Will man return to the moon??

[Diche Bach]

As I said sometime ago on a topic similar to this, the problem with manned space exploration can be summed up in one word: Why?

Unmanned space exploration, which includes but are not limited to satelites, deep space probes, space telescopes, rovers, landers, impactors, surveyors, etc. can return almost all of the scientific data a manned mission might be capable of returning and then some at a substantially cheaper cost and higher safety. When unmanned space exploration is so utterly efficient and effective, why (in so far as space exploration) do we need to have a human presence in space? Besides the "flag waving" and the prestige/bragging rights associated with having a manned space program, there are unfortunately no practical reasons for having a manned space program at all.

As I've been reading the past few pages of this thread, and in particular the claim that any nations desire to send humans back to the moon is "for science," this is precisely the question that occurs to me.

I see very few scientific reasons for people to be in space at this time, beyond the international space station or a similar low Earth orbit space station. Any science that humans can do on the moon with a one-shot trip can I would think be accomplished more safely and cheaply by robots. Not only that, but robots are semi-permanent and provide data over long spans of time. Humans require air, water, food and toilets. Humans want to come home. Humans have families. Humans can die. Humans are far more expensive to 'grow' and train than robots. If a robot can answer 99% of your scientific questions or even only 94%) for 65% the cost and effectively 0% the "risk" (in terms of human welfare) then robots are the way to go.

Not only that, but what exactly do we (meaning HUMANITY) want out of space in the long-term: well-being, prosperity, knowledge, comfort, inspiration. Space can probably help us with those long-term goals, but we've got to take long-term visions for culminating the goals. Sending humans anywhere they do not 100% need to be in space at this point (and here I include with my eyebrows raised NASA's decision to send astronauts to rendezvous with an asteroid!?) does not seem to me to be contributing to the long-term vision.

Long-term we want a substantial industrial and scientific presence on the moon (an international one in which the rewards are shared by all those who participate), a place to build amazing products, including space ships with the realistic capacity to travel efficiently and rapidly to the more remote parts of the solar system (Mars, asteroids, etc.) to survey the economic and scientific prospects there as well. Until real plans are on the board, I see little reason for humans to be landing on the moon. How can a human do anything at this point on the moon that contributes to the long-term vision of providing stepping stone to expand humanities reach in the solar system that a robot cannot provide?

The only obvious motivation to send people anywhere (including NASA's intent to send people to an asteroid) seems to be propaganda.

[SargeRho]

Sending a robot does never tell you how the human body would react in this case. Human spaceflight also forces technological innovation. Every time something greater was tried, innumerable breakthroughs followed.

There are two further reasons. First is political in nature. Send a human to Mars, or to the Moon, or any other cellestial body other than Earth, and you prove that your nation's power.

The second is emotional. We *want* to go there, that is reason enough to go.

Edited August 30, 2013 by SargeRho

[lajoswinkler]

A human is vastly more useful on the Moon. It takes a lots of work to design a robot vehicle that has only a fragment of human mobility. Stuff that rovers do is something a human can do a lot more faster. A human can look around very fast and determine what's interesting to pick up and analyze. Rover needs days to do stuff that humans can do in few seconds. Rovers can't say: "Hey, mission control, I've got this weird looking boulder 50 m away, do you want me to chip a piece out of it?"

That's one of the reasons why people were sent to the Moon int he first place, from a scientific standpoint.

[Bioman222]

As I said sometime ago on a topic similar to this, the problem with manned space exploration can be summed up in one word: Why?

Unmanned space exploration, which includes but are not limited to satelites, deep space probes, space telescopes, rovers, landers, impactors, surveyors, etc. can return almost all of the scientific data a manned mission might be capable of returning and then some at a substantially cheaper cost and higher safety. When unmanned space exploration is so utterly efficient and effective, why (in so far as space exploration) do we need to have a human presence in space? Besides the "flag waving" and the prestige/bragging rights associated with having a manned space program, there are unfortunately no practical reasons for having a manned space program at all.

Science isn't about why, it's about why not!

Sorry, couldn't help that.

[King Arthur]

Sending a robot does never tell you how the human body would react in this case. Human spaceflight also forces technological innovation. Every time something greater was tried, innumerable breakthroughs followed.

There are two further reasons. First is political in nature. Send a human to Mars, or to the Moon, or any other cellestial body other than Earth, and you prove that your nation's power.

