ISS service extended!

[Klingon Admiral]

The best, speak easiest, solution to overpopulation is not going off-world, but killing some fellows. Humans have proven to be very, very good at killing other humans.

[crazyewok]

The best, speak easiest, solution to overpopulation is not going off-world, but killing some fellows.

Well you first then.

If your going to suggest it at least do the honrable thing and go first to set the example. To propose genicde and not go with your victims make one no worse than Hitler, Stalin. Pol potts and every other maniac obessed with killing large numbers of people.

Edited January 10, 2014 by crazyewok

[Nibb31]

Contraception isn't genocide.

And no, we don't know what propulsion technology we will have in 100 years, but it is quite possible that we will still be using chemical rockets to get to orbit. We have been using them successfully for 60 years and after all, we are still using combustion engines from over 100 years ago for most of our transportation.

[crazyewok]

Contraception isn't genocide.

AWe have been using them successfully for 60 years and after all, we are still using combustion engines from over 100 years ago for most of our transportation.

Whether you like it or not nuclear is still a option. Unpopular due to political reason but still a option and could do a damed lot more than chem rockets. But if push came to shove it there. And unless you can give me some SCIENTIFIC proof it wont work and that all the research done on it is bunk then the its there like a elephant in the room, a grump old "it wont work" wont cut it unless you can back it.

[Klingon Admiral]

Or like xkcd put it:

"There have got to be other ways to go to space."

- "Believe it or not, this is the least crazy way anyone has come up with."

http://xkcd.com/1110/

[crazyewok]

Or like xkcd put it:

"There have got to be other ways to go to space."

- "Believe it or not, this is the least crazy way anyone has come up with."

http://xkcd.com/1110/

Actualy I agree with you there lighter than air ships are a intresting area of research. You seen the lockheed Martin concepts? They had some really good ideas.

[Ralathon]

Whether you like it or not nuclear is still a option. Unpopular due to political reason but still a option and could do a damed lot more than chem rockets. But if push came to shove it there. And unless you can give me some SCIENTIFIC proof it wont work and that all the research done on it is bunk then the its there like a elephant in the room, a grump old "it wont work" wont cut it unless you can back it.

He isn't saying it won't work. There is plenty of technology that looks great on paper yet never gets used. The perception of the public and the whims of the market are vastly more important to decide the fate of a technology than some mathematical stats. Look at the Concorde for example; we could do all these cool things to get people across the atlantic in record times, but we couldn't do it while turning a profit so it got cancelled.

Sure, if you manage to get a orion drive past funding and legalization you have a craft that could send hundreds of tonnes wherever you want. But the only commercially viable space industry is earth orbit and the payload only weighs a few tonnes max. There simply isn't a market for them and I doubt it'll develop since the nuclear orion launches are still prohibitively expensive. You thought LH2 was expensive as fuel? Try Uranium...

My guess is that we'll stick with chemical rockets. I don't know if it'll tend towards a reusable system (Falcon) or cutting costs via mass production (Sojuz), but I doubt they'll be replaced anytime soon. When they do get replaced it is likely by to some orbital tether system (Skyhook or even a Space Elevator).

[crazyewok]

Sure, if you manage to get a orion drive past funding and legalization you have a craft that could send hundreds of tonnes wherever you want. But the only commercially viable space industry is earth orbit and the payload only weighs a few tonnes max. There simply isn't a market for them and I doubt it'll develop since the nuclear orion launches are still prohibitively expensive. You thought LH2 was expensive as fuel? Try Uranium...

Well that a whole topic of debate. The reasons why refined Uranium and plutonium are expensive is cause they are purposely kept expensive for security concerns as mass production of cheap refined Uranium and plutonium would make nuke making easier. Though the country's the USA didn't want to get bomb have....so that may be a non issue now. Anyway from the books and papers I was reading they got the amount of fission material down to very low and manageable amounts, the problem again being security. As for the need? Well you will get a situation of once the capability to launch huge payloads appears a market will as the resources of NEO and solar system planets suddenly becomes very very affordable. I think one estimate during the project was 5 cents a pound once it was all set up.

