To most, it seemed like the long-running debate of human versus robotic space exploration had been settled some time ago in favor of a mix of both, attempting to take advantage of the benefits of both where reasonable. Yet, there are some people who are trying to rekindle the debate. Thursday’s Christian Science Monitor includes an article titled “Why man instead of machine?”. The article claims that “[s]paceflight analysts are debating the value of manned missions” and that “even space enthusiasts are asking anew why the US should pursue manned spaceflight when machines can so far do more for far fewer dollars.” I am hard pressed to think of many “enthusiasts” engaged in such a debate, other than those handful of hard-core manned or robotic spaceflight advocates. The article includes quotes from the usual litany of experts, real or self-proclaimed, from John Logsdon and Roger Launius to Alex Roland. (Somehow John Pike didn’t get quoted here; maybe he was on vacation.)
USA Today follows up on this thought in an editorial in Thursday’s issue. The editors proclaim robotic missions like Deep Impact, “once the domain of pointy-headed academics, have become NASA’s new stars.” (One could argue that robotic missions have been “stars” for the agency going as far back as Viking and Voyager, over 25 years ago.) The Internet allows for “virtual” visits to Mars by people to the point such that “[w]hen and if astronauts arrive there, the product they provide the Internet consumer will be, in many respects, inferior.” The editorial also dismissed the Vision for Space Exploration, saying that it has been met with “public apathy and unfavorable polls” and is nothing more than a way “to channel money to aerospace companies and bureaucracies.” (This, after the editorial says that the Bush Administration has no way to pay for it.) Its conclusion: “What does appear certain is that lawmakers will pump vast amounts of money into a directionless human space program just as the public’s attention has shifted away.”
The most curious statement in the USA Today editorial: “NASA is embarking on a costly shuttle replacement program, when far cheaper options exist.” However, the editorial never specifies what those “far cheaper options” for the CEV would be (assuming they consider the CEV a “shuttle replacement”) Perhaps they are thinking of t/Space’s CXV concept, but that is intended to be complimentary to, not a complete replacement for, the CEV.
The paper does include a rebuttal from NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, who seems far more confident in the American public’s interest in human space exploration than the paper’s editors:
It is inconceivable to me that this nation will ever abandon space exploration, either human or robotic. If this is so, then the proper debate in a world of limited resources is over which goals to pursue. I have little doubt that the huge majority of Americans would prefer to invest their 15 cents per day in the exciting, outward-focused, destination-oriented program we are pursuing.
Not this crap again….
I don’t think that the “debate” is at all settled, any more than the debate between evolution and creationism, or between hot fusion and cold fusion. It will probably never be settled. But I agree that in one respect the debate is moot, because neither Congress nor NASA is prepared to listen to it.
In another respect the debate is not moot. I predict that the laws of physics and the laws of bureaucracy will catch up with the international space station, just as they caught up with Skylab. I predict that there will indeed be a human spaceflight gap, at least at the government level. Even if NASA never listens to Park, Pike, Van Allen, Garwin, Roland, or anyone else whose judgment I respect, we can still talk about whose predictions come true.
It does cost an incredible amount to man rate something. And what do we get for the extra cost, nothing. No extra reliability and less safety than an unmanned mission. The astronauts themselves are, for the most part, ego maniacal jerks (with sincere apologies to the minority who are very nice). Any task you have an astronaut do incurs a fortune in training costs, and that’s if it’s something they do in a pressurized environment. The EVA stuff is insane. Of course, you wouldn’t get me in one of those clunky suits for any amount of money or fame.
A person buys their way onto a fighter jet by exercising judgment, flexibility, and creativity, and even at that many say their days are numbered. If astronauts are doing the same, it’s not apparent. The space station astronauts spend 99% of their time keeping the place habitable. What’s the point in that?
On the other hand, perhaps those calling for more unmanned missions are being charitable. The whole thing has become such a comedy of errors – boosters blow up, parachutes fail to open, antennas either don’t unfurl or point the wrong direction – if the real story was widely known, the resulting taxpayer revolt would have the whole thing in the trash bin. It’s become welfare for those with above average math skills.
The problem is that while the “robots uber alles” crowd has been discredited in the space community, the mainstream media seems to be unaware of that fact.
“The space station astronauts spend 99% of their time keeping the place habitable. What’s the point in that?”
What’s the point in keeping the Earth habitable?
What’s the point in living?
What’s the point in existing?
Why am I here?
Should I enrol in a course of existential philosophy?
> However, the editorial never specifies what those “far cheaper options” for the CEV would be.
Did you read the entire article? Two paragraphs later, it states “The so-called Orbital Space Plane was to have been lifted into space atop existing commercial rockets. Alas, the idea was too good to survive.”
However, while that is a cheaper option, it’s not really “far cheaper.”
NASA has estimated that a CEV capsule might cost $15 billion to develop, not including the booster. To put that into perspective, NASA’s 2nd Generation RLV, oversized and overengineered though it was, had an estimated price tag of only $5-6 billion.
NASA has decided it’s impossible to build a reusable vehicle, though — and since NASA isn’t going to do it, they assume no one else can, either.
The problem with these articles is that they tend to put the dividing line in the wrong place. It’s not an argument between unmanned and (trivially) manned space programs any more. The Planetary Society, long the leading advocate of what Mark calls “robots uber alles,” now advocates the same thing Mark does: robots and a trivial number humans in enormously expensive capsules uber alles.
