Pessimism in Science and Industry

[todofwar]

1 minute ago, Nibb31 said:

Both pessimists and optimists will tell you that they are the realists. 

I think you need both in the end. The optimist to inspire people to throw in some money, the pessimist to point out the flaws that need fixing. 

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Good points, guys.  Again, I am FOR preliminary research.  I am against an idea that these flights are outside our capabilities.  I dont actually think we have any disagreement here.  I just want to keep human spaceflight as a goal in our minds.

Not everything is about capabilities. It can also be about resources and collective will. Ask people in the street how much they are willing to spend every week on space exploration. It simply doesn't register as a priority for enough people. 

Quote

In some circles it seems there is a growing sense that man is and always will be incapable of flight beyond LEO.  That is what bothers me. 

Why does it bother you? We can't grow wings and fly. We can't breath under water. We can't live forever and we can't all win the lottery. There are just some things that are not possible and we can absolutely learn to live with that. 

Edited December 17, 2016 by Nibb31

[GluttonyReaper]

5 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Both pessimists and optimists will tell you that they are the realists. 

Yeah, it's probably more a sliding scale than two distinct groups. Heck, it's probably more relative than anything.

2 minutes ago, todofwar said:

I think you need both in the end. The optimist to inspire people to throw in some money, the pessimist to point out the flaws that need fixing. 

Yeah, balance is a fun, fun thing. The nice thing about humans is that one person doesn't have to do everything - we're really good at grouping together, and almost working as one, in a weird, chaotic kinda way.  

[Starman4308]

Generally speaking, if things aren't done in a certain way, there's a reason for it. Genius often does not lie in proposing "how about we do X", it lies in "how do we change the underlying factors to make X possible and favorable?"

The example my dad loves the most is the very high sortie ratio achieved by the Israeli Air Force during the early part of the Six-Day War; the genius wasn't saying "have our pilots fly five or six sorties each day!", but rather "Let's give each bird a dedicated ground crew, let's get into the practice of briefing pilots still in the cockpit from the prior sortie, let's ...".

For something like BWB jetliners, I've heard the primary issues have more to do with boarding and deboarding the plane; so for that, you're probably looking at trying to figure out "how can we redesign airports to be more compatible with BWB designs, preferably without sacrificing compatibility with traditional designs, definitely without costing us more than we saved on fuel".

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

 

Damn broken forum software. 

I'd add to what what Starman wrote above is that most space cadets love to put their favorite pet solution before any problem that it might solve. 

We typically spend resources on  stuff because it solves a problem. Most of the stuff space enthusiasts advocate are solutions looking for a problem. 

Quote

 

[magnemoe]

36 minutes ago, Starman4308 said:

Generally speaking, if things aren't done in a certain way, there's a reason for it. Genius often does not lie in proposing "how about we do X", it lies in "how do we change the underlying factors to make X possible and favorable?"

The example my dad loves the most is the very high sortie ratio achieved by the Israeli Air Force during the early part of the Six-Day War; the genius wasn't saying "have our pilots fly five or six sorties each day!", but rather "Let's give each bird a dedicated ground crew, let's get into the practice of briefing pilots still in the cockpit from the prior sortie, let's ...".

For something like BWB jetliners, I've heard the primary issues have more to do with boarding and deboarding the plane; so for that, you're probably looking at trying to figure out "how can we redesign airports to be more compatible with BWB designs, preferably without sacrificing compatibility with traditional designs, definitely without costing us more than we saved on fuel".

Many issues, radical new design require lots of retooling, plane will be more expensive to build, might easy be much more expensive. Today is common that wings are build separate in its own factory, this would not work with BWB so you need to build all of the plane at once so you need totally new factories. 

Boarding could be done normally with an frontal hatch. Evacuation would be harder. 
Ground handling like loading cargo might be an issue. 
 

[todofwar]

22 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Damn broken forum software. 

I'd add to what what Starman wrote above is that most space cadets love to put their favorite pet solution before any problem that it might solve. 

We typically spend resources on  stuff because it solves a problem. Most of the stuff space enthusiasts advocate are solutions looking for a problem. 

A problem with many fields of research I'm afraid. Lots of cool shiny toys to do Science(tm), but too many people skip the whole "Is this useful for anything?" part.

[Jonfliesgoats]

Collective will to venture beyond LEO is low, as you say because we don't have a compelling reason to go.  A human presence elsewhere, especially a lasting one, offers significant but intangible benefits: survival, exploration, etc.  Tangible benefits are what motivates investment, like military advantage, commercial uses, etc.

This problem has been faced before.  Europeans simply didn't sail west (in large numbers) until economic and military conditions forced them to do so.

Still, the benefits of expansion are there.  The Italian principalities that rejected Columbus before he got funding from the Spanish were worse off for their lack of foresight.

