I can’t believe I just read this whole set of opinions. I am a retired handicapped housewife…but I dream. That’s what the space programme is. Mining asteroids. More robotics. more great pictures( yes I know unmanned can do it) Maybe mining stations on the moon?? The point is who knows what will be thought of in 50 years. While we are not physically able to live in or stand space travel (Asimov) The science is now where near good enough. A lot of hard math need doing. etc But I can pay a lousy dollar for a lottery ticket to dream for a couple of night. The space shuttle programme helps me to dream of a FUTURE. Yes its emotional. We need to dream and hope.
Back when the shuttle was being planned, the consensus among my DOD scientific colleagues was that the program would be an immense waste of money, a humongous NASA publicity stunt. Because the shuttles would carry people, the tolerance of failure would be very low, so everything would be much more expensive than just using unmanned rockets. Once the shuttle program was a fait accompli, we looked into putting some of our own unmanned experiments onto a shuttle The ride would be “free” (the money - lots and lots of it - didn’t come out of our own budget), but the cost of assuring NASA that our devices would not jeopardize the crew’s safety was prohibitive. The repair of the Hubble telescope was one mission that required astronauts. Still, without the space shuttle, it would have been cheaper to build put a second Hubble telescope into orbit with an unmanned launch vehicle.
The Air Force made an abortive attempt to get into the space shuttle launching business, building a gargantuan facility at Vandenburg AFB in California. Our involvement in the project was to measure the shuttle launch noise at the Kennedy Space Center, the shaking response of the Vandenburg building (a vast structure on wheels) to small tethered explosions, and then predict what would happen in an actual launch. For each launch, we predicted that there would be about a ten percent chance that the facility would be destroyed. The building won an architectural award, just because of its size and complexity, but fortunately it was never used. That white elephant cost the taxpayer over one billion dollars.
I never saw the point of manned space missions, except for the drama involved. Putting a man on the Moon was a case of upmanship versus the Soviets. It was thrilling, but we could have accomplished a lot more space exploration without crews. I was a “principal investigator” for two aspects of the Apollo 11 lunar laser ranging experiment, and the reason our experiment was chosen was because Apollo 11 was a mission in search of some simple and safe scientific justification. The original ALSEP (Apollo Lunar Scientific Experiment Package) for Apollo 11 was considered too complex for the first manned mission to the Moon, so it was replaced by EASAP (Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package), which consisted of just three devices. All an astronaut had to do for our experiment was set a retroreflector package down on the surface and align it roughly. (The other two EASEP devices, a passive seismometer and a solar wind collector, were equally simple to set up.) Setting a retroreflector array on the Moon could have been done without the assistance of a man, and, in fact, the USSR did just that “on the cheap,” placing two French built retroreflector arrays onto the Moon with the Lunakhod spacecraft.
This article has caused lots of comments … for example I joined this forum just to post my response. I trust Cecil will read all of these responses and consider his response to them carefully. I, too, had begun to believe that he was among the brightest on the Earth, it’s actually affirming to know that he’s only human.
About myself … too, hopefully add credibility to what I have to say. (Forgive me if this is not only not necessary, but against the “rules” of this forum.) I’ve been studying this issue for most of my life. In 1948, when I was in the 4th grade, on a local (Reno, Nevada) radio program, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered, “The first man to walk on the Moon.” As it was I, even if I had the personal characteristics needed to accomplish this goal, was born too late … Neil Armstrong is a few years older than me, all of the original astronauts are. However, in 1979, I was asked to give one of the keynotes at the American Astronomical Society’s 10th anniversary celebration of the Moon landing. In 1980 I got my Masters in Futuristics from San Jose State University. Finally, Buzz Aldrin asked me to write a speech for him, which I did. It included a story that I will share with you here. But, first, I want to restate the two major reasons that Cecil didn’t mention:
-
The importance of New Frontiers to healthy civilizations. History has shown us that civilizations tend to succeed because of: religion, conquering neighbors, and/or frontiers. Since the first two are no longer acceptable, our best single hope for our future is a new frontier. My Masters Thesis involved the importance of Positive Images of the Future to Societies … The vision of humanity exploring the New Frontier of Outer Space is critical to the ultimate success of our civilization. Without that vision, we will implode.