This is not really a significant change. Rounded to the nearest hundred, the number of humans the Planetary Society wants to send into space every year is still zero. They tell us that space exploration is important. Yet, oddly, they aren’t supporting anything that would allow any significant number of people to explore space.
The real divide is between supporters of traditional unmanned and (trivially) manned space programs and those who want to enable *large* numbers of people to explore space.
> It does cost an incredible amount to man rate something. And what do we get for the extra cost, nothing.
> No extra reliability and less safety than an unmanned mission.
You’re relying on the “common wisdom” of expendable rocketry. You need to do some more research. Every aircraft is piloted from the first test flight. Even some UAVs carry safety pilots on initial test flights. It doesn’t cost an “incredible amount” to “man rate” an expendable vehicle. Piloted aircraft are cheaper to develop than UAVs. They are also more reliable, not by percentages but orders of magnitude.
During the 1960’s, General Dynamics studied the development of the X-15 and the Atlas A (a missile with similar performance). Looking at the development history, they discovered that a piloted reusable vehicle was about 40% cheaper to develop. An independent Air Force study later came to a similar conclusion.
> The astronauts themselves are, for the most part, ego maniacal jerks (with sincere apologies to
> the minority who are very nice). Any task you have an astronaut do incurs a fortune in training costs
Heh. Mike Melvill openly calls himself a high school dropout. Is that ego mania? Do you think he’s incurred a fortune in training costs? Well, maybe a small fortune, over the years, but probably no more than most professionals. What’s wrong with that?
> The EVA stuff is insane. Of course, you wouldn’t get me in one of those clunky suits for any amount of money or fame.
You sound very bitter. For the right amount of money, I can easily put you in a suit. I’m sure other people can as well. Don’t give up so easily.
sigh
Judging from some of the comments above I thing some are wasting their time here. They’d be better suited for posting to a site devoted to gardening or needlepoint.
Manned vs. unmanned is just a secondary issue. The real issue is how ‘much’ space to do, and at what cost.
If launchers remain expensive, and if planners assume they will remain expensive, it becomes harder to justify manned spaceflight. If launch is very cheap, and the cost of putting a person at some location in space drops dramatically, it becomes harder to justify the up-front engineering cost (and reduced flexibility and reliability) of unmanned vehicles for missions at such locations.
Those debating this issue would serve everyone better by making their background assumptions more explicit.
Here we go again!
All these pieces have their place in space exploration.
Robots perform better in the close proximity of humans. Public sector helps pave the way for private sector. To argue that one is more or less important that the others is foolish. Each piece is vital to the whole.
I think Paul hit the nail on the head. You’ve got to make it cheaper.
I’d only add that we also need some quantum increases in reliability. What difference does it make that you have a triple redundant avionics system if your mission reliability is driven by the one 9 you get from the rocket? You screw around trying to get six 9’s out of the avionics system on a one 9 vehicle.
I think human spaceflight is inevitable. http://www.thespacereview.com/article/196/1
I think Battlestar Galactica is great drama.
Paul Dietz is correct that the debate boils down to basic assumptions. The assumptions that he offers that speak against human spaceflight are plainly true: Launches are expensive, and NASA assumes that they will stay expensive. Moreover NASA has no specific ideas for making them cheaper.
Ed Wright makes the important point that the number of astronauts in space at any given time is trivial. This is a major reason that they accomplish so little.
Ed also says that NASA is not capable of inexpensive human spaceflight or RLV and that it supposes that no one else is either. But I do not know how Ed wants NASA to act on the supposition that someone else can do what it can’t do.
It is a big mistake for any company or government agency to directly fund something that it considers impossible. The most that you could expect NASA to do is sit on the sidelines and share its expertise. And that is exactly what it is doing with the hopefuls like Rutan and so on. So if someone does invent inexpensive human spaceflight, more power to them. But it hasn’t happened yet.
mrearl got it right as well. both manned and unmanned missions are important. Wouldnt it be great if we could compliment all those great robotic missions with a human crew? Think of the science we could do then. Those robots by themselves really are a ‘comedy of errors’ as Dfens puts it. It’s sad that it all boils down to cost though…
Personally, I still agree the robots are doing a (mostly) great job working on science, and we’ve has almost gotten the hang building good, useful, robust ‘bots. The human job in space thus far, however, has been disappointing. The science they are doing (or not doing as the case is now) is not really that beneficial. Greg will agree, I know. But that is why I want to go to Mars or the asteroids, establish a permanent base, and begin mining. If we have to rely on NASA to jumpstart manned spaceflight, they have to do this: have the Humans produce something, something that will be beneficial to the rest of us on earth. People complain that there are other pressing needs to be taken care of here on earth, but who says we can’t solve these problems off-world?
NASA needs to present a “convincing argument of why it is in the nation’s interest to make and sustain such an expensive commitment [read: manned spaceflight]”. We can’t just go to the moon or Mars or asteroids just because “it’s there” anymore. We have to go there to do something. I say mine and develope alternative forms of energy. Are these good reasons? Is it possible to justify manned spaceflight to accomplish these ends? What else can we do to make a convincing argument?
Sam Dinkin’s new article ilustrates how the Space Review is fundamentally incomplete as a forum for space issues. Almost every article there is by one or another booster of human spaceflight and space militarization. Dinkin’s article argues against James Van Allen — who is difficult to ignore because he is a space hero — but the Space Review so far has not published Van Allen or anyone who agrees with Van Allen.