The second is emotional. We *want* to go there, that is reason enough to go.

On the other hand, the Russians have racked up substantial information on how the human body reacts to a microgravity environment (read: an astronaut from Mir still holds the world record for longest continuous space habitation, 427 days if I recall?), an amount that is more than enough to understand what happens and what can be done to address them. As far as leaving humans on the ISS/in space to "see what happens to them", we aren't really accomplishing anything new or groundbreaking anymore since we've already done it. And let's not forget the spacefaring time logged by the Space Shuttle and Skylab crews as well, they also provided much needed data in addition to Mir's that we still need to work on, rather than rehashing the same experiment.

Regarding political motivation, (un?)fortunately the US has gotten over the euphoria of having men walking on other worlds. Manned space exploration, given current technology and its growth rate, is (still!) expensive as all mighty hell even for the forseeable future and it will quickly drain a country's coffers at an unsustainable speed as the US and Russia both learned the hard way.

As for emotional, yes even I admit I want to see space travel become routine, but we need to get there in a manner that is sustainable. Unmanned space exploration is that sustainable method of exploring space and the future of space exploration until we develop the means to significantly cheapen individual rocket launches and the costs of keeping a human in space alive.

A human is vastly more useful on the Moon. It takes a lots of work to design a robot vehicle that has only a fragment of human mobility. Stuff that rovers do is something a human can do a lot more faster. A human can look around very fast and determine what's interesting to pick up and analyze. Rover needs days to do stuff that humans can do in few seconds. Rovers can't say: "Hey, mission control, I've got this weird looking boulder 50 m away, do you want me to chip a piece out of it?"

That's one of the reasons why people were sent to the Moon int he first place, from a scientific standpoint.

On the other hand, a robot requires no life support nor a human-hospitable environment. As long as the robot has a means of generating electricity (solar panels or RTGs) the robot in theory can go on forever until it meets the end of its mechanical lifespan, and assuming the robot was well-designed it will (should) be able to accomplish all primary objectives on a given mission. In short, the reduced complexity and reduced costs from not needing human life support far outweighs the speed/ad-lib benefits of having humans on the scene.

[sparty48]

I WILL be the next man on the moon.

(Straps self to model rocket)

[SpaceHole]

As I've been reading the past few pages of this thread, and in particular the claim that any nations desire to send humans back to the moon is "for science," this is precisely the question that occurs to me.

I see very few scientific reasons for people to be in space at this time, beyond the international space station or a similar low Earth orbit space station. Any science that humans can do on the moon with a one-shot trip can I would think be accomplished more safely and cheaply by robots. Not only that, but robots are semi-permanent and provide data over long spans of time. Humans require air, water, food and toilets. Humans want to come home. Humans have families. Humans can die. Humans are far more expensive to 'grow' and train than robots. If a robot can answer 99% of your scientific questions or even only 94%) for 65% the cost and effectively 0% the "risk" (in terms of human welfare) then robots are the way to go.

Not only that, but what exactly do we (meaning HUMANITY) want out of space in the long-term: well-being, prosperity, knowledge, comfort, inspiration. Space can probably help us with those long-term goals, but we've got to take long-term visions for culminating the goals. Sending humans anywhere they do not 100% need to be in space at this point (and here I include with my eyebrows raised NASA's decision to send astronauts to rendezvous with an asteroid!?) does not seem to me to be contributing to the long-term vision.

Long-term we want a substantial industrial and scientific presence on the moon (an international one in which the rewards are shared by all those who participate), a place to build amazing products, including space ships with the realistic capacity to travel efficiently and rapidly to the more remote parts of the solar system (Mars, asteroids, etc.) to survey the economic and scientific prospects there as well. Until real plans are on the board, I see little reason for humans to be landing on the moon. How can a human do anything at this point on the moon that contributes to the long-term vision of providing stepping stone to expand humanities reach in the solar system that a robot cannot provide?

The only obvious motivation to send people anywhere (including NASA's intent to send people to an asteroid) seems to be propaganda.

Actually human can do way more tasks than machines not to mention that the more complex machines get the more likely they will have technical problems they cant resolve themselves.

Also especially when it comes down to research computers simply cant do everything that easy.

Furthermore what is also pretty important is what space does to humans - you can hardly research that without humans.

