As you’re no doubt aware, James Van Allen passed away yesterday at the age of 91. Van Allen was an exemplary scientist, best known for the discovery of the radiation belts surrounding the Earth that bear his name. That discovery was made using instruments he flew on Explorer 1, the first US spacecraft to orbit the Earth; he also participated on a number of other NASA missions, from Pioneer 10 to Galileo.
While Van Allen was a staunch advocate of robotic missions, that support did not extend to NASA’s human spaceflight program. Indeed, he argued that human spaceflight served little, if any, purpose, and believed that the resources could be better spent elsewhere. An example of his thinking is an essay published two years ago by Issues in Science and Technology, where he asked the provocative question that served as the title of his piece: “Is Human Spaceflight Obsolete?” An excerpt:
In a dispassionate comparison of the relative values of human and robotic spaceflight, the only surviving motivation for continuing human spaceflight is the ideology of adventure. But only a tiny number of Earth’s six billion inhabitants are direct participants. For the rest of us, the adventure is vicarious and akin to that of watching a science fiction movie. At the end of the day, I ask myself whether the huge national commitment of technical talent to human spaceflight and the ever-present potential for the loss of precious human life are really justifiable.
It’s interesting to compare that with recent comments by another scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, published yesterday by the New York Times. A reader asked Tyson how he could support human spaceflight when robotic missions are “a more cost effective way to enhance our understanding of the Universe.” Tyson’s response:
Yes, I agree. And if scientific discovery were the only driver for space exploration, then we would simply never send people. But science is not, and has never been, the only driver. To think otherwise in delusional. Other factors include national pride (the recent Chinese Astronaut and the Japanese Astronauts that have visited the space station are as popular as rock stars in their home countries), national security (the military quest for the “high ground” is eternal), and the socio-political value of large NASA contracts that spread across congressional districts. Another driver, which philosophically floats above the rest, is the human urge to explore, with or without a science agenda. Note that hardly any of the great explorers of the past were scientists. And so we should recognize that the urge to visit a planet, simply because we have not done so before, expresses a desire, if not a need, that transcends time and culture.
While van Allen rejected the notion of adventure as a rationale for human spaceflight, Tyson, in essence, embraces it, calling it an urge “that transcends time and culture.”
A more direct rebuttal to Van Allen’s 2004 essay was written by Sam Dinkin for The Space Review, where he looks past the issue of adventure and sees human spaceflight as “inevitable” for the future of the species. And as for Van Allen’s criticism of the problems of the shuttle, station, and other programs, Dinkin notes that these problems only tell us “that government management of manned spaceflight has been a bust since Apollo.”
Does anyone know if Van Allen had anything to say about the study done by the Royal Astronomical Society which concluded that human astronauts are, after all, crucial for the scientific exploration of space? It would seem to me that the tiresome robots vrs humans controversy is over.
Mark,
did that study look at missions set up with equal costs? In terms of “we have X amount of dollars – this is what we get by going manned vs this is what we get if we having an unmanned mission”
Ferris – You can read for yourself here:
http://www.ras.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=846&Itemid=2
Dr. Van Allen: But only a tiny number of Earth’s six billion inhabitants are direct participants. For the rest of us, the adventure is vicarious and akin to that of watching a science fiction movie.
The irony is that you could say exactly the same thing about the automated space program.
While I disagree with him about the value of human science, Mr. Tyson’s views are a lot more nuanced and accurate.
To the degree that he used his great influence to help convince Congress that science could be automated, I believe Dr. Van Allen harmed the cause of space science — and certainly that of space exploration.
Ferris, when comparing costs, don’t forget that somebody else paid for many of the automated space program’s bills (e.g., all the billions of dollars spent on the development of expendable launch vehicles, and the automation technology itself, much of which was developed for spy satellites) while developing transportation back to the moon is billed to the human space program. That is a fundamentally unfair comparison. A more accurate comparison is to compare operational costs alone, and when you do robotics doesn’t look so good. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is already at half-a-billion and climbing. NASA’s current estimate for the operations cost of each flight of actual geologists to the moon is $2 billion. Is yet another orbital map of the moon — even if it is in ultraviolet — really one-fourth as valuable as placing two scientists on site? (Note that I am not against the NRO, this observation is for comparison purposes only.) Likewise, when robotics experts actually started looking at what it would take to repair Hubble — a relatively simple human-made object with known structures and interfaces — it quickly proved cheaper to send astronauts, even with the expensive Shuttle infrastructure.