Another article, by Dwayne Day, is a personal attack on Alex Roland. We learn that Roland is “the kind of guy who people avoid at social gatherings because he’s negative all the time.” If Roland is such a hack, why devote an entire article to him? Maybe the article is correct about Roland, but frankly it looks childish. The grown-up move would be to invite Alex Roland to write for the Space Review too, assuming that he is not too insulted to care.
Anyway, even better than any space historian would be a skeptic with technical training. If not Van Allen, then maybe Richard Garwin or Theodore Postol. Even Jud Lovingood or Bruce Murray, who are not absolute skeptics of human spaceflight, would offer a fresh perspective.
I’m of the mindset, bring us to near bankruptcy going all out for sustaiable space exploitation, then use that infrastructure to become prosperous again. However we do not need to brankrupt themselves, just quadruple Nasa budget, allows all the space based science to go and allow all vehicals proposed to be developed and use, and there will be uses. If part of the stipulation that we do more then just a couple of projects. We will more then make up for any expendetures once we have the the infrastructure in place to bring back reasurces from space. Once we do that then we will beable to do things cheaper. ANd have the time to beable to solve bigger issues that can’t be solved
We like to declare war on things, this could be the “War on the Zero Sum Game” Yeah well not catchy.. hire a publicist to come up with something better.
Its not just throwing money at it. Its also putting set goals to take advantage of the abundant reasources in our solarsystem.
We know there is gold at Sutter’s Rock, now lets build the railroad.
What’s stopping Greg from writing for Space Review if it so badly needs his perspective?
Unfortunately, Matthew, I would recommend we do the inverse of what you suggest. I would slash their budget to at most a quarter of what it is now, and expect them to do more with it. Forget Deming, this is the guy we should be listening to:
Kelly Johnson’s Management Rules
Basic Operating Ground Rules for the Skunk Works:
1. The Skunk Works Manager must be delegated practically complete control of his program in all aspects. He should report to a division president or higher.
2. Strong but small project offices must be provided both by the military and industry.
3. The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10% to 25% compared to the so-called normal systems).
4. A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for making changes must be provided.
5. There must be a minimum number of reports required. But important work must be recorded thoroughly.
6. There must be a monthly cost review covering not only what has been spent and committed, but also projected costs to the end of the program. Don’t have the books ninety days late and don’t surprise the customer with sudden cost overruns.
7. The contractor must be delegated and must assume more than normal responsibility to get good vendor bids for subcontract on the project. Commercial bid procedures are very often better than military ones.
8. The inspection system as currently used by ADP, which has been approved by both the Air Force and Navy, meets the intent of existing military requirements and should be used on new projects. Push more basic inspection responsibility back to subcontractors and vendors. Don’t duplicate so much inspection.
9. The contractor must be delegated the authority to test his final product in flight. He can and must test it in the initial stages. If he doesn’t, he rapidly loses his competency to design other vehicles.
10. The specifications applying to the hardware must be agreed to in advance of contracting. The ADP practice of having a specification section stating clearly which important military specification items will not knowingly be complied with and reasons therefore is highly recommended.
11. Funding a program must be timely so that the contractor doesn’t have to keep running to the bank to support government projects.
12. There must be mutual trust between the military project organization and the contractor with very close cooperation and liaison on a day-to-day basis. This cuts down misunderstanding and correspondence to an absolute minimum.
13. Access by outsiders to the project and its personnel must be strictly controlled by appropriate security measures.
14. Because only a few people will be used in engineering and most other areas, ways must be provided to reward good performance by pay not based on the number of personnel managed.
> Public sector helps pave the way for private sector. To argue that one is more or less important that the others is foolish.
Mr. Earl: The right kind of public-sector involvement might. The NACA made a lot of valuable contributions to aviation. Unfotunately, NASA abandoned that role soon after it was created. Apollo never paved the road for the private sector. It simply made the road so expensive no one could follow.
> I’d only add that we also need some quantum increases in reliability. What difference does it make
> that you have a triple redundant avionics system if your mission reliability is driven by the one
> 9 you get from the rocket? You screw around trying to get six 9’s out of the avionics system on a one
> 9 vehicle.
Dfens: What vehicles have one 9 reliability? The X-15 pogram lost one vehicle in almost 200 flights. With a couple more serious accidents, but that was a research program that’s supposed to take risks.
ELVs have zero reliability. if you measure by aircraft standards. Every ELV is destined to self-destruct on its first flight. The only question is whether or not it manages to eject its payload before it self-destructs. With no repeat flights, there’s no chance to fix any bugs, and the first flight must be made to maximum performance. It’s not surprising so many fail to reach orbit. That doesn’t mean we can’t do much better, if we design for reliability rather than designing for self-destruction.
> I do not know how Ed wants NASA to act on the supposition that someone else can do what it can’t do.
Greg, if you had cancer, would you try to cure it yourself, or would you act on the supposition that someone else can do what you can’t by going to a doctor? Can you do open heart surgery, play professional football, or drive a NASCAR racer? What’s wrong with supposing there are people in the world who can do things you can’t?
Brad,
I don’t know that anything is stopping me from writing for the Space Review. I might do that if Jeff doesn’t mind. Whether or not I do, I recognize his courtesy in letting me post comments to his blog.
But I’m also not committed to the Space Review, and I’m not any special authority on space policy. (However, that by itself does not prove me wrong.) I gave my opinion on how Jeff Foust might improve his forum, and he can listen to it, or not.