And last but not least - a machine can only do what it was planned to do beforehand which limits its options greatly not to mention that humans can actually deal with new situations. (which is a pretty important thing especially once machines are so far away thate remote-control is rather delayed)

Edited August 31, 2013 by SpaceHole

[Seret]

Rovers can't say: "Hey, mission control, I've got this weird looking boulder 50 m away, do you want me to chip a piece out of it?"

Sure, they can, that's exactly how the Mars rovers work. They look around, send the images back to mission control, and the experts there decide what it should do.

That's one of the reasons why people were sent to the Moon int he first place, from a scientific standpoint.

The main reason we sent humans to the moon was because robotics was much more primitive in the 1960s. If we wanted to achieve the lunar science goals of the Apollo Programme today we could do so for a fraction of the cost using unmanned rovers, satellites and probes. This will only be moreso in the future, with robots becoming capable of far more autonomy.

Humans are very versatile, nobody's denying that. But the bottom line is that robots give you more science output for a given input, at lower cost and risk. Which is why we just don't use humans for exploration any more. Sending humans out on journeys of exploration is a tremendously romantic idea, but it just doesn't stack up in practical terms.

[SargeRho]

Sure, they can, that's exactly how the Mars rovers work. They look around, send the images back to mission control, and the experts there decide what it should do.

But that is self-contradictory. Taking images and sending them to mission control to analyze is the opposite from deciding on its own that something is intresting.

[King Arthur]

What is the end difference? In either case the boulder gets analyzed and we get new scientific data.

[Seret]

But that is self-contradictory. Taking images and sending them to mission control to analyze is the opposite from deciding on its own that something is intresting.

I'm sure robots in the future will operate much more autonomously, but right now that's the best way to do things. Best of both worlds really. The longevity, low risk, low mass and durability of a robot, with the expertise and judgement of humans backing it up.

As King Arthur says, the only way to judge the success of a space mission is by the quality and quantity of it's outputs. Machines have proved extremely successful in this regard. Faster, better, cheaper, in fact. We're able to launch missions more often, to more different places, at a lower cost. So when something does go wrong, it's not as crippling as it would be for a big, expensive, manned mission.

[lajoswinkler]

Sure, they can, that's exactly how the Mars rovers work. They look around, send the images back to mission control, and the experts there decide what it should do.

A rover is a very slow device that has to be very careful when it moves. A human is not only versatile in movement, but also has logic and abstract thoughts, being able to solve huge problems right there on the spot, and to be creative. Rover has to move slowly and scan everything from its narrow vantage point, then send it to Earth so that people could look at the photos and scratch their heads before sending a command. What rover does in a week, a human can do in mere minutes.

I do agree it's better to send rovers. I'm just pointing out they're far more inferior than humans when it comes to the speed of collecting data, and the quality of it.

There are lots of other factors that contribute to the conclusion that sending humans is not a viable option on regular basis.

The main reason we sent humans to the moon was because robotics was much more primitive in the 1960s. If we wanted to achieve the lunar science goals of the Apollo Programme today we could do so for a fraction of the cost using unmanned rovers, satellites and probes. This will only be moreso in the future, with robots becoming capable of far more autonomy.

Yes, old robots were more primitive, but I strongly disagree that Apollo's goals could be made by today's rovers. Even though there was only one geologist among people who went through basic field geology courses, there was so much data discovered, so many interesting rocks collected, so much obstacles avoided and solved that even Curiosity looks tiny compared to them.

I don't think you have an idea how much academic profit planetary geology has made because of the humans up there.

Humans are very versatile, nobody's denying that. But the bottom line is that robots give you more science output for a given input, at lower cost and risk. Which is why we just don't use humans for exploration any more. Sending humans out on journeys of exploration is a tremendously romantic idea, but it just doesn't stack up in practical terms.

Robots do not give you more science data per unit of time. They just offer lower cost and risk. Even today, nothing can replace an educated, knowledgeable person on a terrain, doing various tests in the same time, using some apparatus.

[rkman]

Robots do not give you more science data per unit of time. They just offer lower cost and risk.

You make it sound as though cost and risk are unimportant.

Even today, nothing can replace an educated, knowledgeable person on a terrain, doing various tests in the same time, using some apparatus.

A robot is a good second, at much lower cost and risk.

[Diche Bach]

I agree that robots are slower, clumsy, and perhaps prone to 'stupid' accidents. I'm reminded here of several that just plain "got stuck." Or which suffered some serious malfunction that an astronaut wouldn't have been vulnerable to.

