# Obama cancels Moon project **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 9, 2010, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495 "2010-04-09T04:01:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/61 "2010-04-09T20:53:20Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > That’s like saying we shouldn’t have wasted time building Kitty Hawk because duh, if we’d just waited long enough someone surely would eventually build a Boeing 737, and then everyone could fly! It’s even more ridiculous than that. Your analogy breaks down because Kitty Hawk was performed by two guys with rudimentary engineering skills working out of their garage. It’s laugable to compare that with the resources, energy, and labor involved for something like the Apollo program. And no-one’s “holding off on going into space”. We’re continuing to launch commercial satellites at a greater rate than ever. NASA has even more money for unmanned launches and actual _science_ programs than they ever did. Many sci-fi fans have a mistaken belief that launching as many manned chemical rockets as possible somehow advances technology toward alpha centauri and the U.S.S. Enterprise sooner. It doesn’t. It pushes that dream farther away. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/62 "2010-04-09T20:55:06Z")
[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie] Many sci-fi fans have a mistaken belief that launching as many manned chemical rockets as possible somehow advances technology toward alpha centauri and the U.S.S. Enterprise sooner. It doesn’t. It pushes that dream farther away. [/QUOTE] And many people opposed to manned exploration hold up this strawman as if it proves something… -XT ---
**Author:** ![CutterJohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/91b2a8/32.png) [@CutterJohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CutterJohn)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/63 "2010-04-09T21:04:32Z")
Manned spaceflight is useless, mostly. We need to research better ways of getting off this rock. Until we can get launch costs reduced by an order of magnitude, theres nothing we can really accomplish there. Including research on living in space. Problem is, we would be learning all the wrong lessons. When we can get enough low cost lift capacity, living and working in space becomes easy. Space is a really easy environment. We routinely build self contained machines that operate in _much_ more hazardous environments(submarines, anyone?). Space is difficult because its so hideously expensive it places a premium on the amount of materials we can use to build vehicles, and we must push the envelope of materials and engineering to get the vehicles as light as possible. So… Its my opinion that putting money towards anything other than getting a working space elevator or something of the sort is the only viable way to proceed with manned space exploration/exploitation. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/64 "2010-04-09T21:12:01Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > And many people opposed to manned exploration hold up this strawman as if it proves something… > > -XT It proves that even many of the people on the “romance” side of the debate appear to unintentionally act against their own self-interest. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/65 "2010-04-09T21:12:10Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Really? Where are the thousands of missions then? We haven’t had real space exploration in decades now…so, where are the thousands of missions? They haven’t been funded! But neither has a manned mission. What I said was that for the price of a manned mission we _could_ send thousands of robotic missions. By the way, the ultimate point of the Bob Park quote I posted above was that the previous administration _knew_ that the Moon-Mars program was way too expensive and would have to be cancelled, but it was a case of Bush saddling the next administration with the responsibility of being the one to pull the plug. > [@](#): > > Strangely, I can’t think of more than a handful of robotic missions…and they seem to take a long ass time both to put together, get there, and to actually DO anything. But they’re still decades ahead of human exploration, at a small fraction of the cost. > [@](#): > > Plus, you know, a lot of them seem to fail. And this, too, argues against human exploration. A robotic mission or two fails, and it’s disappointing, but not a big deal. Can you imagine, if we were to do a human mission to Mars, what would happen to the program when the inevitable happens and we can’t get the guys back? Like they’re left to starve, freeze, or kill themselves before they do? That will be the end of your exploration program. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/66 "2010-04-09T21:15:21Z")