[Jestersage]

As a computer engineer, you tend to need to be pessimist (or perceive as pessimist) so you can build the proper use case and squash all the bugs. Otherwise you will have Apple's Battery timer.

[Jonfliesgoats]

One of the reasons we need organizations like DARPA and the NSF is something todofwar put concisely.  Why do something for no perceptible benefit?  The problem is that we get huge leaps from venturing forth for no tangible benefit.  That's the role of organizations that fund research which doesn't capture the interest of industry,

Heavier than air flight faced this challenge before the First World War and after.  Like today, we depended on Orteig and FAI to set up rewards.  Militaries were only marginally interested in these planes for limited reconnaissance purposes, and it took a few years to get anything more than a few tech nerds interested in those sputtering, canvas contraptions.

Perhaps a better example coemsmfrom early experiments with electricity?  In the long term, humankind benefits from exploration.  The specific investors face dicier odds on their investments.

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, todofwar said:

A problem with many fields of research I'm afraid. Lots of cool shiny toys to do Science(tm), but too many people skip the whole "Is this useful for anything?" part.

Look at GPS, the original use was probably the least useful: to increase the accuracy then launching ICBM from submarines. 
 

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Collective will to venture beyond LEO is low, as you say because we don't have a compelling reason to go.  A human presence elsewhere, especially a lasting one, offers significant but intangible benefits: survival, exploration, etc.  Tangible benefits are what motivates investment, like military advantage, commercial uses, etc.

We've been through that before. There are no tangible benefits at this point. There might be in the future, but there are very few business cases in the space industry that don't rely on taxpayer money. 

You're a bit of a newcomer here, so I suggest reading back through some of the threads that have already covered these topics.

3 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

This problem has been faced before.  Europeans simply didn't sail west (in large numbers) until economic and military conditions forced them to do so.

Yes, but can we please steer clear of the 16th-17th-18th century colony analogies, because none of them are applicable to today's global economy or political environment, and space certainly isn't a land of plenty and promises.

3 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Still, the benefits of expansion are there.  The Italian principalities that rejected Columbus before he got funding from the Spanish were worse off for their lack of foresight.

Spain's political power collapsed under the weight of supporting its colonies and every colonial power ended up losing everything, most of the time after bloody colonial wars. Not a great return on investment after all.

[todofwar]

6 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Spain's political power collapsed under the weight of supporting its colonies and every colonial power ended up losing everything, most of the time after bloody colonial wars. Not a great return on investment after all.

To be fair, that's a matter of time scales. For a hundred years or more Spain became the most powerful and wealthy country in Europe. Then Britain essentially ruled the whole world for a couple centuries. Sure, from a modern perspective we can argue there was no decent roi long term, but the business class didn't care about the future then and they don't care now. What I will grant you is the cost is not a fair comparison. They had the ships available, they just didn't want to trust Columbus with them. We don't even have the ships. This is more akin to the first person to figure out sailing, or the first person to figure out open ocean voyaging. And even then it's not a fair comparison, because the scale up in difficulty from building a new boat to building a deep space exploration vessel is ridiculously huge. 

[Jonfliesgoats]

Fair points, guys, but I stick to my comparisons with primitive exploration.  Huge costs and risks were associated with the first European colonies in N. America.  Certainly, it was easier to chop down trees and build boats, but colonies in Greenland and N. America involved political and human risk comparable to what we see in spaceflight.  Also, we don't appreciate the difficulties of navigation before the magnetic compass, astrolabe and ship's clock.  These vessels represented huge investments by their country, and loss of a ship, say in the Swedish Navy was crippling.

Beyond the suitability of given analogies is that exploration and expansion is a vital part of human existence.  If humanity is to survive, we aren't going to stay cooped up here on Earth.  We can explore.  

I agree, however, that technology is less of a challenge to overcome than developing political and economic will to do these trillion dollar projects.

[Nibb31]

59 minutes ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

Fair points, guys, but I stick to my comparisons with primitive exploration.  Huge costs and risks were associated with the first European colonies in N. America.  Certainly, it was easier to chop down trees and build boats, but colonies in Greenland and N. America involved political and human risk comparable to what we see in spaceflight.

No they didn't. They knew that once they crossed the ocean they could live off the land with very little need for imported goods.  They could grow food locally, build homes with local material, breath the air and drink the water. They also planned on getting rich by exporting resources. 

None of that is applicable to space colonies. 

59 minutes ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

 

 

[tater]

Yeah, the comparisons to the age of exploration need to simply stop, they are not even remotely comparable. The least hospitable desert island on Earth a ship might find itself on the lee shore of is a paradise compared to anywhere outside Earth. If your argument relies on such a comparison, it fails.

