Mate, get a bloody grip. The Chinese replicating a feat that both the Russians and the Americans were able to do 50 odd years ago is not going to cause much more than an “interesting” turn the newspaper page reaction. Massive despair? End US ascendency?
That’s hyperbolic rot.
The only thing that ends “US ascendency” is your imperial over-stretch sapping away from productive investment.
Everyone knows the US could blast more people into space, that you forgo the occasion to waste money is not going to cause “despair” except perhaps among the Sci Fi dreamer crowd that want to see fictional things achieved in their lifetimes. As most of the world simply doesn’t care that much, it will not have massive effects in any particular direction.
The public relations cost of losing a vehicle is negligible. The Challenger explosion increased public support of the manned space program - though I’m not sure that the Columbia incident did.
I’m saying “send them up in anything that’ll fly”. I’m saying that from an outside perspective, crew safety appears to outweigh any other considerations in the current climate at NASA. I could be wrong, of course.
I submit that reliability and safety aren’t the same thing.
The cost of losing Challenger was huge; it resulted in a multi-year delay of launching a number of satellites and space probes, and ended the use of the STS as a commercial space launch system. There was also considerable fallout from the death of Christa McAuliffe on what was supposed to be a routine milk run flight. I’m not certain where you get the idea that the Challenger failure (which was not an explosion) increased public support; while it certainly resulted in more interest in the program than it had since the first couple of STS flights, it also highlighted a number of substantial management and leadership problems both within NASA and the direction the agency was given by Congress.
A singular benefit to the Challenger failure is that it revitalized efforts at building reliable and less-expensive expendable space launch vehicles (Titan IV, Delta II, EELVs), which had been previously kaboshed in order to dedicate payloads to the STS.
I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean by this, and I’m not certain that you do either. Safe delivery of cargo and crew two and from orbit is entirely due to reliability of the overall system. In order for a vehicle to be reliable, every system has to work in sequence under every possible load condition and environment it sees during operation, or has to fail in such a way that it is detectable, mitigable, and non-catastrophic. The key to reliability is full industry-standard qualification of all subsystems in a “test as you fly” configuration (or as close as possible), the reduction or elimination of single failure points in critical systems, and designing away features that are demonstrated to be unpredictable in response or of low margin. The Shuttle is exactly a counterexample of this; instead of designing out the known defects (most of which were due to design requirements that had nothing to do with the ultimate missions to which the STS was put) they kept building a fleet with identical problems and not evolving the technology to become mature and reliable.
Now, it is true that manned systems have additional redundancy and escape contrivances to increase the likelihood of crew survival in the case of a catastrophic flight failure, but we’re long past the point of sending up test pilots in boilerplate capsules, and such precautions are necessary and prudent, not extravagant efforts to ensure that no hangnail goes untreated.
America need to be ascendent as it is the only democracy that aspires to be a military superpower and the only other possibility for now is China. Who would you prefer?
I would prefer a multipolar world. In the long run a world state, but such would never be stable if it were in the form of an empire of one power over the rest.
It’s Antarctica minus the ice and minus the air. What use is it?
The Multipolar World often results in wars between the Great Powers. And the way I see it, world government can be acheived by waiting until China and Russia become at least somewhat more democratic and than creating a truly global capitalist democratic Westernized society which will coalsece into a world state.
Ask Jonathan Swift. But Mars would have to be terraformed before anyone could live there in shirtsleeves, and that might or might not ever be possible, and if the technology ever were developed the process probably would take a good chunk of Earth’s GDP annually for centuries, and in the end it would still be as cold as Antarctica.
Yes it does, because the world is, and always has been, full of other countries that would be only too happy to take our place on the stage and begin imposing their will on us just as we, and the world powers before us, have imposed our will on others. The idea that the world would sing in perfect harmony absent American exceptionalism is wackier than any Mars colonization scheme.
Having read the entire thread I must admit this is an awesome debate, and has been fantastic to follow. Yet another win for the dope.
While I don’t enough about the science or the politcs to have a really informed opinion, I’m going to offer my thoughts anyway - hows that for exceptionalism?