> [@LilShieste](#): > > The thing is, “amazingly dumb” robots are astoundingly good (and efficient) at carrying out the data collection duties for which they’re tasked. They aren’t better than a human by a long shot. They creep along slower than a snail and heaven forbid they hit a rock. They’re astoundingly good at that, but so? > [@](#): > > And do you have a cite for the comparison between failure rates of manned vs. unmanned space missions? I wouldn’t be surprised if that were really the case (we’re generally going to be more careful and reserved when a human life is directly involved), but I was just curious as to the backing of that statement. Sure. [For instance:](http://www.physorg.com/news8479.html) > [@](#): > > The Case for Human Spaceflight > While no scientist can deny the value of robotic space exploration, many feel the need for complementary manned programs. Most agree that, for basic survey missions, robotic probes produce dramatic results. It’s in field study that scientist crewed missions could do better. Ironically, it is the same people who run the unmanned space missions that are clamoring for human crewed missions to follow them up. > > Part of the problem is the limited abilities and scope of each robotic mission. To save money and reduce failure rates to a minimum, robotic probes are stripped down to essentials. Although these probes gather important data, much of it is ambiguous for lack of the probe’s ability to do follow up tests. Today’s robots cannot start up new lines of investigation. > > Raw data is useful but often raises more questions. Even worse, the data is often completely unexpected leaving the scientists at a loss to explain the results. They need further missions to run different tests and, the cornerstone of all good science – verification by repeatedly testing the same area over time. > > This repeated testing of results becomes difficult with unmanned mission failure rates. Take the Mars exploration programs: out of 31 missions by the USSR, Russia, the US and Japan since 1960, all but 10 failed and only 5 met their original goals. Compare that to the high success rates of astronaut crewed missions – almost 90%. That’s from part II of an article about manned vs. unmanned and it doesn’t strike me as particularly biased and does make the case _for_ unmanned space exploration too. Here’s a [timeline of satellites and space probes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_artificial_satellites_and_space_probes) where you can count the failures and partial successes yourself. When you look at partial successes, ask yourself if a human onboard would have failed. > [@](#): > > True, but a three year old human wouldn’t be able to wander the barren scapes of Mars for 5+ years, gathering information. (Heck, a full grown human isn’t even close to being able to accomplish that.) Well, age notwithstanding, a human wouldn’t need 5 years to gather that information. They could do it in one day, and in 5 years they could gather thousands of times the information, and do far more with it. > [@](#): > > The whole point is that there are just some tasks that are better suited for automated machines, and some tasks that are (currently) better suited for humans. As technology continues to get more and more sophisticated, more of these tasks can be delegated to the machines, allowing humans to put their critical-thinking skills to better use elsewhere. I agree man and machine working together gets the best results. I already said sometimes comparing the two is apples and oranges. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/67 "2010-04-09T21:24:08Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Take the Mars exploration programs: out of 31 missions by the USSR, Russia, the US and Japan since 1960, all but 10 failed and only 5 met their original goals. Compare that to the high success rates of astronaut crewed missions – almost 90%. That’s strange - I don’t seem to recall ANY astronaut-crewed missions to Mars. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/68 "2010-04-09T21:40:31Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > Your analogy breaks down because Kitty Hawk was performed by two guys with rudimentary engineering skills working out of their garage. It’s laugable to compare that with the resources, energy, and labor involved for something like the Apollo program. The analogy is fine. You don’t get from the first airplanes to jets by waiting for jets to appear. You have to build everything in between or it ain’t gonna happen. > [@](#): > > And no-one’s “holding off on going into space”. We’re continuing to launch commercial satellites at a greater rate than ever. And we wouldn’t be sending up ANY satellites if we didn’t send up the first ones and then keep doing it. What’s your point? > [@](#): > > Many sci-fi fans have a mistaken belief that launching as many manned chemical rockets as possible somehow advances technology toward alpha centauri and the U.S.S. Enterprise sooner. It doesn’t. It pushes that dream farther away. Well, there you go again with that tired old strawman about someone’s goal being a manned mission to Alpha Centauri and inventing FTL. It’s tired, dude. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/69 "2010-04-09T21:46:43Z")