Apart from that, I think the case is made pretty clear in the preceding few posts that they are superior as tools of science. This will only be more true as time goes on. When you consider how relatively close the moon is (virtually no communications lag eh?) I think that X-billion dollars spent on 20 unmanned missions, which could go on providing active means for data acquisition for literally _decades_ (Those antiquated Voyagers!!! OMG, built in the 1970s!!! Those marvelous guys are still out there, doing their jobs!! Its breathtaking and FAR more romantic than the fact that a few humans landed on the moon, spent a few hours and then ran home to the warmth, oxygen and green of Earth), and without any risk of human life versus X-billion spent on 2 manned missions, and WITH risks to human life . . . well it seems obvious to me, though I do not insist that anyone agree with me.

One other point: robots may be a bit slow to move around, clumsy and vulnerable to stupid accidents like getting their wheel caught on a rock or ditch that mission control just didn't happen to see from their cameras . . . but humans suffer 100 of their own foibles, which are most aptly summarized in the simple point that, humans die.

I am just as much a romantic science fiction geek as any of you, and I still get that little surge of elation when I hear Armstrong say "One small step . . ." But I just cannot buy the argument that (at this point) manned space flight can hold a candle to unmanned space flight. In 50 or 100 years when there really is more infrastructure in place, escape velocity is cheaper, life support systems are more self-sustaining and failure proof, and there really are good economic reasons for humans to be up there in the cold black awfulness of space . . . sure I bet there will come a time when it really is prudent to have people going into space, even deep space.

We just don't seem to be there yet. Lets let the engineers and technicians lead the way for a while and just marvel at the wonderful images, and other data that our machines are able to transmit back for us all to savor from the comfort of an arm chair.

Robots do not give you more science data per unit of time. They just offer lower cost and risk. Even today, nothing can replace an educated, knowledgeable person on a terrain, doing various tests in the same time, using some apparatus.

I just do not think this is true, at least not within the context of the current extraterrestrial infrastructure we have in place.

A well designed moon rover project will presumably be just as robust, versatile and resilient as any the currently ongoing probes and rovers on Mars. That means that everyday mission control will be checking in with the robots multiple times per day, and making full use of all of its capacities to maintain itself, observe its surroundings, and collect information, even to test hypotheses. Given that there is no 'rush' with a robot to get it done before the oxygen runs out, I just do not see how a human being there inplace of the robot offers anything except greater cost, greater risk, a shorter window of opportunity to perform missions, and a more limited cumulative possibility for information acquisition. Not to mention risk of a human catastrophe = VERY bad PR hit for space exploration.

Fast forward 100, 200 or so years into the future. Imagine a true "moon base" in which 20 humans can safely and comfortably live for long periods (whether self-sufficient, or somewhat dependent on resupply from Earth is slightly irrelevant). Your argument holds more water in this future context, tis true. With humans in a permanent moon base, the intuitive, qualitative and creative aspects of human eyes "on scene" could honestly be fruitful. But in a context where the humans are constrained to short EVAs and a short visit to the moons surface, that just doesn't seem to be true.

Not only that, but even once we have a moon base, a great deal of the actual 'grunt' work is likely to be done by . . . (drum roll!) ROBOTS!

What is likely to be the best way to initiate the process of building said futurisitic moon base? Sending up massive amounts of supplies to allow astronauts to spend protracted periods on the moon working as construction workers? Seems unlikely. Again, robotic automated module installers would seem to be the first few steps at least.

Clearly there is at present, and will be in future a needed symbiosis between manned and unmanned aspects, but that doesn't convince me that there are are present good reasons to put people on the moon. Particularly in the absence of a clear statement of what the specific reason for putting people on the moon IS, other than "humans are versatile."

Edited August 31, 2013 by Diche Bach

[metaphor]

A human can do much better and faster exploring than a robot, on Mars. But that's mostly due to the light-speed round trip time of several minutes. A robot that wants to have access to the incredible intuition and decision-making ability of a human has to wait for many minutes for a signal to come from Earth. That's why the rovers on Mars move at less than 0.1 miles per day and take a very long time to examine rocks. A human geologist could do in a few minutes what it takes a robot a month to do on Mars.