Ed,
There is a difference between knowing that other people can do what you can’t do, and merely supposing it. If I had skin cancer, I would try to get cured. But if I had lung cancer, I would stick to proven claims of palliative care; I would not jump at suppositions of miracle cures.
The only proven alternative that NASA has for orbital launches is relatively economical Russian solutions. It should use them; the only reason that I know it doesn’t is political nativism. Revolutionary RLV is still at the R&D stage. NASA should not fund R&D that it doesn’t understand.
Greg doesn’t know that The Space Review has, from time to time, pubished dissenting voices. I was invited to write a piece offering a different view on the implications of the Chinese space program.
The problem with people like Alex Roland and to a certain extent Van Allen is that they are cranks when it comes to human space flight. Asking them to write pieces to “balance” a pro human space flight view is sort of like inviting a creationist to write a piece “balancing” evolution. Roland is also something of a fraud, depicting himself as a “former NASA historian” without mentioning that he wrote about aeronautics and has zero expertise on space flight. Nevertheless, the mainstream media still uses him. Go figure.
Even if NASA never listens to Park, Pike, Van Allen, Garwin, Roland, or anyone else whose judgment I respect…
Because they validate your own prejudices, even when they demonstrably don’t know what they’re talking about? Roland in particular has made some real howlers.
Mark Whittington’s example of dissent strikes me as a dispute over chocolate ice cream versus rocky road. I suspect that the Space Review can handle more variety than that. But if it doesn’t, c’est la vie.
Are Alex Roland, Richard Garwin, and James Van Allen sheer crackpots on the subject of human spaceflight, like creationists attacking evolution? I doubt it. The space shuttle and the space station themselves, and not their critics, have the real credibility problem.
Mr. Wright, you should know that the Planetary Society is co-sponsoring the 2006 International Space Development Conference with the NSS in LA, which is clearly a “humans in space” organization, which demonstrates to me that they’re not outright against human spaceflight. It’s just not their focus, which is okay and doesn’t mean we can’t work with them.
People need tools like robots to do work. The tools need people to take care of them. Without people, the Hubble would have been just another very expensive rock at the bottom of the ocean before too long. Using humans to fix our robots in space is the most powerful capability we have at this point, but a capability that, because of our existing infrastructure, is very difficult to apply. (and a problem that NASA apparently doesn’t really want to address)
What if the Planetary Society had had the option of shipping Cosmos 1 up to the ISS, having it double-checked post launch, and then sent it on its way? Especially if that package was just one of many flowing through our LEO staging point. You don’t think, after their experiences, that they’d at least have considered the possibility of doing it that way?
Humans need tools and tools, especially really complex ones, need humans. It’s a symbiotic, not parasitic, relationship.
Greg makes the mistake of equating the space shuttle and ISS with human space flight in general. Just because the space shuttle is–speaking with chariety–an albatross that is expensive and unsafe to operate does not mean that human space flight is inherently thus. Unfortunently people like Roland, Van Allen, and the irrepresible Robert Park are cranks on the subject of human space flight. It shouldn’t really be a matter of discussion.
Oh, and by the way, people who disagree with me about the Chinese space program hardly think it’s like disagreeing about ice cream flavors.
> I’m of the mindset, bring us to near bankruptcy going all out
> for sustaiable space exploitation, then use that infrastructure to
> become prosperous again.
This is the old infrastructure fallacy. “If government spends enough on infrastructure, space travel will be cheap after that.”
Unfortunately, this overlooks the reality that infrastructure needs to be maintained. Otherwise, it decays away to nothing. If the infrastructure needs to be completely replaced over 10-20 years, the annual upkeep will cost 5-10% of the initial expense.
5-10% of a huge number is generally a huge number. The classic example of an infrastructure project everyone cites is the Interstate highway system, but if the government had built the Interstate highway system in 1901, it would have been an economic disaster. It only made sense at a time when cars were already common.
Likewise, large expensive launch systems make little sense when the demand for launches is small, like the number of cars in 1901.
> just quadruple Nasa budget, allows all the space based science to go
> and allow all vehicals proposed to be developed and use,
There’s already a surplus of expensive launch systems. What’s required is a new approach.
A common fallacy is that a system that’s cheap to operate must be expensive to develop. Logic suggests otherwise. A large part of development is testing. A vehicle that’s cheap to operate will also be cheap to test, because testing a vehicle requires you to operate it.
We need approaches that incentive low cost development, not just throwing money at the problem. And increasing an agency’s budget is not a good way to change its behavior. Change usually comes when an agency is under pressure (i.e., when they are forced to do with less).
> We like to declare war on things, this could be the “War on the Zero Sum Game”
> Yeah well not catchy.. hire a publicist to come up with something better.
Like “Conquest of Space”? We already did that once. Even hired a bunch of Prussian militarists to run it. Unfortunately, the military model is not a very good one for saving money.
You can always count on true believers to dismiss failures as strawmen. The Soviet Union wasn’t real Communism; California’s energy crisis wasn’t real deregulation; and the space shuttle isn’t real human spaceflight.
One way to tell whether the argument is sincere is to watch the reaction when the supposed strawman takes a fall. For example, when Columbia crashed, Mark Whittington’s first comment was: Oh my God, not again!
> There is a difference between knowing that other people can do what you
> can’t do, and merely supposing it. If I had skin cancer, I would try to
> get cured. But if I had lung cancer, I would stick to proven claims of
> palliative care; I would not jump at suppositions of miracle cures.