Wasn’t one of the original rocket engineers against a manned flight to the moon, declaring it a wasted effort and an end in itself that would lead to the general public losing interest? (which has proven remarkably prescient in my opinion)
Personally, I don’t see any value in sending people back to the moon, other than bragging rights - it certainly doesn’t capture my imagination or make me go “wow, cool” - especially as at the cost quoted, and the time taken, I can’t help be wonder why it is so difficult today when it was originally done in the 60s.
At the present time, I don’t see any imaginable payoff for manned exploration - just what is it going to achieve beyond preparing for the future?
On the other hand, robotic probes to the nearby moons (as per the JIMO project) or sending probes to asteroids and the like to investigate does capture my imagination - and at the moment these need to be robotic.
With robotic flights to space detritus and other asteroids and stuff it is very easy for me to imagine the payoffs, both with the immediate scientific benefits, but also with the results giving us very good reason to try and do manned flights to the same places as “step two”
Curtis - if you are so fragile as to have your confidence destroyed by the having the Chinese copy something that the US achieved many years before you were even born, then I feel sorry for the future of America. In fact, if I thought even a small fraction of the US was the same way it would be a fantastic investment today to buy shares in anti-depression medication because there is sure to be one hell of a whole lot more that is going to throw you in the very deepest, darkest, blackest of depressions.
Red Chinese dominance is nowhere on the horizon. Nor is Chinese global dominance in any form. It is a long shot that China will even be an equal power to the U.S. in our lifetimes, and India might well get there first.
This seems to be a common concern for that particular poster. On one hand, America is the bees knees, the best, the tops… only that we are UNDER CONSTANT THREAT BY EVERYONE ON EVERYTHING OMG!!!
Every. Single. Time. That America may not be #1 in any particular field (except for things like health care or abstinence education) then we are on the slippery slope to ruin. Symbolic things that don’t matter one whit to the welfare of any human being – except to the bottom line of giant aerospace firms like Boeing, Lockheed, et al – like going to Mars mysteriously are elevated to existential crises, faaaar more important than educating children or making sure Americans don’t die of treatable diseases.
Going to space is a great thing if we have the money. But America is not so fragile that if we don’t go to Saturn and Venus RIGHT NOW our world is going to crumble. And let us remember that when Kennedy proposed his moon program, the US deficit as a percentage of GDP was one-quarter the size of the deficit today… and I’m not even talking about the national debt.
Let the moon and Mars wait. They will still be there in twenty years when we will have better technology to attempt these expeditions.
They are symbolic gestures to you, perhaps, but not everyone looks at them in this way. They don’t mean anything to you, perhaps, but, again, not everyone looks at them that way. You believe other things are more important, but frankly those are simply your own personal beliefs. I disagree. I believe that they are important things and the next step for humanity.
That said, if it’s China that makes them then that’s just the way it will be. It won’t be the end of the world, it will just mean that China is taking the lead in the next step for humanity. I would wish it was the US, but I can see that with attitudes like many in this thread have it’s not going to happen.
Oh, horseshit. We have the money to go to space if we really want to. It’s all a matter of priorities. If we wanted to re-prioritize we could push into space any time. If we spent, say, what we are going to spend on health care reform (say a trillion dollars), that would get us a base on Mars, the Moon, new launch vehicles and probably a hell of a lot more. We are not willing to pay those costs, but we COULD pay them if we wanted to. In fact, we are possibly the only country on earth that COULD pay them. The Chinese can’t. Their program will be a corner cutting and risky affair (if they even hold together long enough to actually do anything significant like go to the moon).
Where will that technology come from? Will it just magically appear when we want or need it? If you are saying ‘let the moon and mars wait’ while we develop better launch vehicles, better habitats and all the other technology we would need, then I agree. If you are saying ‘let the moon and mars wait’ while we do nothing with our space program except some (few) planned robotic missions, then you might as well say ‘let the moon and mars wait’ indefinitely. Because 20 years from now, or 40 or 100 there will always be some problem, some other reason to spend money on something else.
Oh, my goodness, I didn’t realize I was expounding on something that is just, like, my opinion, man! If there are other people who feel differently, I suppose we are obligated to spend upwards of a hundred billiondollars on these efforts.
