Posted on 09/19/2007 1:41:51 PM PDT by Paul Ross
Nobel-winning boffin slams ISS, manned spaceflight
'Infantile fixation on putting people into space'
By Lewis Page, The Register, Wednesday 19th September 2007
A Nobel laureate physicist has poured scorn on human space exploration, saying "the whole manned spaceflight programme, which is so enormously expensive, has produced nothing of scientific value".
Professor Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas at Austin, co-recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physics, was speaking at a workshop in Baltimore. His remarks were reported by Space.com.
Weinberg had especially harsh words for the International Space Station (ISS), saying that it was "an orbital turkey... No important science has come out of it. I could almost say no science has come out of it".
The irascible particle physicist went on to slam astronauts in general.
"Human beings don't serve any useful function in space," he said. "They radiate heat, they're very expensive to keep alive, and unlike robotic missions they have a natural desire to come back, so that anything involving human beings is enormously expensive."
He criticised astronauts for mindlessly playing golf in space while hardworking, relatively cheap robot Mars rovers brought home the scientific bacon.
Unsurprisingly for a particles boffin, the testy prof felt that the billions poured into manned orbiting turkeys would have been better spent on a really big atom-smasher.
According to Space.com, Weinberg is still cheesed off about the 1993 cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider, a monstrous particle-punishing magnetic carousel which was to have been built in his own Texas backyard. Apparently, Congress decided to spend the cash on the ISS instead.
"Coming from Texas, that memory is really a burning one," said the embittered scientist. He added that NASA should prioritise unmanned scientific missions such as those listed under the agency's "Beyond Einstein" push rather than funnelling cash into an Apollo-style crash effort to put astronaut boots on Mars.
"NASA's budget is increasing," said Weinberg grimly, "with the increase being driven by what I see on the part of the president and the administrators of NASA as an infantile fixation on putting people into space, which has little or no scientific value".
Even as he spoke, NASA confirmed his worst fears by announcing that applications are now being taken for a new intake of astronauts, to commence training in 2009. The agency has not run a space-ace intake class since 2004, when it signed on 11 astro-rookies.
Wannabe astronauts who are undeterred by Weinberg's scorn will need a bachelor's degree in engineering, science, or maths and at least three years' experience. Historically, this has usually meant a career as a military fast-jet test pilot or an academic scientist or engineer; but nowadays NASA wants to recruit teacher astronauts too, and classroom coalface time can count.
Here at the Reg, we don't quite know what to think. The idea of manned spaceflight is frankly more appealing than just sitting here on Earth looking at the rest of the universe until the end of the world, maybe sending out robots now and again. On the other hand we're not terribly impressed with the idea of chemical rockets as the only propulsion technology for the foreseeable future, which is mainly what NASA plans on.
Maybe if the boffins got loads of cash for atom-smashers, deep space Einsteinian-physics-bender probes, etc, they might finally come up with hyperspace drives or antigravity or something. Then there could be a proper space exploration effort. It could be worth playing the long game.
Still, we here at Vulture Central come from a country that hardly puts any money at all into space projects, scientifically valuable or not. So we probably don't get a vote.
Ping
Well, the Pampers Lady definitely made me wonder if we should reevaluate.
Of course not. The ISS staff was reduced to maintenance only and the science modules are due to be launched soon. The remark is premature. Anyway, the ISS is not an orbital turkey. It's an Orbiting White Elephant.
But this wouldn't?
The scientists in this story try something equally inoccuous-sounding, but they accidentally trigger the destruction of the universe. Oops. Who knew? Sure, it's just science fiction. But very recently, any talk of tiny black holes and baby universes would have been science fiction, too.
Physicists. They think they are so smart that they know everything about everything. I think they just know a lot about physics.
LOL, that could be equally said of a lot of specialists...
BTTT
Agenda driven -- "We need what I want and not Bush's evil plans." Nowdays, anytime your don't like something link it to Bush. Who is infantile?
Maybe. If it were purely a U.S. project I would be much more happy about it.
But, still, a lot of cool photos from the crews there...
Note this NASA employee URL posting...link here
Better my money in orbit than to food stamps and Section 8 housing.
BUMP! My sentiments too.
Those are very cool photos. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that they are of negligible scientific value, just like everything else from the ISS.
To paraphrase JFK, we don't do these things because they're scientific, we do them because they're cool. Unfortunately, it's not Weinberg who needs to be reminded of this. It's NASA.
Someday we'll want to get real stuff done in space; then we'll send robots. For now, it's circuses, let's be honest.
Turned him down for a visit, eh?
Nobel-winning boffinWow, they give Nobels for being a boffin?
"NASA's budget is increasing," said Weinberg grimly, "with the increase being driven by what I see on the part of the president and the administrators of NASA as an infantile fixation on putting people into space, which has little or no scientific value"....adding, "the president, and all conservatives and Republicans, are cognitively closed, according to a scientific study from Berkeley, and we can't afford to allow them to roam around free."
So are manned nuclear subs but they're still necessary for our survival. If he thinks we're going into space only for the sake of science, he couldn't be more mistaken.
Still, his SSC should've been built and support for basic research should be increased tenfold at least, imo, especially as it concerns national defense. We're falling behind and it's going to come back to bite us there if we're not careful.
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