The robotics crowd are living in an artificial world where most of their bills were paid in the past by somebody else and with an extremely limited, self-constrained view of what constitutes “science.”
— Donald
…when comparing costs, don’t forget that somebody else paid for many of the automated space program’s bills…
Ummm… we may not want to go there. By my guesstimate, DoD spent about 2.5x as much on ICBM and early milsat R&D (1954-1963) as NASA spent on manned spaceflight development 1960-1969. (This excludes post-R&D procurement, which of course pushes DoD much farther up.) Essentially all big rocket development before Saturn, avionics, much of re-entry, much of global tracking, exotic materials, etc., etc…. all out of the perceived need to blow far-away stuff up quickly.
So while it’s legitimate to point out how much space science has piggybacked on manned spaceflight, it’s at least as legitimate to note how much all space piggybacked on defense. I think it matters, because there’s a widespread tendency to isolate Sputnik->Apollo as an index of “how much space mattered to America” and forget that it was the tip of an iceberg. After the mid-60s, when ICBMs were “good enough,” defense spending on bleeding-edge tech became much less of a direct subsidy to space goals.
Donald,
That, frankly, is something of a falses issue – yes there has been a lot of back and forth, each has help the other, but the simple fact is, that money is spent, it ain’t coming back (much like the trillions wasted when it comes to the Iraq war), and so all we can really look at what the expect costs are actually going to be. And while I agree that a human on mars would have better returns than opertunity or spirit, a human on mars would also cost much more – if we took that entire amount to send humans to mars, and spend that either on a single large scale robotics mission (the prefered method), or on a vaste scale series of probes (also usable, but not nearly as directly comparable), then it becomes a much fairer and more comparable comparison.
Ferris, just as a matter of clearly up misinformation, the current bill for the Iraq theater of the War on Terror is about three hundred million, not “trillions.” Whether it was wasted or not is highly debatable.
Mark, This ain’t a large scale general politic site – lets agree not to go there – this ain’t the site to do it in (and no, I am not at a point where I can do a large scale email debate if your wondering)
Ferris, yes all the money spent to develop the infrastructure used by the planetary robotics community is sunk costs. However, my comparison is still valid for the following reason.
Planetary scientists, obviously, hope that their robots will be an on-going effort into the indefinite future. While they have some limited development costs, the majority of their costs are on-going operational costs.
However, the VSE is not a one-shot project either (or at least we hope not). Once the development costs are paid in the next decade or so, at least the lunar costs will become primarily operations costs. Then, automated and human science will be in direct competition. Like the experience at Hubble, in that situation automating detailed geological traverses with deep drilling will prove to be both too expensive and impractical.
While this is certainly open to debate, my opinion is that human science on the moon will prove so much more valuable than automated landers, forgoing some automated science for the next decade in order to pay for the development needed to send geologists to the moon (and near-Earth asteroids and the Martian moons, all of which involve much the same transportation skill set) will prove a very wise use of money.
The Martian surface is a different issue. Today, automated missions are what we can do at Mars, so we should do them. But they should be carefully targeted at what automated missions do best: mapping and other initial reconnaissance. On the other hand, spending billions developing, say, a sample return mission or trying to automate life detection will continue to be wasted money — as the latter has been in the past, e.g., Viking, which while an engineering success was a $5 billion (1970s dollars) scientific failure. The best science over the long haul will be obtained by investing that moneyin the developments required to send geologists, in Dr. Griffin’s words, “after 2020.”
— Donald
Donald,
Mars Sample return would also be a technology demonstrator of in situ fuel production and would give NASA the ability to analyze Martian regolith in ways not contemplated when the mission was first launched.