Too bad for you — a good surgeon might have saved your life.
The default assumption is that if you don’t know how to do something, no one in the world does? I hardly think that’s reasonable.
It certainly shouldn’t apply in the case of Mike Griffin. NASA thought DC-X couldn’t be built for less than a billion dollars. BMDO and McDD built it for under $100 million. Griffin is surely aware of that, given where he was working at the time. So, there’s no reason he should think that if NASA can’t do something, no one can.
> The only proven alternative that NASA has for orbital launches is relatively
> economical Russian solutions.
That’s like saying flaming gasoline is your only choice for a relatively cool drink.
There is no “proven” alternative for affordable non-trivial access to orbit. So, if one desires non-trivial access, it’s only logical to consider non-proved alternatives.
> Revolutionary RLV is still at the R&D stage. NASA should not fund R&D
> that it doesn’t understand.
NASA doesn’t have to fund the R&D. It only has to set aside funds to purchase services when they become available, under terms that are sufficiently credible to convince investors they’re a real customer.
I really don’t understand Greg’s most recent argument. Is he saying that space flight is like communism or like electrical deregulation (which by the way worked just fine in Texas)? And what does my human reaction to the deaths of seven brave astronauts have to do with anything? His statement seems to me to be incoherent, to say the least.
Sure, Ed, if all you want NASA to do is set aside money and wait for cheap human spaceflight, then I don’t mind at all. I don’t know that you, I, or NASA will live to see the money spent, but what’s it to you? If events prove me wrong one day, so much the better.
You should be content if we can agree on the same policy, even if we each have our own reasons.
> the Planetary Society is co-sponsoring the 2006 International Space
> Development Conference with the NSS in LA, which is clearly a “humans
> in space” organization, which demonstrates to me that they’re not
> outright against human spaceflight.
Ken, you missed my point. Today’s dividing line is not between unmanned and trivially manned space programs. It’s between unmanned and trivally manned programs, on the one side, and *non*-trivial human spaceflight on the other.
To use Mark’s Chinese Ice Cream example, the Planetary Society wants the same thing Mark wants: The government should develop one flavor of ice cream, which will cost $100 million per scoop. Only one gallon will be manufactured per year. Most of it will go into robotic self-licking ice cream cones, but some of it will go to Houston for consumption by NASA astronauts. There’s a lot of propoganda about how this will eventually allow other Americans to eat ice cream, many decades from now, but the real purpose is simply to compete with the Chinese ice cream program and perform scientific research on ice cream. On top of all that, astronauts report the government flavor doesn’t taste very good.
Supporting such a program does not make them “pro-ice cream” in any meaningful sense.
The real ice cream supporters want to make ice cream cheap so everyone can eat it.
> Sure, Ed, if all you want NASA to do is set aside money and wait for
> cheap human spaceflight, then I don’t mind at all. I don’t know that you,
> I, or NASA will live to see the money spent,
Greg, once again — just because you don’t know something doesn’t mean nobody knows it.
“Sam Dinkin’s new article ilustrates how the Space Review is fundamentally incomplete as a forum for space issues. Almost every article there is by one or another booster of human spaceflight and space militarization. Dinkin’s article argues against James Van Allen — who is difficult to ignore because he is a space hero — but the Space Review so far has not published Van Allen or anyone who agrees with Van Allen.”
I had Issues put Van Allen’s article up on the web so people could see both sides of the debate. Van Allen’s arguments needed to be addressed and I never could satisfactorily do that without getting him into the web debate. Prior to that, there was just a space.com reference that said he came out in favor of robots. Try to argue against that. In any case, both articles were from last summer.
As for bias, come write for us, Greg Kuperberg. If your stuff is good, maybe we will all become convinced to hate space.
I am indeed in favor of space militarization by the good guys first. If SpaceShipOne can launch for $30 million, it won’t be too long before non-state actors can go up into space and cause a ruckus (like say the same people who mucked up London this week). You will not hear about it first on satellite radio or satellite TV. The problem with pacificism is that there is no enforcement if someone breaks the agreement or is not party to it.
“Is he saying that space flight is like communism or like electrical deregulation (which by the way worked just fine in Texas)?”
Thanks for the complement. I wrote the regs and the software for the quarterly Texas wholesale electricity auction which is Monday and has been going strong since 2002.
I also applied to run the CalPX for California. If they had selected me, CA could have avoided a $70B disaster. New Jersey and Texas did hire me and they have competitive wholesale prices. New Jersey customers pay 36% less than NY customers per kwh or $2.4B/year less. 1/3 of that is due to my auction or about $800M/year.
No Eddy; you, not Ken, missed the point, as always. The articles that Jeff referenced was clearly extolling the virtues of robotic missions over manned missions.
I have no idea how you came up with the notion of “non-trivially manned” space flight. Define that term using facts and not opinion.
People who follow space exploration and development may have different opinions on how much of the budget goes to manned ver’s robotic missions but a vast majority believe we need both to properly explore and develop space.
> No Eddy;
You really can’t communicate without namecalling, can you, “Mister Earl”?
“A difference must make a difference to be a difference.”
The difference between what you call “manned” and “robotic” missions is trivial. Neither side in that phony debate talks about sending any *significant* number of people into space.
> I have no idea how you came up with the notion of “non-trivially manned” space flight.
It’s simple, really. I just noted that flying non-trivial numbers of humans is possible.
For some reason, that seems to bother you.
