justification for manned space program?

Manned space program is too cool to be ever abandoned. Robots alone just wont cut it, both for public and space enthusiasts.

Hawking: It's outer space or die for humans

There you go. You cant really argue with Stephen Hawking.

I disagree, I think we should be spending more than ever and ramping it up and not just NASA but all agencies. Hell even Romainia have a future concept for manned missions. I would imagine when the US see's how far they are falling behind they will join the party again. Privatisation is probably where the most chances lie to expand into space, once they figure out how to make some cash out of it we'll be there in a flash.

Farther, faster, further, cheaper...the mantra of the roboticists...bah!

While robots have their place, they are utterly incapable of inspiring anyone but their makers. Look at how excited the general public is over Mars and the Moon and space generally....zzzz....zzzz....I think I hear the crickets. Thanks, stupid robots, for nothing.

With the apparent failure of Phobos-Grunt, Russia is 0 for 17 attempts since 1960 at a mix of Mars flybys, orbiters, and landers.

Japan, which launched a Mars orbiter in 1998, is 0 for 1.

Europe, with its inaugural Mars Express/Beagle 2 orbiter-lander combo, is 0.5 for 1 at the red planet. Launched in 2003, the duo reached Mars. The orbiter has been a science success, and its mission has been extended to 2014. But the lander was declared lost after repeated attempts to contact it failed following its December 2003 descent to the surface.

NASA, meanwhile, has enjoyed 11 successful Mars missions out of 16 launched since 1964, including flybys, orbiters, and rovers.

www.csmonitor.com... 1111/Failed-Russian-space-mission-shows-difficulty-of-exploring-Mars

Yes we've gotten some good science, but very little economic or scientific advances from them. But the space program is stagnant and withering, thanks to those robots, because people don't care about them. When you consider their failure rates, they aren't so much cheaper, and the science they provide is minuscule compared to what a team of humans on the spot could accomplish.

Most people don't realize that the world we live in today, with computers, the internet, gps, cellphones, satellites, etc., is directly descended from the manned space programs, and that we've been resting on those laurels for a couple of generations now.

The research required to solve the problems of living in space directly impacts human healthcare options by providing new techniques and tools, for one thing.

Building the infrastructure necessary to support regular travel to space, as in a full-blown, genuine space station and lunar colony provides high-tech jobs, creates new industries, and expands our economic opportunities.

It's expensive, but so what? Every dime is spent here on Earth and not a penny is "wasted" in space. Would you rather spend it on the TSA and Homeland Insecurity or on space travel? The money spent is circulated in our economy in a far better way.

Space-based manufacturing is viable if raw materials are mined on the moon and sent down the gravity well to manufacturing plants at the L5 and L4 Lagrange points (if you don't know what they are, thank the 'fing robots, then go look them up) and the finished products sent down the well to Earth.

Once there was hope we'd have a thriving lunar colony and regular traffic between earth and the Moon by now, but the damned robots killed that dream.

Humans need a frontier that humans can go to to spark their dreams and imaginations. The human race no longer has dreams, only nightmares, and our imaginations have been consumed by finding terrorists in every conceivable place. I'd much rather have the dreams back and imagine aliens rather than terrorists.

The social path we are on leads us to war and decay every which way we look.

A new manned space program aimed at

1. A real commercial space station, built to house 200 or more people

2. A thriving Lunar colony with a mining, manufacturing and research economy that supports 5,000 people and growing

3. Manufacturing plants at the L5 point that provide the finished products and pure pharmaceuticals needed to support the first two and provide new space-designed products for Earth consumption

4. Exploring and colonizing Mars

would lift us out of the stagnant swamp of financial scandals, fiscal austerity, and growing threat of war we currently reside in and seem doomed to for the rest of our lives.

As a race, it would give us something productive and worthwhile to do other than figure out new ways to screw each other over.

You can keep your damned robots-only space program, I want people in space and I want them there now.

Lift your eyes and dream, dammit, of a better future.

Robots should be the scouts that precede humans, not replace them.

Ad astra per aspera!

reply to post by apacheman

Most people don't realize that the world we live in today, with computers, the internet, gps, cellphones, satellites, etc., is directly descended from the manned space programs, and that we've been resting on those laurels for a couple of generations now.

Nope. Computers were under development already. NASA just got a special version for their missions.

It's expensive, but so what? Every dime is spent here on Earth and not a penny is "wasted" in space. Would you rather spend it on the TSA and Homeland Insecurity or on space travel? The money spent is circulated in our economy in a far better way.

Just what government programs are you going to cut to fund this new initiative? They can't decide on a basic budget, let alone come up with hundreds of billions more for space.

Space-based manufacturing is viable if raw materials are mined on the moon and sent down the gravity well to manufacturing plants at the L5 and L4 Lagrange points (if you don't know what they are, thank the 'fing robots, then go look them up) and the finished products sent down the well to Earth.