There could be nasty stuff in the regolith (asbestos as a possibility is something I recall) and having a large sample would be very useful to prepare for a crewed mission.
Bill
Planetary scientists, obviously, hope that their robots will be an on-going effort into the indefinite future. While they have some limited development costs, the majority of their costs are on-going operational costs.
However, the VSE is not a one-shot project either (or at least we hope not). Once the development costs are paid in the next decade or so, at least the lunar costs will become primarily operations costs. Then, automated and human science will be in direct competition. Like the experience at Hubble, in that situation automating detailed geological traverses with deep drilling will prove to be both too expensive and impractical.
2 points here –
1 – The chances of VSE actually being anything are at this point, quite open to debate, forget being something other than a one shot deal.
2 – Even allowing that VSE is something more than a one shot deal, yes they both have operational costs, but you didn’t actually address the issue of cost of operation for either manned or unmanned. Assuming that the operational costs are just paying for the researchers, I’d be surprized if its not just a might bit less than the operational costs of a manned outpost. And frankly, you kinda lost me with the last sentence.
While this is certainly open to debate, my opinion is that human science on the moon will prove so much more valuable than automated landers, forgoing some automated science for the next decade in order to pay for the development needed to send geologists to the moon (and near-Earth asteroids and the Martian moons, all of which involve much the same transportation skill set) will prove a very wise use of money.
The Martian surface is a different issue. Today, automated missions are what we can do at Mars, so we should do them. But they should be carefully targeted at what automated missions do best: mapping and other initial reconnaissance. On the other hand, spending billions developing, say, a sample return mission or trying to automate life detection will continue to be wasted money — as the latter has been in the past, e.g., Viking, which while an engineering success was a $5 billion (1970s dollars) scientific failure. The best science over the long haul will be obtained by investing that moneyin the developments required to send geologists, in Dr. Griffin’s words, “after 2020.”
Fundementally, while I tend to think that you probably do get a slightly better return for humans than for robots, the idea of using space exploration for human spaceflight will not work. I know you’d like to think the exploration is not synonimis with science, but in the eyes of most people, they are. The only way manned spaceflight is intergal is if we are talking about colonization. Hell, Carl Sagan realized this. So when someone challenges manned spaceflight, we should be telling them its about colonization, not exploration. There really is no way to colonize space without humans.
Bill, I don’t disagree with you that a sample return could be useful, and would certainly increase the safety of a human mission. However, if human missions are going to happen at all in our lifetime, they (including the leadup to them) absolutely must be (relatively) cheap, at the expense of accepting a measured level of risk. There is nothing that a sample return could teach you that could not be learned on a much more flexible human mission, and thus the former is a luxury.
Admittedly, this is far more true of the moon than it is of Mars — I think any automated landers sent to the moon at this point are a complete waste of money. A geologist on the surface would achieve far more, and the operations cost of putting him there would only be a few times the lander.
Ferris, what I mean by operations costs is the on-going costs of adding incremental flights once the infrastructure (primarily launch vehicles, upper stages, launch pads, control rooms, the components and skills required to assemble and operate the robot payload, and the R&D required to develop all of the above) has all been paid for.
For example, to launch the LRO, NASA buys an off-the-shelf Delta-V (developed by Boeing and the Air Force for other purposes), assembles and modifies existing upper stages and components, and sends it to the moon. You don’t have to develop much of anything from scratch. Your outlay is some yet-to-be-determined amount over .5 billion dollars.
For the VSE, this situation would exist after the Ares, CEV, and lander were developed and operational. To mount an additional mission, you buy these components off-the-shelf, assemble a habitat and other components needed for the current mission (analogous to building your robot in the first scenario), and fly it. If there is any truth to NASA’s cost estimates, your outlay is $2 billion.
The financial comparison being made today is developing the infrastructure for the entire VSE versus just flying one robot (or, to be fair, a series of robots). It’s not a valid comparison.