I expect you’re going to be bothered a lot in the next decade.
Ok Mister Ed:
You say you a revolution, well you know, we’d all love to see the plan.
First what is a non-trivial number of humans per launch? Must be more that 7 because we can do that now.
Second who has the plan, much less the capability, to launch that number?
We deal and work with the capabilities and limitations we have now while we strive to improve them.
Seems to me that you’re the one who’ll be bothered for the next decade. As for me, I’ll be on the causeway next Wednesday watching the US get back into the business of launching humans into space a trivial 7 at a time. It’s a transportation system the has it’s flaws but I know that NASA and private enterprise are working on the next generation of safer and less expensive LEO transportation and ships to get us to the moon, Mars and beyond.
Prof. Kuperberg writes:
Sam Dinkin’s new article ilustrates how the Space Review is fundamentally incomplete as a forum for space issues.
Well, I for one would never consider The Space Review a “complete” forum for the discussion of space topics. Every publication has its biases, and TSR is no different: it’s unlikely you’ll see a “why space exploration is a waste” article published there. That said, I am open to alternative viewpoints, particularly those that challenge the status quo in a thoughtful, reasoned manner. Should Prof. Kuperberg be interested in writing such an article, I would consider publishing it; likewise, if he wanted to recruit a colleague he felt could do a better job expressing his viewpoint, I would also consider such a submission. (The same goes for anyone reading this; feel free to email them, or any questions or suggestions about TSR, directly to me.)
> what is a non-trivial number of humans per launch? Must be more
> that 7 because we can do that now.
The number of humans per launch is not particularly important. A thousand flights with 7 people per flight would accomplish just as much as one flight with 7,000 — and it’s a lot more practical.
> Second who has the plan, much less the capability, to launch that
> number? We deal and work with the capabilities and limitations we have now
What’s so great about current limitations that we should accept them?
> Seems to me that you’re the one who’ll be bothered for the next
> decade. As for me, I’ll be on the causeway next Wednesday
The subject was space travel, not causeway travel. Why should I be bothered about your standing in the sand?
> It’s a transportation system the has it’s flaws but I know that NASA
> and private enterprise are working on the next generation of safer and
> less expensive LEO transportation and ships to get us to the moon,
> Mars and beyond.
What makes you think NASA is working on less expensive transportation? And ships that will take you to the Moon, Mars, and beyond?
The NASA Administrator co-authored the Planetary Society report that said it was impossible to reduce the cost of Earth-to-LEO launches for the next several decades. Does it sound like he’s going to be working on less expensive transportation?
As for taking you on their ships, if NASA did that, you wouldn’t be standing on the causeway next Wednesday, would you?
As you know, I am a man of impeccable ethics – I would never let my daughter marry her cousin, for example. I believe in running a good clean business, and no matter how you look at this debate, I just look at it from a business perspective, and killing Astronauts in today’s culture is like killing cops in my grandfathers day and age … its just bad for business.
Yes, sure we hate to see astronauts die, but the problem with the manned space program we have today is bigger than that. We’re killing them for nothing. They go for a 5 day joyride in space. They aren’t finding planets orbiting distant stars, they aren’t finding oceans on the moons of nearby planets, they aren’t mapping the surface of Venus. They are pissing away vast amounts of money and providing very little in return.
Does man belong in space? Sure! Look at the Apollo missions. What would have happened if Armstrong hadn’t been there to take over the lunar lander when it was going to crash into a field of boulders? The mission would have ended with one more crater on the Moon. In those days the man added value. Today, they don’t. It’s not a philosophical thing, it’s just reality. Accept it for what it is, and let’s not make the same mistake next time.
Dfens:”They aren’t finding planets orbiting distant stars, they aren’t finding oceans on the moons of nearby planets, they aren’t mapping the surface of Venus.”
And if they were doing any or all of those things, what good would they be to mankind?
None of those things are good arguments for man in space (IMHO). How about mining the Moon or NEO’s? Or servicing space based power generation platforms that beam gigawatts of power to Earth daily?
Those are things man should work toward doing, exploitation not just exploration.
My TGV piece talks about spending less on space, and having less military hardware in orbit. I would think that Prof. Kuperberg would favor suborbital imagery over orbital imagery if he wants to keep space pure.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Cecil. Let’s get this thing back on track and move forward.
Well, Sam, I really don’t know why you feel obliged to speak for my opinions.
Spaceflight is just fine with me, and so is orbital imagery. In fact, orbital imagery is a great idea. All that I’m against is illogical spaceflight.
Suborbital imagery is also a great idea. Even manned suborbital imagery, sometimes. In fact, it is already widely conducted, using devices called airplanes.
On the other hand, suborbital imagery is unlikely to mesh well with space tourism.
> Yes, sure we hate to see astronauts die, but the problem with the manned space program we have today
> is bigger than that. We’re killing them for nothing. They go for a 5 day joyride in space.
I don’t understand the Puritanical attitude that considers “joy” to be something negative. The first airplanes were used for “joyrides.” So were the first automobiles. Why should space be any different?
Do the people who make this argument have too much joy in their lives — or too little?
What’s the point of doing anything, if it doesn’t bring joy to someone?
> They aren’t finding
> planets orbiting distant stars, they aren’t finding oceans on the moons of nearby planets, they aren’t
> mapping the surface of Venus.
It’s not okay for people to risk their lives on something that brings them joy — but it is okay to risk their lives because you want a map of Venus?