Potentially you could just remove the fission material anyway and have a fusion pulse craft. I mean you can very well ignite deuterium or tritium now with laser, amateurs are doing it DIY at home. The problem is sustained fusion as sustaining the reaction burns the reactor out, but with pulse propulsion you don't need to sustain it as you are meant to do it in bursts. So that may be a option, one at least worth looking at anyway.

At the end of the day its only poltical will and safety concerns holding things back. And if the world gets desprate for resources in a century or so then the safety concerns dont become a issue if people are dieing even in the west from poverty. And any IF a pure fusion drive was possible then saftey not going to be a issue.

[mdatspace]

Manned saturn yes but manned Jupiter no thats one planet we wont be able to get near due to the intense radiation.

Why even go to Saturn? Long travel times, Gravity well, and simply put Saturns moons have no resources that main-belt asteroids, the Moon and NEOs do not.

Like NASAFanboy said, Callisto is plausible(Maybe even Ganymede).

[Klingon Admiral]

All the countries that have the bomb despite the USA not wanting them to have one are/were allies of either China and/or Russia.

And I would be really uncomfortable with some nation setting of a bunch of nukes in the atmosphere. And from exactly where would you want to start an orion-powered craft? Nukes are not known to leave their ground zero intact.

And the west falling in poverty ... not gonna happen.

[crazyewok]

All the countries that have the bomb despite the USA not wanting them to have one are/were allies of either China and/or Russia.

.

And ? They have them now doesnt matter who they are allies.

And I would be really uncomfortable with some nation setting of a bunch of nukes in the atmosphere. And from exactly where would you want to start an orion-powered craft? Nukes are not known to leave their ground zero intact.

Plan was Nevada desert nuclear test site or later on I think it was a barge in the the middle of the pacific with a reinforced steel bottom to reduce fallout. They wernt exactly going to launch it over new york!

And the west falling in poverty ... not gonna happen.

wow you really beleive that? You know how close we came to great depression 2.0 a few years ago?

[DerekL1963]

Probes FTW. Humans suck at space exploration.

Humans suck at exploration? Since when? What Spirit and Curiosity accomplished in years of roving around would have been the work of a couple of days by human geologists. It literally took the MER rovers years to beat the distance collectively covered by the Lunar Rovers in less than a week. (There's an anecdote in Steve Squyres book about photographing all sides of a rock formation the size of a baseball - it took a week. Even a spacesuited human could have done it in ten minutes.) I'll give and grant robots excel at the mindless stuff, like recording the value from a sensor every couple of seconds or taking picture after picture after picture... But the stuff that takes intelligence and/or decision making skills and/or dexterity? Robots aren't even close.

[Nibb31]

Humans suck at exploration? Since when? What Spirit and Curiosity accomplished in years of roving around would have been the work of a couple of days by human geologists.

Yes, but at what cost ? And what is the actual scientific value of collecting data in days instead of years? For climate or sismic studies, it is actually more valuable to have years worth of data than a couple of weeks or months. For geological studies, there isn't much urgency that requires data to be collected faster than robots can. It's not like the rocks are going any where and the actual science work will still be done on Earth, where teams of hundreds of scientists can analyze the data.

Humans are limited by range, stay duration, and require tons of equipment just to keep them alive. A manned expedition is limited to the immediate surroundings of the lander/base, whereas you can cover the whole planet with a swarm of robots for a fraction of the cost.

But the stuff that takes intelligence and/or decision making skills and/or dexterity? Robots aren't even close.

Yes, but they are getting better. The next generation of exploration robots might well be as agile as the ones from Boston Dynamics. AI is only going to get smarter.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Nibb31

[Ralathon]

Humans suck at exploration? Since when? What Spirit and Curiosity accomplished in years of roving around would have been the work of a couple of days by human geologists. It literally took the MER rovers years to beat the distance collectively covered by the Lunar Rovers in less than a week. (There's an anecdote in Steve Squyres book about photographing all sides of a rock formation the size of a baseball - it took a week. Even a spacesuited human could have done it in ten minutes.) I'll give and grant robots excel at the mindless stuff, like recording the value from a sensor every couple of seconds or taking picture after picture after picture... But the stuff that takes intelligence and/or decision making skills and/or dexterity? Robots aren't even close.