My last sentence referred to the difficulty of automating complex operations. It is not a casual effort to automate a long sampling traverse over the lunar surface while conducting the kinds of deep drilling that would be required to find, say, a sample of an early terrestrial continent with evidence of the earliest life splashed up from Earth in an impact. The lesson from Hubble — the repair of which should be much easier to automate since it is a known quantity with known interfaces — is that it’s probably cheaper to send people in the first place than it is to try to automate complex operations on an alien, fractal surface.
Regarding colonization, I agree that should be the ultimate goal. But true colonization — as in economically self-sufficient towns — is unlikely for many decades into the future. There are simply too many problems that have to be solved and dangers to be faced. (One of the few places I agree with many planetary scientists is that most space advocates vastly underestimate the difficulty in colonizing the Solar System. Where I disagree with them is their belief that means it shouldn’t be done, or that we should wait until it’s “safe” or “practical” to get started. It’s been long enough now that I’ll send you the text of my Space News piece on this subject off-line; it’s too long to post here.) Human missions to the moon and Mars can obtain real scientific (and possibly commercially exploitable) results in the next couple of decades that I believe are far greater than a purely automated effort could obtain. But a small scientific settlement on the moon is vastly different from colonization, and, unfortunately, I believe the latter remains far in the future. (Indeed, doing a whole lot of the former is a prerequisite to doing the latter, because doing that gives you the kind of detailed knowledge and experience of the environment that no number of automated missions could give you, while also teaching you the skills you’ll need to make a successful colony work.)
— Donald
Oops, NASA buys an off-the-shelf Delta-V . . . that’s an Atlas-V, of course.
For the VSE, this situation would exist after the Ares, CEV, and lander were developed and operational. To mount an additional mission, you buy these components off-the-shelf, assemble a habitat and other components needed for the current mission (analogous to building your robot in the first scenario), and fly it. If there is any truth to NASA’s cost estimates, your outlay is $2 billion.
The financial comparison being made today is developing the infrastructure for the entire VSE versus just flying one robot (or, to be fair, a series of robots). It’s not a valid comparison.
Well, first I point out – does anyone honestly think Nasa’s expected cost will come in correct? Anyone? (The silence seems rather deafining)
2. None of that stuff exists yet. Its a bit like saying “Well, if we have a hydrogen economy, we wouldn’t have to worry about global warming”
3. Taking the money from the development of things like CEV or CaLV, and using it to fund the developement and construction of a super powerful probe (or, alternatively, a series of probes) would give you an increadible amount of usuable science to be done. As for operational costs, we’ve managed to cut out resupply costs for the base, since when the probe breaks, we probably could easily build a new probe.
4. The whole point of this goes back to colonization. I am not talking about time frame for colonization (yes, I disagree with you on it, I’d argue we have already started colonization, but I can handle 1 debate at a time as I’ve found out, so lets put this debate to the side). But you yourself have said its a pre-requesit for colonization ie proto-colonization. Therefore, my suggestion is lets start arguing for colonization, with the point that this is a pre-requsit for colonization, and we can completely skip over the nonsense debate of manned vs unmanned. I’ll admit it seems like a harder sell, but I think we’d be better off in the end if we are arguing for colonization, rather than science and exploration.
Or, at the very least, if your uncomfortable arguing just for colonization, at the very least include the point that “This is something we need to do to enable space colonization, which we all agree is a good thing”
Ferris, I think we should argue for both, because I think the “we can automate science” people are dead wrong. If we take the money from the entire human space program and put it into automated missions, yes, we’d get a lot of rovers and orbiters and we’d map the surfaces of the Solar System to the Nth degree. But, in a hundred years, not one of them will outline the history of any life on Mars or rule it out. We’d buy a lot of really expensive Vikings, many or most of which would be engineering successes and which would obtain a lot of reconnnaissance-type of information, but will completely fail to answer our questions: is there life on Mars and, if so, how did it evolve?
Do we want to answer those questions? If the answer is no, than why are we wasting what is still billions of dollars sending robots that can’t answer it? If the answer is yes, than let’s stop wasting our money and develop the tools that really can answer the question.