What’s the point of NASA going to other worlds to make maps, if no one else gets to go? Who are they mapping them for?
Or do you just want to find planets around distant stars and see maps of Venus because those things bring you joy?
> None of those things are good arguments for man in space (IMHO). How about mining the Moon or NEO’s?
> Or servicing space based power generation platforms that beam gigawatts of power to Earth daily?
> Those are things man should work toward doing, exploitation not just exploration.
It isn’t possible to do either of those things with Constellation capsules and Shuttle-derived vehicles. Making such claims in connection with NASA’s VSE is false advertising.
Also, what you call “exploitation” — mineral and energy extraction — represents a small fraction of the modern economy. Extraction industries are highly sensitive to shipping costs, due to the amount of equipment needed and the weight of raw material produced.
Odd, then, that so many people glom onto the idea that extraction is the only “good” reason for humans in space.
Even manned suborbital imagery, sometimes. In fact, it is already widely conducted, using devices called airplanes.
In other words, you have no idea what the word “suborbital” means.
Go ahead and keep flaunting your ignorance, Greg. And consider how seriously (or not) the rest of us will take your opinions as a result.
Yes, Rand, I know what suborbital usually means. It usually means a ballistic trajectory that fails to reach orbit, and is also often restricted to trajectories that cross the arbitrary 100km boundary of space. At least, that is how the SubOrbital Institute defines it.
The point is that this conventional definition of “suborbital” is irrelevant to Sam Dinkin’s strange essay. All he explained was how useful it is to have a non-orbital complement to orbital imagery. Certainly airplanes provide a useful complement to orbital imagery. He didn’t explain any advantage of ballistic sub-orbital imagery over jet aircraft reconnaissance.
Is survival the only requirement? Was that the only real success of Apollo 13? And is that the purpose of the science as well?
Edward Wright: “It isn’t possible to do either of those things with Constellation capsules and Shuttle-derived vehicles. Making such claims in connection with NASA’s VSE is false advertising.”
The “capsule” part of Constellation is basically just a means of crew transportation to and from orbit, just as a Shuttle derived HLV would be simply a means of getting mass into orbit. You completely disregard (in order to make your spurious argument) things like transfer stages, landing vehicles and any other number of craft/devices that may be built under the auspices of Constellation.
Edward Wright: “Odd, then, that so many people glom onto the idea that extraction is the only “good” reason for humans in space.”
More of Edward Wright’s legendary twisting of ideas to his liking so he can point out imagined fallacies. I never stated that exploitation was the “only” good reason for man in space.
Boys and girls,
I just thought up a new name for Bob Park:
Bob “We cannot sterilize a human being” Park
Say it out loud:
Bob “We cannot sterilize a human being” Park
It just rolls off the tongue.
Edward, it is the decaying infrastructutre thats the beauty of it. The private sector got a taste of riches that can come from Space Exploitation, its up to them to maximize there profits by develping cheaper mainatable infrasturture or loose it all at the end of it. At that TIme the government should pull back into a minor reglutory mode and Law Enforcement.
Without that taste the venture capitalists will never invest.
And its then we find out if Humans deserve to last beyond the next century or two, to give us time to solve the other problems we face.
But it should never be static eventually there will be a time for deregulation. What works one decade may not work next. All depends on how smart the people who write the policies are.
Also to consider after the 20 years when the infrasturcture is needed to be upgraded, the patents will be in the public domain.
> The “capsule” part of Constellation is basically just a means of crew transportation to and from orbit
No, it’s not. It’s supposed to transport crew all the way to lunar orbit and perhaps to the lunar surface, not just to and from orbit.
You insist that everyone must “support the President’s vision” but you don’t take the time to understand that vision.
It’s not “just” a means, it’s an incredibly expensive means. Costs determine what is economically possible, and with such high-cost systems, almost nothing is possible.
> You completely disregard (in order to make your spurious argument) things like transfer stages,
> landing vehicles and any other number of craft/devices that may be built under the auspices of
> Constellation.
No, Cecil, I don’t “disregard” those things — I understand them.
A certain contractor wants NASA to build a solar-electric propulsion stage, that will cost deliver payloads to lunar orbit “only” $10-20,000 per pound. There’s nothing cheap about that.
When we can’t even get to LEO affordably, it doesn’t matter what kind of fantastic transfer vehicles and lunar landers you have. Trransfer vehicles and lunar landers can’t be cheap when it costs a fortune to launch them, and neither can their cargos.
> I never stated that exploitation was the “only” good reason for man in space.
I guess you don’t read your words before you post them:
>> None of those things are good arguments for man in space (IMHO). How about mining the Moon
>> or NEO’s? Or servicing space based power generation platforms…?
Ed Wright: “No, it’s not. It’s supposed to transport crew all the way to lunar orbit and perhaps to the lunar surface, not just to and from orbit.”
It’s not? Which “it” are you talking about now? “It” the Constellation “capsule” or “it” the Constellation system? Your original post referred specifically to the Constellation “capsule”, not the entire Constellation system. You posted “It isn’t possible to do either of those things with Constellation CAPSULES”. The Apollo “capsule” on it’s own was no more capable of reaching the Moon than was a Mercury capsule, but adding the Apollo service module, Apollo lunar module and the Saturn third stage it could. My reply to your post was based on your specific usage of the term “capsule”.
Ed Wright: “I guess you don’t read your words before you post them:”
You still didn’t show where I stated that exploitation was the ONLY good reason for man in space.