Edited December 18, 2016 by tater

[tater]

A historical note to remember in thinking about exploration: oceans never separated people for lands or other people----they connected them. Sea travel was the easiest way.

[Camacha]

On 17/12/2016 at 10:01 AM, Green Baron said:

But pls. elaborate on your opinion because i am eager to learn

You pretty much prove the point made in the first post. You are overly pessimistic. With current and near future technology, going anywhere in the solar system is an engineering problem and a financial one. It is nothing that is totally infeasible. If we can send probes there within a reasonable period of time, we can send humans there. We have orbited most planets by now. The biggest challenge is getting the budget together, because that has hampered every missions since Apollo.

If we are being totally honest, Apollo got done because a nation decided to chuck as much money and (wo)man hours at the problem as was needed. Relatively, they had a much larger technical deficiency back then than we have now. They needed to invent flight computers and many other things we take for granted. We mostly know what is needed to get to Mars and if not, we have the tools to find out. All we need is a large pilo of money.

 

On 17/12/2016 at 3:44 PM, Green Baron said:

Yes, I am aware :-) And i am aware of higher cancer rates and mortality even after 60 years. I am aware of restricted zones on the former test ranges and around the sites of nuclear accidents. I see that there is a tendency among some to deny this but this ignores reality and is not helpfull in assessing the risks. Saying that it takes only weeks is wrong. The above link is just one example, search by yourselves.

It is more dangerous than normal. So what? Everything that we do that is outside our comfort and safe zone has the same effect. People are more likely to die kayaking or rock climbing than sitting on their couch. Does that mean the former are stupid and should not even be attempted? Of course not. It means you have to prepare for the worst, hope for the best and solve the rest of the problems along the way.

None of the astronauts that went to space went there because they wanted to play it safe. They knew that stuff is dangerous, yet they went in and got the job done.

[Camacha]

 

2 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

No they didn't. They knew that once they crossed the ocean they could live off the land with very little need for imported goods.  They could grow food locally, build homes with local material, breath the air and drink the water. They also planned on getting rich by exporting resources.

No they didn't. Some got lucky and ended up in good places. Some drew the short stick and went through terrible hardships or died miserable deaths. Even relatively easy journeys, like the settlement of the west of the US, has taken a huge toll on anyone attempting the journey. Most families lost one or more people and a lot had to abandon the few meagre possessions they had left. They took food and water and if anything went wrong or they miscalculated, they starved to death. Upon finally getting there, they needed to build their homes literally from the ground up.

Those were the ones that knew where they were heading. The real explorers sometimes ended up in wretched places with no food, no shelter and no water to drink. Survival was anything but guaranteed. Even if conditions were not terrible, they often died of new diseases they encountered, or of known ones that ravaged their fading bodies, as medical knowledge had a lot of questions and few answers.

Granted, they could breathe the air and space is a cruel mistress, but the roads used to explore the Earth were paved with the bodies of dead explorers.

[tater]

1 hour ago, Camacha said:

 

No they didn't. Some got lucky and ended up in good places. Some drew the short stick and went through terrible hardships or died miserable deaths. Even relatively easy journeys, like the settlement of the west of the US, has taken a huge toll on anyone attempting the journey. Most families lost one or more people and a lot had to abandon the few meagre possessions they had left. They took food and water and if anything went wrong or they miscalculated, they starved to death. Upon finally getting there, they needed to build their homes literally from the ground up.

Sea travel is almost infinitely easier than space travel. From the standpoint of surviving an arbitrarily longer period of time this is particularly true. They're barely even remotely analogous, IMO.

Building from the ground up is trivial on Earth. Ships usually had carpenters aboard, and could literally build a new sailing ship from nothing but what they found. Read up on history of the age of sail, and the ability to forage---everything---is a prime take away that always amazes me. Put the ship on the beach (violently). Scavenge the wreckage for some parts, cut down trees, and start building a new vessel.

Look at Bligh. They mutiny, and put him in a longboat---and he sails it 3600 miles to safety.

Quote

Those were the ones that knew where they were heading. The real explorers sometimes ended up in wretched places with no food, no shelter and no water to drink. Survival was anything but guaranteed. Even if conditions were not terrible, they often died of new diseases they encountered, or of known ones that ravaged their fading bodies, as medical knowledge had a lot of questions and few answers.

Granted, they could breathe the air and space is a cruel mistress, but the roads used to explore the Earth were paved with the bodies of dead explorers.

The last line is a not small detail.

Explorers might not know exactly what they were in for, and while their death rates could certainly be quite high (mostly disease, actually), everything about what they did made sense on some level. There were resources that could be economically exploited---something that Mars (a popular example) doesn't have, and will never have. People that didn't die of new diseases were largely guaranteed survival. The cost of passage on Mayflower was apparently about $1000 in current dollars. 102 passengers, so $102,000 to drop 102 people and everything they needed to survive. ITS would be dirt cheap at 1000X that cost, and they're aiming at 500,000 times that cost. Unless they get a 500,000 fold decrease in fantasy ITS launch costs, it's not comparable.