However, that advantage that humans have over robots is lost on the Moon. With a light round-trip time of only two seconds, a robot on the Moon could be remotely operated from a base on the Earth almost in real time. The robot would not even need any autonomy. It would only be limited by the amount of instruments put on it. You could even have something like Robonaut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robonaut) with human-like manipulation abilites be used like an avatar for a human controller on the Earth. Sure two light-seconds is still a decent amount of lag, so having humans actually on the Moon would still be an advantage, but not much of one. Humans would have a much bigger advantage over robots on Mars (or anywhere else outside the Earth-Moon system).

[leax256]

I think we will return to the Moon, and i think China will be the one to do it.

I am actually kind of expecting them to land at the Apollo 11 site.

And then when they get back they'll return the flag that was their to America.

congradulations, you just found a legimate reason for the US to return to the moon(i almost typed mun).

[SpaceHole]

I just came up with a sci-fi reason that actually makes sense:

- just imagine the difference between a machine and a human encountering for example a living "space insect" on mars - the robot probably has no means to catch it and probably would even have a hard time to film it. A human on the other hand could react to the situation.

So if you want to send another robot you would have to specialize it to do this new task and send it to mars - or finally send a human.

It takes about 253 days to get to mars + development-time of the new robot or even development of a manned mars-mission (since in this scenario we dont even invest much money into manned-space programs since we deem them ineffective)

So in the end even if the second robot or humans gets there years later chances are the thing is gone and we maybe wont have such an encounter for a while.

But there are many other scenarious where the tools on the robot are not able to perform a certain task its not designed for. Especially when it comes to terrain.

rather OT?:

I was wondering if it is more efficient to have a big base in orbit or a big base on the moon to launch and or refill future space missions from orbit?

Edited September 1, 2013 by SpaceHole

[hugix]

Sure we'll go back. The math ain't that hard. Jules Verne even did it! It is an interesting place. It is farther away than the other side of the Earth. Yet we can see it! Humans on the moon is a beautiful thing. We like spending cash on beautiful things.

And we should stop asking what it will bring us in advancement. Being on the moon and doing more than just surviving creates a whole lot of challenges which can be solved by creative thinking. And that creative thinking will solve other Earthly problems in due time. As an example. A Mars Entry is fully automated. This requires a incredible complex piece of software to control the craft. the creativeness in this piece of code can be re used in other auto pilots. You know like those in planes. Those things we use to go on vacation. Because of Curiosity I'll fly a little bit safer to my next holiday . Who would have guessed?

[Javster]

I hope so, but I doubt it at the same time.

[Morrigi]

Mars is better. More resources, an atmosphere, potential for life, etc. etc.

[Seret]

In related news:

China confirms they're sending a rover to the moon later this year.

Their plans currently allow for a manned mission to the moon as soon as 2025, so we may not have that long to wait.

[Morrigi]

Cool. New space race, anyone? That would definitely jump-start the economy.

[schoff123]

But the reality is that the space race was the proxy science and propaganda war between two superpowers; I won't be sad if the CNSA is really going to challenge NASA's position. It gives hope for bigger political concern - second Red Scare, anyone?

First, i want to say that I don't want to sound as if don't I respect your opinion. With that said, i think that a "Red Scare" is completely ridiculous. There is no way that the US would go to war with china, and vice versa. We owe China trillions, so why would they spoil that with a nasty conflict?

The only real way we (humanity) could ever have regular manned missions to the Moon and beyond would be by working together in a multinational coop (ideally). With all the cash that could be pooled together, advances in materials sciences could be made, which would allow the creation of a significantly better way to attain a LEO, which is one of the largest hurdles. Things like the Skylon will energize commercial and gov't space flight. Its mere 10 million recovery (post-flight maintenance) costs are much lower than the shuttle's, and can be relaunched two days after its last landing. Technology is the key to it all, regardless of what mode is chosen. Once you have the tech, the engineers can work their magic.

For instance, if a country really really really wanted a mass driver, it would be a probably be a hell of a lot cheaper to use semi-conductors to generate a magnetic field than and using thousands and thousands of pounds of copper to make coils. But, semi-conductor research would be needed first.

Lowering the price per kilogram with cheaper and more efficient vehicles (materials sciences), or just lowering to total amount of kilos (materials sciences) is the only way. Did i mention materials sciences?

[Omicron314]

Also related, Google is hosting a new contest, promising 20 million USD to the first company to send a probe to the Moon, land it, and have it perform various functions. I believe the deadline is 2015, so that's certainly something to be excited about.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

If no one goes back.

The I fear that the Human race is probably never going to become a multiple planet species or even ever get off the earth after the ISS.