Sure, if you measure efficiency as time consumption humans are going to beat the bots. But probes don't need food and water. They don't get bored. They don't require sleep and they don't mind missions that take decades. If you calculate all that through you come to the conclusion that the apollo program funding could have been used for so much more science if they went with unmanned probes. Apollo cost about 100 billion in inflation adjusted dollars. A flagship mission like Curiosity costs around 4 billion. Sure it is slower, but in terms of resources it is far more efficient.

[Klingon Admiral]

Isn't MSL just a mere 2.5 billion? Cassini-Huygens, which is probably one of the most scientifically valuable missions ever undertaken in any field, stands at about 3.2bn US$ if I am informed correctly.

[Seret]

Humans suck at exploration? Since when?

Since 1972, the last time a human went beyond Earth's orbit. Human's aren't well adapted to the environment of space, machines are.

What Spirit and Curiosity accomplished in years of roving around would have been the work of a couple of days by human geologists.

Yes, but for the cost of those missions you'd never get a manned mission there.

Space has moved on from the early days. It's no longer technology push, it's science pull. Space exploration missions aren't judged on the number of flags they wave any more, but on the quality of science output. Probes can generate more output (science) for the given input (mostly money). Probe missions are quicker and cheaper, so are more likely to happen than big monolithic manned mega-missions. They're less risky, and are allowed to fail. That means they're more likely to be funded, more likely to succeed, and more likely to produce useful science.They're the core of the "faster, cheaper, better" revolution in space affairs that space agencies have undergone.

The world's space agencies have voted for probe solutions to everything they've done for 40 years. Manned spaceflight is still worth researching, but it's a prohibitively expensive, risky and difficult way to do exploration. Manned spaceflight's main role is to research how humans can live and work in space, but long range, long duration exploration is a job for a machine.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Seret

[DerekL1963]

Space has moved on from the early days. It's no longer technology push, it's science pull. Space exploration missions aren't judged on the number of flags they wave any more, but on the quality of science output. Probes can generate more output (science) for the given input (mostly money)

It's actually quite amusing - the original charge I replied to was "humans suck at exploring". But after showing the fallacy of that.... the replies are not ways in which humans suck and robots are better but mostly "mooommmmy! ROBOTS ARE CHEAPER". Something I never debated. "Sucks at something" is not the same as "is more expensive than something", so please stay with the program.

Sure, if you measure efficiency as time consumption humans are going to beat the bots.

I didn't mention efficiency at all - I addressed capabilities, of which some nebulous measure of 'efficiency' (which is often handwaved around but never defined) is only a small part. Humans can do more, faster than robots can. That's a stone cold "the sun rises in the East and sets in the West" level fact. Yes, they're more costly but as with anything else you get what you pay for. (And the 'advanced robotics' and 'AI" someone was handwaving about... years to decades away. Let's stick to reality rather than hopeful handwaving of what might happen in the misty future.) A dinghy is cheaper but less capable than a powerboat, a subcompact is cheaper but less capable than a pickup truck - and nobody ever confuses them. It's only in discussions of space exploration that people absolutely insist on confusing them and acting as though they were interchangeable solely on the basis of cost.

But probes don't need food and water. They don't get bored. They don't require sleep and they don't mind missions that take decades.

And when something breaks, it's easily game over. And they can't adapt to changing situations. And they sit at the end of many minutes of time delay. And they have a very limited field of vision. And... Everyone always remembers the drawbacks of humans, and the advantages of probes... but somehow they can't possibly bring themselves to imagine any of the advantages of humans and the disadvantages of probes.

If you calculate all that through you come to the conclusion that the apollo program funding could have been used for so much more science if they went with unmanned probes. Apollo cost about 100 billion in inflation adjusted dollars. A flagship mission like Curiosity costs around 4 billion.

No, that's not certain conclusion at all when you look at the whole picture. Doubly so when you consider the technology of the 1960's. Triply so when you consider the number of discoveries made by the astronauts curiosity causing them to look around and investigate deeper. (Something they could do because they could take two minutes and look on the other side of that rock or underneath that other rock.) Quadruply so when you consider how many missions had failures that were over come by humans on the scene (12's electrical fault and 14's landing radar fault come to mind.) Etc... etc...