Edited December 18, 2016 by tater

[Jestersage]

15 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Spain's political power collapsed under the weight of supporting its colonies and every colonial power ended up losing everything, most of the time after bloody colonial wars. Not a great return on investment after all.

But that's just a typical cycle

• Roman Republic + Empire: 509BC to 27BC, 27BC to 476AD (about 500 years if excluding republic)
• Spanish Empire: 1492 to ~ 1800 (300 years)
• British empire: ~1500 to ~ 1945 (about 400 years)
• Chinese Empire: ~2000 years, with splits and reunion from time to time. Ming Dynasty: 276 years; Qing dynasty, 267 years

How did this thread become a talk about colonization? Thought it was about pessimism?

[Camacha]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

Building from the ground up is trivial on Earth. Ships usually had carpenters aboard, and could literally build a new sailing ship from nothing but what they found. Read up on history of the age of sail, and the ability to forage---everything---is a prime take away that always amazes me. Put the ship on the beach (violently). Scavenge the wreckage for some parts, cut down trees, and start building a new vessel.

Your view is much too narrow. I already mentioned the settlement of the west of the US. People went there by cart, taking only their most prized possessions. They prepared for years, saving food and other essentials, and sometimes still came up short, slowly fading out of life. They left their prized possessions along the trail, because their horse could not carry the weight of it any more as it grew weaker. They left their dead relatives along the way, as the food was meagre at best, there were no medical supplies or help. Sickness or injury frequently resulted in death. Upon arrival, there were no supplies. There were not even trees, so often they built houses with dirt, with nothing but their own hands.

You example is also overly optimistic. History is filled with tragic loss of life after a wreck. Sometimes death was merciful and quick, but often it was a prolonged suffering. Landing on an island with wood is a huge success and building a full ship out of it almost unheard of. For every success, there is a long list of tragedy.

We are used to an era in which travel is routine and secure. These people lived in times where going somewhere meant peril and danger. The arguments brought here do not show an underestimation of how dangerous space is. It is definitely one of the most unforgiving and dangerous environments we know, right at the top next to high pressure deep sea and active volcanic areas. However, people seem to hugely underestimate the dangers exploration used to bring. The stories of success here are those of exception, or come from times where travelling had already begun to be more routine.

Sure, going to space will be a huge challenge, but the people we send will be well fed, well funded, highly trained and educated and have every bit of knowledge and equipment we can imagine at their disposal. They will have a fair chance. Dying is a real possibility, but surviving is too.

 

4 minutes ago, tater said:

The cost of passage on Mayflower was apparently about $1000 in current dollars. 102 passengers, so $102,000 to drop 102 people and everything they needed to survive. ITS would be dirt cheap at 1000X that cost, and they're aiming at 500,000 times that cost. Unless they get a 500,000 fold decrease in fantasy ITS launch costs, it's not comparable.

The fact that you are comparing what was essentially a charter voyage with passengers to actually exploring and going somewhere for the first time says enough. People had been going to the America's for hundreds of years before that. Even so, one of their two ships had to abort the journey and return to port and the Pilgrims would likely not have survived had they not been able to steal food from the locals. They had massive trouble surviving as it was, even though their journey was much more routine than pure exploration and heading into unknowns.

[kunok]

Why every thread about space ends talking about colonization and then some post after ends being a discussion of how the US colonizations topics are not applicable?

[Camacha]

1 hour ago, kunok said:

Why every thread about space ends talking about colonization and then some post after ends being a discussion of how the US colonizations topics are not applicable?

People always feel their current time and challenges are much harder and more challenging than those humans faces historically. It is probably a combination of being the subject (even by proxy) of the strife, being more informed about the current issues and less informed about historic ones and knowing the problem to historic problems, but obviously not having any for the current ones.

[tater]

No, it's because exploration and colonization of Earth was trivial by comparison. People moving west died, sure, but they died in places where other human beings were doing just fine. Confederate troops died on the west Mesa south of Albuquerque---I can see where they were from my house. Pueblo Indians had lived nearby for many hundreds of years at least. They died over a couple weeks of exposure by leaving the river valley to escape the Union forces.

Being ill prepared in the past doesn't compare to being well prepared now or then. Well prepared exploration and colonization of earth was trivial. Most died to disease, not deprivation. In the 1800s half the Europeans going to the Caribbean died of disease (say French troops during the Haitian revolution). 

Its not even remotely comparable. Heck death rates in general were higher so a few more dead was no big deal.