There are a few kinds of science that you can effectively automate, but survey geology and biology are not among them.
— Donald
Ferris: This is something we need to do to enable space colonization, which we all agree is a good thing
Deal!
— Donald
“The robotics crowd are living in an artificial world where most of their bills were paid in the past by somebody else and with an extremely limited, self-constrained view of what constitutes ‘science.’ ”
Naive, and borderline offensive.
Take a deep breath and say your mantra.
Robotic probes are sensory extensions of very real, passionate, and motivated explorers. They are inexpensive ways of getting real knowledge. Putting boots in dirt is not clearly an optimal way of getting that knowledge. In fact, the bandwidth of the comm system is much more a predictor of knowledge gainable than how dirty the boots are.
Putting boots in dirt is, however, a valid cultural expression of curiosity, courage, and ownership. It’s justifiable. But let’s call a spade a spade. In knowledge per dollar, human exploration isn’t necessaily optimal.
The largest and most sophisticated robotic craft may well, however, require human hands, eyes and skill to assemble, proof, and service in space. Human space flight has obvious scientific potential in that respect.
Doug: Putting boots in dirt is not clearly an optimal way of getting that knowledge. I think you need to take a deep breath and really think about what you are saying.
So, if cost were not the issue, to find a fossil on Earth you would send a robot rather than walk out into the desert? Really? To study the detailed layering of lava flows, you would send a robot rather than hike in Hawaii?
Cost of course is an issue, but when you say that putting boots in dirt is not an optimal way of getting knowledge of that dirt, I think very few scientists outside of the astronomical community would agree with you.
In my field when someone plans a dig at an ancient city, they hire a bunch of students with toothbrushes. Even if a robot were cheaper than the student, any archaeologist would laugh at the idea of using one. I submit the same is true of field geologists and biologists.
I’m sorry if I sound offensive, but I really do believe that many or most planetary scientists let their wish to keep doing what they’ve been doing blind them to the severe limitations of their methods and the basic realities of field work.
— Donald
Am I totally confused or did Van Allen participate in a report that was to have been delivered to Kennedy just prior to Gagarin’s flight that was to have claimed that manned spaceflight would be fatal, but which was scuttled when Gagarin lived, and which was kept secret after that?
Donald, one other thing I should add – we shoudl (or at least try) to alway start with colonization
So, if cost were not the issue, to find a fossil on Earth you would send a robot rather than walk out into the desert?
Donald, does that desert also have a nonbreathable atmosphere and a 60,000,000km logistics chain? Or is this an apples and oranges comparison?
Chris, if robots cannot get the data we want, and they can’t, it does not matter what the environment is like. Either we spend what it takes to send the field geologists who can get those answers, or we don’t, but pretending that we can learn much about Mars without doing that — that robots can successfully do field geology and field biology — is not the answer. That’s called wasting money: burying your head in the (ruddy) sand.
— Donald
Chris, if robots cannot get the data we want, and they can’t, it does not matter what the environment is like.
Donald, if we can’t afford to send humans, we can’t, and it does not matter what information they could return.
Nice try to define ‘the information to be returned’ as constant and the budget as variable, btw.
> Robotic probes are sensory extensions of very real, passionate, and
> motivated explorers.
Once again, an explorer is someone who “travels for purposes of discovery.”
Not “someone who stays home and watches television for purposes of discovery” — that person would be an observer, perhaps a scientist, but not an explorer.
If you think human beings should be content to do nothing more than sit in Pasadena and look at pictures of other worlds), okay, make that point. Justify science as science, not as something it’s not. Calling sedentary observers explorers, travellers, astronauts, whatever does not make the name fit.
> They are inexpensive ways of getting real knowledge. Putting boots
> in dirt is not clearly an optimal way of getting that knowledge.
The facts show otherwise. NASA is going to spend $500 million to put one satellite into orbit around the Moon. For the same price, you could send a Soyuz crew around the Moon — five times. As we reduce launch costs, sending humans becomes even more attractive. The entire SpaceShip One program probably cost less than one of Dr. Van Allen’s sounding rocket launches.