-
I quote a previous post, the danger of having “all our eggs in one basket.” This is critical, especially if you believe, as Fuller did (Spaceship Earth), that humanity has something to offer to the Universe. There is significant danger that humanity will become extinct, and not by our own hand, but, rather, by the whims of Mother Nature. She has many tools at her disposal; for example, super volcanoes and rocks or comets from outer space. As long as “all our eggs are in one basket” there is a significant chance that we will become extinct. We must spread our eggs around, to have any hope of surviving. Why should we begin now? Because we can, and because, we don’t know how long we have.
And now for my story:
Imagine that it’s 500 years in the future and you are on another world circling a different sun. Humanity has spread to a dozen or so other star systems. You are in a class, The History of the Human Race, and the teacher has just asked, “Does anyone know which star system humanity came from originally?”
You raise your hand, and, as the teacher points at you to answer the question, a holographic display of the inhabited portion of our galaxy appears in the air in front of the class. A “cursor arrow” also appears and touching the joy-stick attached to the arm of your chair, you move the arrow through the display to point at a single star.
“Yes, you’re correct, that’s Sol the star of the Solar System, the home star of the planet upon which humanity was born. Now, can you identify that planet?”
As the teacher asks this next question the display “zooms in” and now the class is looking at a view of the Solar System from someplace outside of, and above, it. Again, using the joystick, you move the arrow to point at the third planet from the Sun.
“Again, you’re correct, that’s Earth the planet upon which humanity was born.”
At this moment, the view zooms in once more, and now the class is looking at the Earth/Moon from outside of the orbit of the Moon. There’s an audible gasp as this image comes into view. The image of the Earth itself is awesome, but, in addition, in all of humanity’s explorations, a dual system like the Earth and Moon have never been found. It’s almost like twin planets, rather than a planet and its moon.
“And what was the first world, other than the Earth, that humanity stepped onto?”
Of course, you move the arrow to point at the Moon.
“Yes class, it was just 500 years ago that humanity stepped on another world for the very first time and that other world was the Earth’s own moon. From our point of view it seems like such a small step, and yet, at that time, it was such a giant leap.”
There’s a moment of silence, almost reverence, and then the teacher continues, “Imagine if you can what it must have been like. Humanity had come into existence about 250,000 years before and, until that time, had had no means of leaving the Earth and traveling to another world. Now, there was a man walking on the Moon. Imagine what it must have been like to have been alive at that moment in time; imagine the sense of adventure, the sense of accomplishment.”
Copyright Brad Fregger.
(a) I was not putting it down. I was just making a statement. Part of the problem we have is that many in the public (and decision-makers) are hung up on the idea of “routine spaceflight”. That just hurts the whole concept since it creates unreasonable expectations both of performance AND of “cheapness”. It IS an experimental endeavor, we should accept it as such (for now) in order to have it become “routine” some day.
(b) I think you misspelled “Carter” 
(honest, he started it!) and anyway air travel WAS an everyday ocurrence, with thousands of safe flights a day worldwide and airlines seeking customers through advertising (“Hi, I’m ______, fly me!”) in mass media, at the time of your birth. Anyway “routine” need not mean “mass consumption commodity”.
In your opinion. If you could ask the Columbia 7 whether they felt “sacrificed”, they would undoubtedly disagree - I have heard their families saying as much.
What small thinking. When Marco Polo set out on his epic journey, it was unlikely he would live long enough to see his home again. So what? Humans have a natural need for exploration. If all mankind ever wanted was tolerable life, early humans would never have gone forth to see what was over the next hill, and none of us would be here.
Baloney. Sign me up, and I’ll go tomorrow.
**
Fine. The line forms behind me.
From a friend of mine(if you’re here, I’m sorry! It had to be repeated!)
"I know. I’ve been there. I’ve seen her. I’ve seen the guards, the safety precautions. I’ve been there. I’ve touched her. I’ve looked inside her. I’ve stood outside the LCC and watched her climb into space, and I’ve been awoken by the booms of her’s landing. I’ve seen her rise into the air to be mated with the stack, seen her roll ponderously to the pad. I’ve stood in her shadow.
And that’s what I wanted to talk about.
Columbia died today. Columbia. She was the first. Our Space Shuttle. God, I remember being in 3rd grade and watching her fly over (on the back of a 747) on the way back from California. I remember, not too long after, watching Challenger explode in the sky. And I remember the long years when no Shuttle flew, when no America floated in space. I remember.
I’ve touched Enterprise, that wooden workhorse, flew Discovery and Endeavor at Space Camp. I watched Atlantis launch from the LCC. I stood there and felt the fire and power pound through me, felt the pressure wave from five miles away. I saw her climb into the sky, claw free of Earth and gravity, spurning nature in a bid for freedom.