Never. Add up the costs today for any finished item. Then add in the costs of new rocket tech for delivery.


It's all just a pipe dream.

reply to post by samkent


The space program accelerated development of nearly everything it touched. Are you seriously making the claim that we'd be where we are now without it? You really need to brush up on your history.

First, I'd eliminate the TSA and Homeland Security, both colossal wastes of money and insults to the Constitution. Then I'd wean the banks and multinational corporations off their supports, which would free up more than enough money. Hell, just eliminating TSA would enable a far bigger space program.

Third, I would provide encouragement to the private sector to enter space, perhaps with a series of prizes for firsts, perhaps with tax or contract incentives.

Space-based manufacturing is most certainly viable under the conditions outlined previously. Solar energy and vacuum availability are free for the taking, as is a gravity-free environment. The research is mostly already done, but your equally short-sighted forbears killed it through fear of change and unwillingness to invest the a new future. They liked the old predictable future of meddling in each other's affairs, fighting wars, and controlling limited resources.

Opening space to humanity was too mind-blowing for them, as it is apparently for you.

The choices are clear, really.

Look around you: do you really want just more of the same as today, or would you rather have an expanding future?

A dream?

Yes.

Pipe variety?

No.

reply to post by samkent

Just what government programs are you going to cut to fund this new initiative? They can't decide on a basic budget, let alone come up with hundreds of billions more for space.

It is a common misconception that spaceflight is very expensive. NASA budget was 0.60% of federal budget in 2008, or 17 billion. And only a fraction of that went to manned spaceflight. Also, new technologies like EELVs, SpaceX rockets and capsules and Bigelow inflatable habitats promise great reduction of manned spaceflight costs in the coming years.

Originally posted by apacheman
While robots have their place, they are utterly incapable of inspiring anyone but their makers. Look at how excited the general public is over Mars and the Moon and space generally....zzzz....zzzz....I think I hear the crickets. Thanks, stupid robots, for nothing.

Watch the youtube video of Curiosity fast-roping down to the surface of Mars and tell me it doesn't inspire you.

reply to post by rcanem


I'll see your hot alien chick and raise you this:

For the response to the question posed:
justification for manned space program?
I submit the following legendary post.

First submitted to slashdot in 2004
by Anonymous Coward.


David Grouchy

The Real Problem With the Space Program
In 1961, when # wasn't invented yet and people fought bears for vital food, President Kennedy had the balls to give NASA less than nine years to get to the moon. In this day and age, when there's metric #loads of technology all over the place and the internet makes valuable porn as free as air, President Bush gives a trip to mars seventeen years. What a tool.

See, Kennedy had the balls to lay a firm deadline down. "You bitches will put a man on the moon before January 1, 1970 or I will come back from the grave and kick your ass," he said. He knew he was going to get shot. That's how hardcore he was. He also got crazy laid by Marilyn Monroe.

President Bush says, "You ought to think about just possibly putting a man on the moon sometime during this five year period."

President Kennedy showed us that you have to slap NASA around a little bit to get them to do anything worthwhile with manned space exploration. You can't be all lovey-dovey and set long gradual timetables.

And Bush mentions "the goal of living and working there for increasingly extended periods." So we'll have another Skylab ISS, but on the moon. The only differences will be that it won't crash into Australia like Skylab (it will crash into the Moon instead - that might sound hard to acheive since it would already be on the surface of the moon, but they will find a way to do that), it will leak more than ISS, and since it won't even be international we won't be able to bum rides from the Russians.

If Kennedy was alive in this day and age he would have said, "#ing NASA, I am still alive in this day and age so you assholes better have a self-sufficient Mars base by the year 2013. Also make me a space elevator. And resurrect Marilyn Monroe." Then NASA would complain that it is not their job to resurrect people and Kennedy would punch NASA in the eye.

I bet the "Crew Exploration Vehicle" thart they are working on is going to blow the # up about twenty times too. You can probably trace the suckiness of manned space exploration to the decision to switch from cool names like "Mercury" and "Apollo" to crappy names like "Skylab" and "STS." When the Apollo blew up they #ing fixed it and came home, but when the Space Shuttle gets #ed up they make Powerpoints about it and ignore the problem.

The Real Problem With The Space Program

reply to post by cloudyday


I agree with only the second part of your post. Nasa should be looking into advanced hibernation systems as a way to preserve life on planet Earth and in space. I think if scientists could find a way to possibly stop aging for a duration we would be able to at least get to new Earth like planets.

Originally posted by iamusic
reply to post by cloudyday

 

I agree with only the second part of your post. Nasa should be looking into advanced hibernation systems as a way to preserve life on planet Earth and in space. I think if scientists could find a way to possibly stop aging for a duration we would be able to at least get to new Earth like planets.