> Putting boots in dirt is, however, a valid cultural expression of curiosity,
> courage, and ownership. It’s justifiable. But let’s call a spade a spade. In
> knowledge per dollar, human exploration isn’t necessaily optimal.
You’re reducing “knowledge” to mere data. There are many types of human knowledge besides the 1’s and 0’s machines send back. Almost anyone who’s been in space would tell you he or she obtained insights that cannot be measured by any machine.
If you want to dismiss the value of that sort of human experience, there’s the $64-billion question that “unmanned space” enthusiasts always overlook — if human beings are not going to go to the Moon, Mars, or wherever, in non-trivial numbers, why should we spend any money at all sending umanned probes, much less billions of dollars?
We don’t need to send probes to the Moon or Mars to do science. There are plenty of things for scientists to study right here on Earth, and earth-bound science is much less expensive than launching unmanned space probes. Satellites to study the Sun and Earth can be justified based on their value to our daily life on this planet, but the precise composition of rocks on the Moon or Mars is nothing more than a matter of idle curiousity with no relevance to human beings unless humans (not just robots) are going to be living on the Moon and Mars.
pretending that we can learn much about Mars without doing that — that robots can successfully do field geology and field biology — is not the answer.
So field geologists can do on the site spectroscopy and electron microscopy better than spectroscopy equipment and microscopes, either on site or back in the lab.
Who knew!
> Once again, an explorer is someone who “travels
> for purposes of discovery.”
Nope. Sorry. You’ve perhaps defined an “adventurer”.
> Not “someone who stays home and watches television
> for purposes of discovery” — that person would be
> an observer, perhaps a scientist, but not an
> explorer.
Gee, “for purposes of discovery”, eh? Damn those sedentary discoverers, and a pox on what it seems you’re calling their undeserved discoveries.
>The facts show otherwise. NASA is going to spend >$500 million to put one satellite into orbit >around the Moon. For the same price, you could >send a Soyuz crew around the Moon
No you couldn’t. And let’s see, what would the Soyuz astronauts be able to tell us about the Moon after they did this? Well, give them the instrumentation that would have gone on the robotic probe, some visual readouts, and perhaps a pencil and a pad of paper, and they could probably return some real discovery.
I mean, really. At least surface astronauts could turn over a few rocks.
>> Once again, an explorer is someone who “travels
>> for purposes of discovery.”
> Nope. Sorry. You’ve perhaps defined an “adventurer”.
Perhaps you should write your own dictionary, since American Heritage and Doug Lassiter disagree.
> Gee, “for purposes of discovery”, eh? Damn those sedentary discoverers, and a pox on
> what it seems you’re calling their undeserved discoveries.
No one said anything about “undeserved discoveries.”
Well, I guess it’s easier to beat up that strawman than to address the actual argument.
>>The facts show otherwise. NASA is going to spend
>>$500 million to put one satellite into orbit
>>around the Moon. For the same price, you could
>>send a Soyuz crew around the Moon
> No you couldn’t.
Oh??? And what do you base that statement on?
Space Adentures and the Russian Space Agency say they could do it for ~$100 million.
Do you have a better source of information about Soyuz prices?
> And let’s see, what would the Soyuz astronauts be able to tell us about the Moon after they
> did this?
What it’s like for human beings to go there.
> Well, give them the instrumentation that would have gone on the robotic probe,
> some visual readouts, and perhaps a pencil and a pad of paper, and they could probably
> return some real discovery.
We have better ways of recording information these days, Doug. Human spaceflight and modern electronics are not mutually exclusive.
Do you think reconnaissance aircraft crews have to record every bit of data with pencil and paper?
Re definition of “explorer”, common usage might be considered. You might google “explorer” and “science” and see if there is that much about people planting feet on rocks.
Re underserved discoveries, the OP was demeaning people who sit in Pasadena as not being worthy of the “explorer” badge. I believe he is wrong. If I were such a person in Pasadena, I would be insulted by this comment.