[Kryten]

It's actually quite amusing - the original charge I replied to was "humans suck at exploring". But after showing the fallacy of that.... the replies are not ways in which humans suck and robots are better but mostly "mooommmmy! ROBOTS ARE CHEAPER". Something I never debated. "Sucks at something" is not the same as "is more expensive than something", so please stay with the program.

If something is so expensive as to be pretty much impossible to actually fund, it sucks; and that does apply to human exploration in the vast majority of the solar system.

[kiwiak]

. Probes can generate more output (science) for the given input (mostly money).

So, if you had enough money to send manned mars mission, you woudl instead send 100 probes for that sum?

Well thats logical, because overally that woudl generate "more science". But what if there are some things that (right now, and in predictable future) only humans can o, and even sending 1000000 robots wont help achive that?

[Nibb31]

The point is, we dont have enough money to send a manned Mars mission, and we probably won't for any foreseeable future.

But we can afford to send robotic probes every couple of years.

[Klingon Admiral]

Let's consider something for a second:

Nature needed about 500 to 550 million years to advance from simple single-cellular lifeforms to a species which has the capabilities to muse about the sense of existence and send craft to worlds millions of miles away.

Probes have advanced from simple unguided ships that weren't capable of doing much more than sending a simple signal back to Earth to semi-autonomous science platforms.

[Seret]

So, if you had enough money to send manned mars mission, you woudl instead send 100 probes for that sum?

Depends what your objective is. If it's something that can be done by a probe, it can probably be done cheaper and with less risk. There are things that can be done well by humans, but the overheads in weight and equipment and the restrictions on the flight profile mean it's going to be very, very unusual to choose a manned flight for exploration. In practical terms humans can only operate efficiently at short range from Earth.

Heck, even in Earth orbit machines often do the job better. Just look at the early days of orbital reconnaisance. It seems quaint and funny that at one point they were messing about with manned recce sats. We've got used to the idea that the spy sats are robots, as they clearly do a better job than a human would.

Well thats logical, because overally that woudl generate "more science". But what if there are some things that (right now, and in predictable future) only humans can o, and even sending 1000000 robots wont help achive that?

Then if you wanted to fund that objective, you'd send a human. Look, I'm not anti manned spaceflight per se. It's just that you have to be realistic about the actual obstacles it faces. I'm sure space agencies would have been sending people on exploration missions if it was cheaper, easier, and safer, but it isn't.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Seret

[Wahgineer]

You guys realize that a spacecraft designed to travel Mars could be used multiple times over, lowering the cost (all you need to launch back up is fuel, which is a bit cheaper than launching up an entirely new ship)? And like many have pointed out, humans have many qualities that make them better than robots: self repairing, quick reaction times, precise decision making capabilities, extremely adaptable, multipurpose, can be retrieved to be reused as many times as you want, compact memory storage (2.5 petabytes in an object the size of a grapefruit), etc. Also, they have a natural curiosity that no machine can presently replicate.

[Nibb31]

Space refueling and reusable space-based vehicles are something that still need to be developed.

Restartable engines are not a trivial thing to make. Restartable engines that can be reliable after several months of interplanetary transit are harder. Restartable engines that are man-rated, and can be reused, tested and serviced in space, over several years and multiple missions are really hard. Although it's not impossible, the technology is not available yet.

If we were to design a reusable ferry vehicle, the first iterations would most likely be limited to a reusable hab/supply/power module with an expendable propulsion module (tank+engines).

[Winter Man]

Let's consider something for a second:

Nature needed about 500 to 550 million years to advance from simple single-cellular lifeforms to a species which has the capabilities to muse about the sense of existence and send craft to worlds millions of miles away.

Probes have advanced from simple unguided ships that weren't capable of doing much more than sending a simple signal back to Earth to semi-autonomous science platforms.

Because we, the product of said half a billion years of evolution, improved them ourselves. Consider this: Send a robot, it can break and you've wasted an awful lot of money. Send a human and he can fix it. Sure, the human can break, but send enough humans and you've got yourself a self-repairing population that can build more of your precious probes in a lower gravity well. High initial cost, low running cost once established. Same as any high-risk startup. That would be my argument, at least.