Can you explain why it would be wrong for the US to initiate a more expansive international consortium to tackle whatever goals we have for space, rather than the US paying the bulk of the costs for what is essentially a US-only program? If space exploration truly is an issue for humanity, then why is the US responsible for paying the bills for it? To put it even more plainly, what’s wrong with the US, China, Russia, the Europeans, and all other comers joining in a common program, rather than trying to make this a chest-thumping issue of national pride?
Yes, apparently there is very little support for cutting spending on specific programs or raising taxes to pay for a mission to the moon, as opposed to the health care reform legislation which passed that makes those choices. When advocates of going back to the moon and on to Mars set forth a specific plan to fund these activities, then I’ll pay attention.
These unspecific, there-is-such-a-thing-as-a-free-lunch proposals (“let’s just cut some waste and then we’ll have the money for a new rocket!”) cannot be taken seriously. Tell me how much you’re going to cut from what programs, tell me who you are going to tax more, and show that there is political support for those cuts and tax increases, and then I’ll take it seriously. Heck, if you can show that there’s support for a hundred billion dollars more in deficit spending to finance this effort, I’ll even take that.
But if you’re going to say something like, all we need to do is stop agricultural subsidies, then good luck. That idea is a non-starter. And if you’re going to say we should just go into more debt for this idea, then you aren’t making a good case that this effort is actually a priority. How much of a priority can it be if you can’t find other programs of lesser priority that don’t deserve the money?
I believe that continuing work on propulsion technologies to continue to launch satellites and other space vehicles is a fine thing. I don’t believe that we are going to go backward in our technology in other areas so that a 10-year effort to reach the moon today will somehow become a 20-year effort if initiated in 2020. To the extent that there are concerns about the industrial base, I’m not sure that arguing for a hundred billion dollars plus in corporate welfare is a compelling reason to continue this aspect of our space program.
I do say the moons and Mars should wait indefinately.
20 years ago we didn’t have technology like the Mars Rovers. How cool are these little guys that drive around, explore, take pictures and inspire interest in what is out there - year after year. And they only represent the possibility of robotic planet exploration in its infancy.
In another 20 years technology will no doubt enable us to send out even better robots. Well within 100 years we’ll likely be sending out robots that can do anything a man could do out there and do it faster too.
As far as manned exploration goes - who needs it. Why go to the trouble of sending a very vunerable sack of organic molecules with so many needs to take care of (radiation exposure, oxygen, food, water, gravitational adaptation, disease)? Sure, today a man in a space suit can do more tasks and do them more quickly than say a Mars Rover - but I do not think this will be the case for that much longer? For one thing, a robot can do exploration 24/7. A man will be confined to some living structure most of the time. He’ll spend a lot of time simply keeping himself alive and keeping his structure maintained. He’ll be lucky to do a few hours of real exploration each day.
And then someday we have to return the guy to Earth.
So lets just wait another 20 years - because by 2030 we’ll have even cooler robots to send out - for fractions of the cost, no risking lives and no political risk. The robots of the future will land on a place like Mar - drive around much faster the todays Rovers - examine the rocks/soil/air/weather etc 24/7 and pretty much accomplish more in a given timeframe than human there could. If that robot has a failure - send another. It is still fractions of the cost.
As far as I’m concerned - as a person interested in whats out there - lets invest the money in robotic space exploration so that we can get some real results during our lifetimes. I am sick of money going to the bottomless fund that is sending organic sacks to sit in low level orbit on the ISS. And I sure don’t want to waste magnitudes more money in sending them across the solar system.
People going to Mar is cool. But going to Tahiti is cool too. But unless it is me going I don’t really care who is going to Tahiti. Why would I care much if someone else goes to Mars. It would be novel of course, but they won’t be sending back pictures that are so much better than the Mar’s Rover. And their discoveries won’t be any better than future robotic Mars Rovers could discover.
But if we must fling organic sack objects across the solar system to prove a country’s worth then send out some pigs. Because if nothing else, at least we’ll have ‘Piiiiiigs…iiiin…spaaaaaaace!’.