You can’t know what that’s like. Power and fire and grace and sheer awe. A hundred tons of metal and plastic and composites and people, hurtling into the sky on a pillar of flame.
I watched Discovery roll out, watched her lifted into the air and mated with the stack. I watched the whole thing roll out, slowly, towards the pad. I’ve still got broken river rock, broken and crushed before my eyes, under the weight of the crawler and Shuttle.
I saw her on the pad. Stood next to her, inspected her engines, her tiles, even some of the interior. I looked down at the blast pit, heard the countless stories about the Shuttle. The whys, the wherefores. Why wooden poles are placed in front of the sensor poles (they shatter at ignition, protecting the metal poles behind them), why so much water is dumped into the blast pit on liftoff (muffles the noise of launch. Without it, the Shuttle and stack would shake to pieces). I’ve learned, in ways that brook no misunderstanding, the sheer power that we harness to send fragile beings into space.
I saw. And I will always remember.
I grew up in Houston, near Johnson Space Center. I grew up with the Shuttle. I grew up wanting to be an astronaut. On stories of space, and the future. And I believed in the space program. And I still do.
And now I work there. I watched Columbia lift off. I watched her climb into the sky. I sat, in front of software I helped write, and watched as she rose. I saw the details, the data, as it flowed from Kennedy. I watched her through Max-Q, through booster seperation, through ET seperation. I cheered with my collegues. Because we believe. And still do.
The Space Shuttle has always, to me, meant America. More than a flag, more than a military, more than an eagle. More than any symbol or entity. The Space Shuttle was the best of who we, as a country, are. It was drive, determination, genius, and hard work. We did it. And we did it so well that it became commonplace. We sent men into space. Broke them free of our fragile planet, and it became commonplace. My god…who wouldn’t be proud of that? To do something so hard, so well, that people start to think of it as something normal.
The Space Shuttle, to me, is America. Everything that’s good about us. Everything we want to be. Everything we aspire to be.
I’ve had my doubts about the Shuttle program. I’ve thought NASA has been shortsighted in some areas, done foolish things in others, and believed (and still do) that the Shuttles have served us well, but that after twenty-two years of service, it is time for a new version of the shuttle. Something built with two decades of experience, good and bad. Something to tide us over, to be our workhorse, until a new technology comes along. But God, it hurt to see Columbia fall.
Intellectually, I know that this means America will be grounded for years to come. That the Station will close shop, it’s three members fall back to Earth in a Proton capsule. If it is something simple, falling insulation perhaps, then perhaps with new procedures we’ll return to space in a few years. But if it’s something more…an aging fleet, then perhaps it will be a decade before Americans take to the sky again.
But none of that really matters now. Columbia fell. And to me, America fell with her. More than the loss of life, the loss of the shuttle, I mourn the loss of the thing I, as an American, am proudest about.
Space is our future. Space is our last frontier. Space is where we go, as Kennedy said, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. But it doesn’t matter now. Columbia fell. She fell in fire and smoke. And America fell with her.
And I hope that America will react as we always have. That we will look, and learn, and ultimately make something better. That we take this tradgedy and learn the right lessons from it. That we do not back down because space is hard, because it’s dangerous. That we take this and use it to build a new shuttle. A better one. The first of a new model. Stronger, safer, better. One that is, or at least is closer to, the dream that Columbia aspired to.
I pray that we learn the right lessons. That we do not turn our backs on our future. And I pray that, from Columbia’s ashes a new ship is born. One worthy of Columbia, of Challenger, of Apollo 1. One worthy of all those who have worked for this dream, sacrificed for this dream, and died for this dream. And they bloody well better name her Phoenix.
That is what I learned when Columbia fell. "
-Morat of http://www.brunchma.com
Ah, no; I just Remembered From Somewhere that private rocketry was illegal. For purposes of this discussion, I’m willing to take the X-prize as a counterexample; the people involved have probably done the legal work.
Unfortunately, the regulatory regime (at least in the US) adds a huge amount to that cost. A paper on the X-prize site mentions (http://www.xprize.org/imagefacts/certified_paper.html) that the FAA requires over 1000 test flights to certify a plane. Suppose someone got the cost to orbit down to $1000 per pound. And suppose they were able to do test flights with just one pilot, weighing just 100 pounds. That’s $100M before you can take your first passenger into space. (Actually, that’s probably an underestimate, because that same paper mentions that certifying a “small business jet aircraft” can run over $100M.) If the FAA insists that each test flight carry two pilots, the weight, and the cost, doubles.