There may be another good reason for hibernation - maybe humans would not lose muscle and bone mass. Apparently that is the case for bears.

The problem isn't that human space flight is too hard, or too expensive its that there has been and continues to be zero leadership.

Appropriately challenged NASA could be on Mars by now with people.

It hasn't been because all NASA has been primarily used for is a source of pork and a big government welfare program. Because politicians can get away with it. Because most people can't see beyond the crap they are fed on TV.

The robots may be cost effective but the public doesn't give a #. As a result neither do the politicians. Decline is locked in. Watch what the coming financial collapse does to the robot science....robot bombers yes, robot science not so much.

Men will be on mars within my lifetime. It won't be americans. That dream has been wiped, wadded up and flushed.

Robots are not very cheap, too. Mars science laboratory rover has already cost 2.5 billion.

Originally posted by Maslo
Robots are not very cheap, too. Mars science laboratory rover has already cost 2.5 billion.

But to put that in perspective ISS cost $100 billion in total and $50 billion for NASA. And what science came out of ISS? I'm sure there is some useful science, but $100 billion is a lot of money.

Originally posted by Cosmic4life
reply to post by cloudyday

 

It's a far better enterprise than the pursuit of Weapon technology to control dwindling resources.

We are a space race, we dream of it because it is our destiny, our collective memory knows that Earth is not safe.

Nature knows that Earth is not safe, so she has endowed us with the means to leave and to disperse the life born of Earth.

If we cannot do that simple thing, nature has also endowed us with the means to destroy ourselves.

Cosmic..

You mean science right?

reply to post by cloudyday


Sorry, that's just tech, emotionally empty, neutral at best. Nifty, but so what? In the end no one will get caught up in it when it stops working because it's just a machine.

It doesn't inspire like watching a man or woman in that landscape would, when human eyes are seeing subtleties the camera misses, and human voices share that with millions or billions of other humans watching a world away, praying for their safety, sharing their awe.

People connect to people in cases like that and remember they are human, not American, Iranian, German, Chinese, or whatever; suddenly the differences seem small.

I know, I experienced it when mankind first set foot on the moon. The world changed for a little while; you could feel the change in "The Force", but too soon the roboticists had their way and those feelings never got nurtured enough to spring fully to life, stillborn: infanticide by robot.

No matter how sophisticated , complex, or cute a robot is, it isn't human and it isn't alive. If robots could really inspire, why hasn't space travel developed any more than what it has? We've fallen back from the peak of our abilities, and lost most of what we attained.

Why is it that we lack even the rudimentary ability to lift our own astronauts into space, and must go begging internationally for a ride?

Some inspiration robots are.

reply to post by cloudyday


Pocket change compared the $17+ trillion we just gave the banksters, out of which how much did they pay themselves in bonuses? How much did we just blow on unnecessary wars?

Ask an amputee vet how he likes his new prosthesis. Chances are, several bits of the tech that went into it got there by way of the science and tech developed in and for the ISS.

Remember, the ISS started out crippled: it is a fraction of the size it was conceptualized and designed to be. It has done well for how stunted it is, but it was turned into a sop for those who wanted better.

At least it's a toehold.

Yes, it is a rant. Most of what you have an operate came from tecnologies produced during the space race either directly or indirectly.

Man needs to explore and he needs to grow.

maybe you should stop learning.... oh you have!

reply to post by apacheman

First, I'd eliminate the TSA and Homeland Security, both colossal wastes of money and insults to the Constitution. Then I'd wean the banks and multinational corporations off their supports, which would free up more than enough money. Hell, just eliminating TSA would enable a far bigger space program.

So it’s OK for people to bring guns and explosives on board planes? What are you thinking?

The money to support the banks is borrowed money. It’s not pocket change Washington had laying around. You would never get the population to spend that much money launching metal into orbit or beyond irrespective of possible side benefits.

Space-based manufacturing is most certainly viable under the conditions outlined previously. Solar energy and vacuum availability are free for the taking, as is a gravity-free environment. The research is mostly already done, but your equally short-sighted forbears killed it through fear of change and unwillingness to invest the a new future.

How much does a Twinkie making machine weigh? You have to launch the thing you know. People conveniently forget what it takes to build something, anything.

The typical response is “We’ll use resources from the Moon.”.

Well you have to launch and land dozers and diggers on the Moon first. Then you have to launch and land ore processing equipment. And on and on. Then there is labor. Do you think you will ever get an astronaut to work for the same wages as the average factory worker in China? Nope, not gonna happen.
Heck we still can’t get a self sufficient ISS. We still spend $16,000 to launch a gallon of water to it. They can’t process their own waste. They can’t even grow their own veggies forget about the meat.

Factories in space are just a pipe dream.