Typical of how “Earthies” warp the debate with propaganda and lies to support their “Only one world” agenda? The theory of relativity is just a theory… ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/70 "2010-04-09T21:52:04Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Really? Where are the thousands of missions then? We haven’t had real space exploration in decades now…so, where are the thousands of missions? Strangely, I can’t think of more than a handful of robotic missions…and they seem to take a long ass time both to put together, get there, and to actually DO anything. Plus, you know, a lot of them seem to fail. No? This is a preposterously disingenuous response. The “thousands of [robotic] missions” that could have been performed for the cost of manned missions (mostly to the ISS in what are essentially sustainment roles) haven’t been performed _because_ the budget has been allocated to manned spaceflight missions. (Thousands is hyperbole, but at USD 1.5-2.0B per STS launch to Low Earth Orbit with virtually no scientific benefit, this easily gives two or three long term interplanetary missions of the same class as the Mars Exploration Rovers, and this includes the significant cost of mission operations and data interpretation and processing.) For the body of knowledge obtained, these missions are a fraction of a penny on the dollar compared to the most valuable of manned missions to date (the Apollo J-class extended missions and the Skylab 2-4). The scale of effort for these missions, on the other hand, is considerably smaller than even the modest STS missions; a Shuttle launch and mission ops takes a cast of thousands, while the typical JPL mission will have an mission ops contingent of a few dozen people, plus the science team (largely academic researchers and contractors) and the launch vehicle operations team; call it a few hundred people. I find it hard to see how “we haven’t had real space exploration in decades”; in the last thirty years we’ve gone from a very bare knowledge of what the Jovian and Saturnian systems even look like, and almost no knowledge about the outer worlds, to having sent probes in near orbit of all of the gas giants, explored the larger moon system of Jupiter and Saturn, and are sending a probe to explore the diminutive Pluto-Charon system, in addition to our Mars explorations. Indeed, the only world we haven’t visited is Mercury, and the toxic Venus remains largely an enigma. Of course, we haven’t had any real manned exploration, largely because it is so very difficult and costly; it is quite evident that \>90% of the cost of manned missions is just keeping the crew alive, even if for a few days, and those costs and associated risks go up dramatically for long duration missions for which we have little experience and lack several areas of necessary development (sustainable closed life systems, constant thrust propulsion). As for an astronaut being more capable than a robot, it is hardly fair to compare a guy in shirt sleeves to a robot; a real astronaut would be constrained in a heavy and very restrictive pressure suit (lke the Apollo A7L) which limits mobility and dexterity to a ridiculous extreme, and results in astronaut fatigue in just a couple of hours of light effort, not to mention that an astronaut has to return to a spacecraft environment every few hours to feed, excrete, and sleep, and if his suit suffers any significant malfunction, he’s dead and no amount of firmware uploads will bring him back to life. In comparison, the Mars Rovers have suffered wear and damage beyond any reasonable design expectation, have been left unmaintained on the surface of Mars for over six years and are still partially or mostly functional, giving them an operating life of more than 35x the original mission design life. Far from being less flexible or capable than a human, the Rovers are vastly more capable than we would expect any single astronaut could be, and for a tiny fraction of the cost to place and sustain a human being in a harsh extraterrestrial environment. See [post=12142238]this post[/post] for an itemized comparison between the capability of the Mars Science Laboratory rover versus an astronaut. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/71 "2010-04-09T21:56:23Z")
[QUOTE=YamatoTwinkie] It proves that even many of the people on the “romance” side of the debate appear to unintentionally act against their own self-interest. [/QUOTE] It’s funny, but I think the same thing about the, oh, let’s call them the ‘pragmatist’ side of the debate. By completely discounting the manned side of things, they achieve just the opposite of their supposed goals. What they end up doing in reality is gimping the manned side (which is never going to go away), while not really getting all that funding for their own unmanned side, because, frankly, while unmanned robots are cool, they simply can’t capture the public’s imagination like a manned mission would. They take to long. You just can’t get emotionally involved in the plight of an unmanned rover. They fail after years of waiting and anticipation. And this make it easier for, when some politician is looking for to score some quick points to cut the budget (which is already laughably small), they can just cut funding to NASA and, to anyone who is an idiot, it will appear they are really doing something. Look at what Obama is really doing here. Is he cutting funding? Nope. He’s actually increasing it. He’s simply getting rid of the manned mission to the moon. Is that going to free up loads of cashola for unmanned exploration? Not as far as I can see, since NASA has been given no real direction. So, instead, they will spend some of the money on continuing to develop manned stuff, and some of it on unmanned exploration…so, we’ll get the worst of all worlds. We aren’t going to get ‘thousands’ of unmanned missions…or even hundreds. We’ll get a few. And the public will look at them and go ‘oh, that’s cool’, then forget about it, and when the next politician comes along (possibly Obama when he’s working up the next budget…or the one after that) with an ax and an eye to look like he’s tough on the budget, it will be NASA that get’s the cuts. And, ultimately, it’s guys like you on the ‘pragmatic’ side who are responsible, because by completely discounting any manned exploration (calling it worthless, etc etc), you will ultimately kill the whole thing…or so gimp it, that it might as well be killed, for all the good it will do. -XT ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/72 "2010-04-09T21:56:54Z")