And then there’s the liability costs; in the US legal climate, getting an insurance company to cover a flight to orbit would be amazingly expensive.
Boeing can build airplanes on this basis because they’re already selling airplanes; the regulations grew up around them. Entering the market with a brand-new, unproven product would be pretty much impossible.
We might get a private space industry, but the US certainly isn’t going to be an early adopter unless the regulations change a *lot.i/i]
I feel I need to make a point about the colonization of other stars. Cecil got his facts straight. I’ve seen some references to ion drives or solar sails in this thread: Those are the very “next generation propulsion systems” to which Cecil was referring. There are better propulsion systems which don’t break any known laws of physics: With a fusion-powered drive, for instance, you could probably make it to Alpha Centauri in less than a century. But it’s unrealistic to say that fusion propulsion is “on the horizon”: It isn’t yet, and I won’t even venture to say when it will be.
As for hypothetical faster-than-light propulsion systems, the analogies with heavier-than-air or supersonic flight are not valid. There’s a big difference between an engineering hurdle and a physics hurdle. If a barrier is purely of an engineering nature, then eventually, if you throw enough time, effort, money, and dedication to it, you’ll overcome it. Not so with a hurdle of physics. FTL travel is either possible, or it’s not. If it’s possible, then yes, eventually we’ll probably figure out how to do it. But if it’s not, then no amount of elbow grease on our part will make it possible. The fundamental laws of the Universe don’t give a damn about our strivings. Unfortunately, it very much appears that the latter is the case, and that FTL is, in fact, impossible.
With that said: While I agree with Cecil’s facts, I disagree with his interpretation of them. A century, or even fifty centuries, is not a prohibitive amount of time to reach other stars. Sure, the original crew won’t make it, but then, they wouldn’t live five thousand years if they had stayed on Earth, either. God willing, some day we will be colonizing the stars, by generation slowships if need be, or by faster means if possible. But that won’t happen without us working towards it now.
Breaking my 10K cherry…
I disagree. It just depends on how far into the future you consider “on the horizon”. For example, I consider anything taking place within the next century to be “on the horizon”.
Again, no it doesn’t. The absolute best you can say is that with our current understanding of science. it appears that FTL is probably not possible. Remember that a lot of things we can do now were not always considered just engineering problems, many of them were believed to break what were once considered to be scientific laws, just like your supposed FTL law. Again I will say, if we quit trying to break the light barrier then there is pretty much a 100% chance that we never will, just like in basketball if you never shoot the ball then there is pretty much a 100% chance that you will never make a basket.
That’s not true, and it has no bearing on the manned space program anyway. Our understanding of the physics limitations will come from physics experiments, not by putting bigger and bigger rockets in space to see how fast they’ll go.
All this talk about how Columbus was a start on intercontinental air travel, and that this is an analogy to our space program getting ready to colonize the stars seriously underestimates the challenge of interstellar travel. A more apt comparison would be ancient Sumerians building canoes to prepare for a manned mission to the moon. No matter how many canoes they build, it’s not helping anyone get to the moon, so their spending money on that project is a waste of resources unless there are direct tangible benifits from the canoes themselves. And I think that this too is a gross understatement of the problem.
There is no reason for us to be sending people into space right now. It’s incredibly expensive, the “science” carried out on shuttle missions is a joke, and it is helping us not one bit in any (pipe) dream of colonizing other planets. Subscribe to Bob Park’s newsletter for regular updates on shuttle “science.”
In my opinion, we can argue the validity of the science or the short term benefits of striving toward colonization all we want, but that is all secondary.
The greatest benefit of the space program is this–it gives us pride; it gives us real heroes; it gives our kids something to which they can aspire; it shows them that with hard work they can acheive anything. Sadly, the rest of our culture glorifies so many negatives. We have done a pathetic job of putting forth a society that values everything good in humanity. Our highest paid, most glorified public figures play games for our amusement. Sure, some of them work hard at it, and some of them take the responsibilities of being a public image seriously, but many also act like the spoiled children that idolize them. Our pop culture is full of violence, and a total lack of regard for human life, not to mention compassion for our fellow (wo)man. The root of much of “what’s wrong with the world” can be traced back to the way we see ourselves and the way we treat one another. People are taught that to get what they want, they have to take it from someone else.