> It’s not? Which “it” are you talking about now? “It” the Constellation
> “capsule” or “it” the Constellation system?
Right now, the Constellation system is the Constellation capsule. There may or may not be a separate lander — that hasn’t been decided yet. Read Space News for the latest info.
> Your original post referred specifically to the Constellation “capsule”,
> not the entire Constellation system.
The other components of the system — if any — haven’t been defined yet.
Do you have a point? If the capsule alone is unaffordable, how can a capsule and some other expensive components be more affordable?
> You posted “It isn’t possible to do either of those things with Constellation CAPSULES”.
Yes, and I stand by my statement. NASA will also. They aren’t claiming they can mine the Moon and build solar power satellites with Constellation capsules or systems, or whatever nomenclature you prefer. The only people making that claim are a few overenthusiastic cheerleaders.
> The Apollo “capsule” on it’s own was no more capable of reaching the Moon
> than was a Mercury capsule, but adding the Apollo service module, Apollo
> lunar module and the Saturn third stage it could.
With all those things, Apollo still couldn’t mine the Moon or build solar power satellites — unless “mining the Moon” means bringing back a few bags of rocks and a “solar power satellite” means a little solar array they left on the Moon to power experiments.
Doing any real mining, building large solar power satellites, etc. will require *cheap* access to space — not very expensive access to space.
> You still didn’t show where I stated that exploitation was the ONLY
> good reason for man in space.
Exploitation is not the only good reason for man in space, but “none of those [other] things are good arguments for man in space”?
I guess the difference between a reason and an argument is a bit too subtle for me.
You should see the news release from the AAS.. More crap from them…
The American Astronomical Society urges that a vigorous, focused program of scientific research form the core of the implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration. The President’s initiative for the civilian space program places emphasis on exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond by humans and robots. Science is exploration, whether it involves directly sampling the surface of Mars, or gathering in the faint and ancient light of distant galaxies. Exploration without science is tourism.
The adventure of exploration will capture the hearts of Americans: but the scientific discoveries that come from that exploration will capture their minds. Scientific discoveries from NASA’s new space program will provide its most meaningful legacy. We are learning where we are, where we came from, and we have discovered surprising new features of the way the world works. Based on NASA’s leadership in space science, we see the Earth as one planet among many we can now study, we see the origin of chemical and biological matter as woven into the history of cosmic change, and we have learned the surprising fact that, on the largest scales, our Universe is not organized by the material we can see, but is made mostly of dark matter and governed by the properties of a mysterious dark energy we have only recently discovered. We have much to explore. The Universe holds a great deal of “beyond.”
Science is essential to implement the Vision for Space Exploration. New technologies to implement the Vision for Space Exploration will depend on scientific advances, and, in turn, will afford new opportunities for scientific work. These notions are laid out in the June 2004 report of the President’s Commission on Implementation of United States Exploration Policy and National Research Council’s assessment: Science in NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration. As we learn how to explore, we will create opportunities for better scientific research, for more stimulating science education, and we will contribute toward our nation’s ability to compete in a world based on technology.
We are all explorers whenever we encounter something new. By motivating Exploration for scientific purposes, the Vision for Space Exploration will benefit science and society. The great successes of space science in the past decades arise from a strong partnership between NASA and the scientific community. The astronomical community, through its decadal surveys and other consultations has set priorities, and worked with NASA to make these dreams into reality. The astronomical community embraces the opportunity to continue to work with NASA to implement the Vision for Space Exploration on a sound scientific basis with broad input from the scientific community.
You should see the news release from the AAS.. More crap from them…
The American Astronomical Society urges that a vigorous, focused program of scientific research form the core of the implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration. The President’s initiative for the civilian space program places emphasis on exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond by humans and robots. Science is exploration, whether it involves directly sampling the surface of Mars, or gathering in the faint and ancient light of distant galaxies. Exploration without science is tourism.
The adventure of exploration will capture the hearts of Americans: but the scientific discoveries that come from that exploration will capture their minds. Scientific discoveries from NASA’s new space program will provide its most meaningful legacy. We are learning where we are, where we came from, and we have discovered surprising new features of the way the world works. Based on NASA’s leadership in space science, we see the Earth as one planet among many we can now study, we see the origin of chemical and biological matter as woven into the history of cosmic change, and we have learned the surprising fact that, on the largest scales, our Universe is not organized by the material we can see, but is made mostly of dark matter and governed by the properties of a mysterious dark energy we have only recently discovered. We have much to explore. The Universe holds a great deal of “beyond.”
Science is essential to implement the Vision for Space Exploration. New technologies to implement the Vision for Space Exploration will depend on scientific advances, and, in turn, will afford new opportunities for scientific work. These notions are laid out in the June 2004 report of the President’s Commission on Implementation of United States Exploration Policy and National Research Council’s assessment: Science in NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration. As we learn how to explore, we will create opportunities for better scientific research, for more stimulating science education, and we will contribute toward our nation’s ability to compete in a world based on technology.
We are all explorers whenever we encounter something new. By motivating Exploration for scientific purposes, the Vision for Space Exploration will benefit science and society. The great successes of space science in the past decades arise from a strong partnership between NASA and the scientific community. The astronomical community, through its decadal surveys and other consultations has set priorities, and worked with NASA to make these dreams into reality. The astronomical community embraces the opportunity to continue to work with NASA to implement the Vision for Space Exploration on a sound scientific basis with broad input from the scientific community.