now every-day reality. Cecil says “Never say never,” but goes right ahead and says it anywa.