Re $500M to put a Soyuz in orbit around the Moon, best to say, prove it. So far, there is absolutely no such proof. I have no credible info about Soyuz prices, and neither do you. I have a thick history of lowballing estimates for human space flight costs, though.
Re Soyuz cosmonauts circling the Moon to “tell us what it’s like to be there”, umm, wow. Gee. Well, we never did send anyone who could really express themselves with any articulateness. I guess it’s probably worth doing. Think Lori Anderson could go?
Re recon aircraft crews writing down info on pencil and paper, you’re right. They don’t of course. We don’t send recon aircraft anywhere near as frequently as we use robotic spacecraft for recon. We can count hours, if you like.
This is a stale argument, though the profundity of it is really in the views that are rampant. Threads like these are illuminating in that respect. The value of human space flight at least as human adventure is self evident. Why must one take pot shots at science and scientists for not having used it much?
> Re definition of “explorer”, common usage might be considered. You might google
> “explorer” and “science” and see if there is that much about people planting feet on rocks.
Google exploration and you will find plenty of references to Lewis and Clark, Columbus, Byrd, Armstrong, etc.
You will even find a statement by the American Astronomical Society complaining that “exploration without science is tourism.”
That statement wouldn’t make sense if there was no difference between science and exploration.
> Re underserved discoveries, the OP was demeaning people who sit in Pasadena as not being worthy
> of the “explorer” badge. I believe he is wrong.
It’s demeaning not to award astronaut wings to someone who never leaves the ground?
Is it demeaning that astronauts don’t get Nobel Prizes for science? (Turn-around is fair play, right?)
> If I were such a person in Pasadena, I would be insulted by this comment.
Do you think we should give everyone at JPL astronaut wings just to protect their self-esteem? I don’t think planetary scientists are that fragile. Why would they even care, anyway, if there’s no value to human spaceflight?
> Re $500M to put a Soyuz in orbit around the Moon, best to say, prove it. So far, there is absolutely
> no such proof. I have no credible info about Soyuz prices, and neither do you.
I have very credible information, Doug. It’s $100 million, not $500 million. If you don’t think the Russian Space Agency knows how much they charge for launches, that’s your problem.
> Re recon aircraft crews writing down info on pencil and paper, you’re right. They don’t of course. We
> don’t send recon aircraft anywhere near as frequently as we use robotic spacecraft for recon.
Where do you get this stuff from???
The Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines fly hundreds of recon missions every single day — the world’s space agencies don’t launch that many robots in an entire decade.
Anyway, what does that have to do with your absurd claim that a manned spacecraft cannot learn anything except what the crew can write down with paper and pencil?
>You will even find a statement by the American Astronomical Society complaining that “exploration without science is tourism.”
Interesting way to parse that sentence. I think what they meant is that exploration that didn’t include science as an integral part of it just isn’t exploration.
If you go back to the rollout of VSE, there is no question in the mind of the administration and Congress that robots (and obviously the people that control them) explore. Goal/Objective #1 … “Implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond.”
>I have very credible information, Doug. It’s $100 million, not $500 million. If you don’t think the Russian Space Agency knows how much they charge for launches, that’s your problem.
Well, I guess it is my problem. So help me out. Please provide a link to credible costing for putting a Soyuz around the Moon, which is what the claim originally referred to. I’m talking about mission cost, not vehicle cost.
>It’s demeaning not to award astronaut wings to someone who never leaves the ground?
I don’t think these folks want “astronaut wings”. Never said that. I said they should be regarded as explorers. We have a disagreement about what that word “explorer” means. Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. But the administration and Congress are on my side. Perhaps American Heritage dictionary is on yours. As I said, stale argument.
>The Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines fly hundreds of recon missions every single day — the world’s space agencies don’t launch that many robots in an entire decade.
You didn’t read what I said. I believe that if you count the number of hours on-station, you’ll get a higher number from the constellation of robotic surveillance satellites than from recon airborne missions. The fact that there are more airplanes than satellites has nothing to do with it.
