The space science community probably is less favorable to the VSE than the Planetary Society. They have already had some setbacks that they attribute to the VSE, or to the VSE/ISS/Shuttle combination (ie a variety of science missions cancelled, elimination of research grants, removal of astrobiology, etc). Now it is true that some detailed space science can be done with humans on the Moon, but I don’t think they view this as a good trade. First of all, the Moon is just one case, whereas the scientists want a view of the Earth, the Moon, other solar system bodies, and astronomical subjects outside the solar system. They can do quite a lot more than you might think with remote sensing observations and robotic landers. You also have to look at other aspects of the “trade” from their point of view. At best, the VSE will get humans to the Moon in 2018. Why would they want to wait that long to begin to have prospects of results? The VSE architecture requires every component to work – a deck of cards. Why rely on that when they have small probes that do not destroy the whole program if one probe fails? Also, the safety of the astronauts needs to be considered. The scientists don’t want to have the entire field grounded by an accident (see the current Shuttle/ISS). Also, the VSE is more prone to delays and cost overruns than robotic probes, which can more easily be cancelled in the worst case of delays/overruns. These delays and cost overruns VSE may encounter will probably come at the expense of the science missions.

The scientists also probably consider the long-term political prospects (to say nothing of managerial and technical) of the VSE as pretty grim. There are a lot of benefits to the robotic missions outside of science compared to the VSE, which they may view as an indication that the political prospects of the VSE aren’t too good. For example, the rest of the space community – military, commercial, NOAA, GPS users, various GIS users, people affected by disasters, etc, are in a position right now to benefit from economies of scale and innovations brought about from the scientific satellites and probes. They use the same type of launch vehicles, satellite manufacturers, instrument makers, etc. There are a lot of users of these services (communications, weather data, etc), although they are not politically organized yet in a way that addresses the VSE vs. science (as it may become to be characterized) issue.

My piece on space science done by astronauts on Earth’s moon was finally published by the people I wrote it for, so I need to give credit. Here it is,

http://memetherapy.blogspot.com/

— Donald

Yeah I know, the groundswell will never happen, sans distaster. You ware right not to look at snapshot when it comes to the progress that politicians have made. But these snapshots are 4 years in duration. All the progress made so far can be undone in the next 3 years. By the vocal minority on either side of the aisle.

I’ve been seeing more and more anti-space stuff in mainstream and non mainstream media in recent years. I’m afraid the trend will continue, Space would become political suicide and it will be Australia that beats us back to the moon in 2120.

Though maybe that won’t be such a bad thing. But i do want to see it in my lifetime.

Well, the Planetary Society apparently has some influence, because the current ESAS architecture originated in a Planetary Society study, chaired by Planetary Society member Mike Griffin, and released with some fanfare by executive director Louis Friedman,

The Planetary Society ignored every alternative architecture that could have saved money. They shut out everyone who wanted to reduce the cost of space transportation, which would have allowed NASA to conduct *more* planetary missions. Now that they have gotten exactly what they asked for, the Planetary Society is complaining that NASA doesn’t have enough money left over for all the other things they would like. They sowed the wind; now they reap the whirlwind.

I would just rather people not point to high priority science where it isn’t.

I.e. big enough that you can be blissfully unaware that things like American Idol exist. Unless you happen to stumble on it while flipping through the Solar System equivalent of cable TV…

-MM

You say, “We want to go there ourselves to live, eat, reproduce, watch American Idol, play poker, etc.”

I, for one, want to go in order to ESCAPE things like American Idol!

First, we are spending public money here, so scientists do not get exclusive say on how it is spent. They should have input, but there are many other inputs to the decision. The key one is, or should be, the moon is currently the only place we can do real geological traverses with geologists on site. Therefore, that’s what we should do. The history of science is full of instances where we did a survey of a wide area and failed to look at the details we could reach, and came to the wrong conclusions. Ideally, you need to do both, but if you have to choose between a wide survey (especially if you’ve already done a lot of that), and detailed exploration where you can do it, you should be doing the latter.

What you and the scientists are advocating amounts to foregoing the modern equivalent of the Lewis and Clark expedition to send a few robots to Antarctica. Sure, you might learn a bit about Antarctica, but you’ll return a lot less science than you will sending L&C. There will be plenty of opportunities to send L&C to Antarctica (Mars) when we’re technologically ready to do that. Today, we’re technologically ready to send L&C into the interior (the moon), and we’ll learn a lot about how to do Antarctic exploration by doing that.

Second, I, of all people, am hardly being an apologist for this Administration, which I despise. I’ve come to my conclusions entirely independently, and, the fact that they happen to coincide with the Administration’s is both a function of the technical and financial realities of our time and a coincidence.

— Donald