I agree that manned space missions (especially to the Moon) are pointless. They will not advance our knowledge in any significant way. We are far better off developing robotic probes, which will deliver the information at a lower cost and lower risk. Save manned missions for when we develop nuclear powered rockets-then we can get to Mars in a few weeks. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/73 "2010-04-09T21:57:55Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train ] I find it hard to see how “we haven’t had real space exploration in decades”; [/QUOTE] Not that it matters to you, but that should have been ‘we haven’t had any real MANNED space exploration in decades’. -XT ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/74 "2010-04-09T21:58:18Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I agree that manned space missions (especially to the Moon) are pointless. They will not advance our knowledge in any significant way. > We are far better off developing robotic probes, which will deliver the information at a lower cost and lower risk. > Save manned missions for when we develop nuclear powered rockets-then we can get to Mars in a few weeks. Sure, soon as we can develop a species of human that can withstand 100 G’s… ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/75 "2010-04-09T22:00:38Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > You just can’t get emotionally involved in the plight of an unmanned rover. [Speak for yourself.](http://xkcd.com/695/) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/76 "2010-04-09T22:01:55Z")
(sniffle) ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/77 "2010-04-09T22:04:43Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I agree that manned space missions (especially to the Moon) are pointless. They will not advance our knowledge in any significant way. > We are far better off developing robotic probes, which will deliver the information at a lower cost and lower risk. > Save manned missions for when we develop nuclear powered rockets-then we can get to Mars in a few weeks. Wait. If a manned mission won’t advance our knowledge, what’s the point of sending an unmanned probe to not advance our knowledge more cheaply? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/78 "2010-04-09T22:04:49Z")
[QUOTE=The Hamster King] Speak for yourself. [/QUOTE] It’s funny, but I have this tacked to my office wall and was thinking about it as I was writing that. 🙂 And if I’m going to be honest, I actually could and have been emotionally involved in the rovers on Mars…but then I’m a space geek (or at least a wanna-be space geek). -XT ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/79 "2010-04-09T22:06:09Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > The analogy is fine. You don’t get from the first airplanes to jets by waiting for jets to appear. You have to build everything in between or it ain’t gonna happen. > > And we wouldn’t be sending up ANY satellites if we didn’t send up the first ones and then keep doing it. What’s your point? The question isn’t manned spaceflight versus unmanned spaceflight - it is government run manned spaceflight. if the government had controlled aviation in 1903, there would be a two year pause for investigation every time a pilot crashed a plane and was killed. We be flying biplanes at best. Aviation took off 🙂 because lots of individuals and later companies build lots of different planes, and the market and physics decided which designs were successful. And no one tried to cross the Atlantic a few years after the first flight, which is what a Mars flight would be. We’ve got so many satellites up because industry builds them. Government will be involved in spaceflight, to support national security needs and some research, but the advances are going to come from the private sector. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495/80 "2010-04-09T22:11:57Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > On the contrary, this is an area in which the private sector works perfectly, by noticing that the returns aren’t there and - this is the difficult part - _not_ wasting billions of dollars for no real benefit. > > Sometimes “No” is the right answer. Actually the answer now is “not yet.” When costs come down a lot more stuff becomes profitable. Going too early just give the whole enterprise a bad reputation. The real problem is that NASA has forgotten how to build cost effective man rated rockets. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-cancels-moon-project/535495.md?page=5)