>Anyway, what does that have to do with your absurd claim that a manned spacecraft cannot learn anything except what the crew can write down with paper and pencil?
A manned spacecraft orbiting the Moon will return scientific info by having people operate equipment that can almost certainly be otherwise operated remotely. The value in having those people there is perhaps to tweak the equipment. Not much else. Can you suggest a single lunar on-orbit experiment that offers science value and requires in-situ personnel? Sorry, I just don’t see it.
> I think what they meant is that exploration that didn’t include science as an integral part of it just isn’t exploration.
That isn’t what the dictionary says — however, it seems that you now concede science is not synonymous with exploration.
So, why do you think it is “demeaning” to call a sedentary scientist a “scientist” instead of an “explorer”?
> there is no question in the mind of the administration and Congress that robots (and obviously
> the people that control them) explore.
“The robots and obviously the people who control them”???
Do you think the robots and the people are doing the same thing? The people are not rolling across Mars, picking up rocks, etc. I wish they were, but they aren’t. They’re sitting in armchairs watching television and occassionally pushing a button.
Why is it so awful to have a word to distinguish between people who travel and people who sit and watch?
In the 19th Century, National Geographic had employees who stayed in the home office, received pictures back, and sent messages directing explorers in the field. No one whined that they were being “demeaned” because they didn’t get the title of explorer.
> Please provide a link to credible costing for putting a Soyuz around the Moon, which is what the
> claim originally referred to. I’m talking about mission cost, not vehicle cost.
No, you were talking about price, not cost. Part of your problem seems to be that you do not understand the difference between the two.
> I don’t think these folks want “astronaut wings”. Never said that.
You said, “the OP was demeaning people who sit in Pasadena as not being worthy of the ‘explorer’ badge.”
As I’m sure you know, “astronaut wings” is the name of the badge given to people who explore space.
There’s also an “Explorer badge” given by the Boy Scouts, but I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean that one.
>> The Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines fly hundreds of recon missions every single day — the
>> world’s space agencies don’t launch that many robots in an entire decade.
> You didn’t read what I said.
Yes, I did: “We don’t send recon aircraft anywhere near as frequently as we use robotic spacecraft for recon.” Did you read what you said?
> I believe that if you count the number of hours on-station, you’ll get a higher number
> from the constellation of robotic surveillance satellites than from recon airborne missions.
You’re changing arguments — and your new belief is just as falacious as the last one.
> A manned spacecraft orbiting the Moon will return scientific info by having people operate equipment
> that can almost certainly be otherwise operated remotely. The value in having those people there is perhaps
> to tweak the equipment. Not much else.
Next time you’re sick, I trust you’ll see a robot for a diagnosis. A human doctor might be able to tweak the equipment. Not much else, right?
> Can you suggest a single lunar on-orbit experiment that offers science value and requires
> in-situ personnel? Sorry, I just don’t see it.
Even the Vulcans recognized that there is more to life than science, Doug.
However, if you can’t, I’ll play the game by your rules. How about an experiment to determine whether a human being can conceive in lunar gravity and carry the pregnancy to term?
I await your design for a fully automated robot mission that can carry out that experiment.
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I think this conversation is getting more appropriate for the intellectual level of sci.space.policy! That is, I’ve made my points and the readers can judge for themselves. This started out being about science and exploration, and has devolved into challenges for experiments about human conception and medical diagnoses.
(Re the latter, if I was on the Moon, I’d sure as hell want a team of doctors on Earth looking remotely at my scans produced by an autonomous unit, instead of a friendly “Bones” McCoy poking his finger at me.)
I do hope the readers of this thread will pay some attention to the relationship of science to exploration, since these are code words that are being used to justify at least federal non-military expenditures on space.
But I will address cost/price. (Can’t resist.) Oh yes, I sure do know the difference! In a cost-plus scenario, which is NASA’s contractual norm, it’s the former that makes the difference to the taxpayer. As a taxpayer hearing a line about cheap Soyuz going around the Moon, I do have to snicker. Can I interest you in a cheap Rolex? Price is right!