The space program shows our kids (and many of our misguided adults) that studying hard, working hard, and believing in something bigger than yourself has its own reward. It not only enables you to “reach for the stars”, but it gives the individual an honest, unpretentious self-confidence that will serve them well and lead them toward a happy, well-balanced existence in their own life.
THIS is the most important benefit of the space program, whether we ever get to Alpha Centauri or not. We need more such influences in our lives and the lives of our children, not less. With more programs like the space program and the kind of adults they would produce, many of the other problems in the world would cease to exist.
In regards to the ill-conceived “Why do we travel in space?” column:
"Using next-generation propulsion systems it’d take 5,000 years to reach the nearest star " has got to be the single most myopic statement you’ve ever made, Cecil. What you’re essentially saying is “If you can’t conceive of a way to improve something why even try.”
You’ve always been so good about showing both sides of an argument but in this column you’ve allowed your shockingly narrow minded opinion of space travel to cloud your objectivity. You’ve officially fallen off the pedestal I’ve kept you on.
I remember reading that with relativistic effects, the <u>percieved</u> trip time would be on the order of a single generation. Back here on Earth, it would seem a lot longer, though.
Well, actually, I’d be happy to go first. I think the line of reasoning which states that we should be more worried about the earth rather than throwing money at space ignores the fact that all of the money spent for space exploration is spent ON EARTH, and in fact supports a lot of tangential infrastructure and innovation.
I work for a telecom provider who does work for NASA. Their telecom needs over the past 20 years have been a driver for the industry. 'nuff said.
In theory, the perceived time could be five seconds, or five microseconds (though either one would require accelerations that would liquify the star travelers). But a minimum of 4.3 years would pass back on Earth, and another 4.3 years before you got back again.
The problem with FTL is even worse than appearing to be scientifically impossible. It appears to be scientifically meaningless – like asking for an angle that is more perpendicular than 90 degrees. One of the best measured, best tested facts of science (it’s older than relativity) is that, no matter how fast you chase light, it’s always going to be exactly c faster than you are.
:rolleyes:
If you want your kids to work hard so they can have a spectacular, fiery death trying to re-enter Earth atmosphere in an object singularly unsuited to the purpose, fine. Just don’t ask me to subsidize that with a dime of my tax money. It would be cheaper to hold a competition for the brightest, ablest humans and then just have them set themselves on fire. Pride. Heroes. Yeah. Right.
Also, the problem with the Hubble telescope was not created in space. Its mirror was ground improperly on the Earth. Had that mistake been caught in time there would have been no need to risk human lives to fix it.
John, I wasn’t suggesting the fictional FTL drive, but the fusion drive referenced by Chronos, which is on the technological horizon. Supposedly, even if only a small fraction of light speed can be attained, then relativity would make a one generation trip possible, even though 100('s of) years would have passed on earth. It would be a one-way trip, so we’d want to make sure there was a habitable planet waiting …
I agree 100% with Cecil’s original column.
Personally, I’d love to see to see humanity colonize the universe. But the current manned space program is actually impeding getting people out there in a long-term and meaningful way.
If we’re ever going to go to the stars we need to build a better technological base to stand on. We need a space elevator or rail gun launcher to dramatically lower the cost of getting mass into orbit. We need new propulsion systems that can cut the time to reach the nearest star to decades. We need heavy research into the long-term sustainability of self-contained micro-ecosystems. (Biosphere 3, anybody?) We need long-range robot probes to tell us where to go.
None of this requires putting human beings in space.
What angers me is that the long-term colonization of the universe is being neglected for a Star Trek fantasy version of space travel. It’s romantic and wasteful and ignorant, and it’s moving us backwards, not forward.
If I were King of the World I’d immediately cancel the whole dead-end manned space program, dump the money-pit ISS, and pour all that wasted effort into basic tech research so that people can return to space 200 years from now as conquerers, not as tourists.
No, you need a very large fraction of light speed for relativity to make that much difference. If it’s a 100-year trip, and you want a single generation (call it 20 years), you need to go nearly 98% of the speed of light.
To write it out in a form that this board can display: t = t0 * sqrt(1-(v/c)(v/c)), where t is perceived time onboard, t0 is perceived time on Earth, v is the ship’s speed, and c is the speed of light. So, if t=t0/5, then 0.2=sqrt(1-(v/c)(v/c)), so 0.04=1-(v/c)(v/c), so (v/c)(v/c)=0.96, so v/c=sqrt(0.96), so v is about 0.979796*c.