Comments on: Editorials seek deep impact on space policy

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 01:48:19 +0000

I think we should scrap the Hubble and spend the money on more useful missions i.e. Human Missions to back to the Moon and Mars..

By: Greg Kuperberg

Greg Kuperberg — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 00:54:34 +0000

Kevin,

Hubble isn’t precious to me. Hubble has done great things, but so did Charlie Chaplin, who I never married.

Hubble is designed to be serviced by astronauts, to its detriment. It would have been faster, better, and cheaper to launch a series of disposable space telescopes, but NASA was only willing to do it the hard way. If the shuttle returns to flight, then one of the flights might go to Hubble. If not, then we have already seen the end (for now) of astronaut participation in space science. C’est la vie.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 00:28:08 +0000

Greg,

How do you think your precious Hubble is going to be fixed? Is it going to be fixed by Robots or Humans???

By: Greg Kuperberg

Greg Kuperberg — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 21:29:19 +0000

I don’t think that all human spaceflight that there ever has been or will ever be is necessarily pointless. I won’t speculate on the unforseeable. But I do think that all government-funded human spaceflight that we have now, and all realistic plans for it today, is pointless. I am excepting Burt Rutan, who pulled off a great stunt without government funding. And I am excepting completely unrealistic plans like manned missions to Mars. Bush only gave that idea lip service.

If you can’t think of any realistic plans, why not wait until you have some? Not all exploration is useful for the future. You can look at what happened to the Viking colony in Greenland. And you can look at what’s going to happen to the space station in a few years too.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 20:20:25 +0000

Greg, do you honestly think human space flight is stupid and pointless or do you just want a human’s activities in space to change before we send more up? ie give them more meaningful missions other than mixing urine with paint and the like. I don’t think human spaceflight is completely hopeless, don’t forsake it just yet Greg…

By: Matthew Corey Brown

Matthew Corey Brown — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 19:24:00 +0000

I’m all for Space Science, but using Space Science to justify Human Spaceflight is a dead end. If you do that then having human spaceflight for Space Development and Space Inhabitation will be a harder road. Once the develpment is underway, then it will be cheaper for space science, be it robotic or human. We can walk and chew gum at the same time, so why don’t we do that and stop the infighting?

By: Kevin Davis

Kevin Davis — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 18:29:01 +0000

Greg,

I refuse to have my tax money being spent just so a bunch of people like who think space is their own playground. I don’t mind having a 50% human and 50% robots in space. Robots can do so little… Nothing beats the human mind..

By: Cecil Trotter

Cecil Trotter — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 17:10:19 +0000

Kuperberg: “Rock-throwing is Officially In.”

That’s actually funny!

And an awesome picture in it’s own right as well.

By: Greg Kuperberg

Greg Kuperberg — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 15:54:53 +0000

Rock-throwing is Officially In.

By: billg

billg — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 15:50:43 +0000

Greg, you sound like one of those folks who would have told Europeans in the 1500’s to stay home and fix up the neighborhood.

There is no more of science fiction in today’s aspirations to exploit and settle the Solar System than there was science fiction in the aspirations of Europeans to exploit and settle the Americas.