Let’s go back to the moon

America, Japan, China and India have all begun what the Wall Street Journal calls ‘The new race for the moon’ (1). No doubt their motives aren’t wholly pure; but it is those who attack the whole idea of lunar missions who most deserve criticism right now, for they too are in the ascendant. A popular, of-the-moment example is the new anti-capitalist movie, Moon. Describing it as a warning ‘that couldn’t be more timely’, a contributor to the influential online magazine Slate insists, simply, ‘Stay off the moon!’

One thing unites the critics of lunar exploration. Forty years after man first landed on the moon – on 20 July 1969 – they share a disdain for the grandeur of extra-terrestrial endeavour; for the scale of human ambition involved; for the very idea that human beings s

Mmm. Big sinkhole for tax dollars, if what government’s done already isn’t enough. If you’re trying to make an economic argument for it (versus a defense argument), it’s no different than any other make work program. Neat to see rockets taking off and stuff (my kids like it), but a lot more space research could be done if you didn’t have to haul those pesky humans up and back. VERY expensive to engineer for and they tend to die when things go wrong.

Just my opinion, but all of the astronauts that died in the shuttle program and before did more to hold back the exploration of space than if we’d used robotic probes. If you lose astronauts it’s a national tragedy and you have to reengineer everything. If you lose a robotic probe, it’s just another robot and a cheap one at that.

You get a bigger bang for you space exploration bucks if you don’t use people. Just sayin’.

Big sinkhole?

How many jobs did Steve Jobs create by converting the Apollo capsule computer into the Apple of his eye?

How many Dish and Direct TV systems are in operation? How many cell phones are in use?

How many GPS systems are guiding us over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house?

How many lives are saved with the new medical technology that was developed to track astronaut's health.

this stuff all came about from the funds spent in what you say is a sink hole!

Phooey!

“People connect with people. Besides people can do a lot of different things. Robots do one thing.”

Well sure people like people, no doubt about it. But I'm talkin’ about the most bang for the buck in space exploration, not PR for the taxpayers so you can get more money out of them. It's very, very expensive to haul people around compared to robots. Yeah, they can do more, but is the incremental cost worth it? I don't think so, but I'm not terribly impressed with the manned probes vs. unmanned. I just think you get more science with robots.

As to robots doing just one thing, incorrect. A probe does what it's designed to do. That may be just one thing, or it may be many things. A multitasking probe would be something like the Rover's we have on Mars now. Been there for years. Still operating (sort of), ‘cause they don't breath oxygen or eat, or have to come back. And they do lots more than one thing.

I don't really care about inspiring mankind and all of that BS. If the space research is important, then for the most part, it's done more effectively without humans. If circuses are important to the public, then obviously manned spaceflight is a higher priority.

Please don't think that I'm completely down on manned flight. It is a neat engineering achievement (expensive, but neat). You have to realize where a lot of this stuff came from. I recall that the original Space Shuttle came out of the late 50’s and early 60’s. I remember it in my grade school Weekly Reader (I think it was called something like the Dyna Soar). Well, it never met expectations for mission efficiency. Lots of delays (years) due to accidents and other problems. Not that unmanned stuff didn't have problems, you just didn't have to worry about keeping the humans alive. Much cheaper and less to engineer around and therefore easier, cheaper and faster to put a probe up.

I seem to remember you used to be able to put up 3-4 probes for the price of a manned probe, but that was a long time ago before the Shuttle had a lot of delays and became unreliable. It would be interesting to find what the current ratio is. I just remember it was always in favor of unmanned.

“Phooey”

LOL!

“How many jobs did Steve Jobs create by converting the Apollo capsule computer into the Apple of his eye? “

I don’t think I’ve ever used an Apollo computer. Lotsa’ IBM (all the way back to the 360), and lotsa’ Hollerith cards too. I can’t tell you the answer to your question, but manned space probes are not the nexus of all scientific advancement in the last 50+ years (some but not the majority).

“How many Dish and Direct TV systems are in operation?”

These sats are robots (unmanned). I’m not aware that any manned probes put these into low earth orbit (correct me if I’m wrong). The geosynchronous sats get into low earth orbit by unmanned rockets.

“How many cell phones are in use?”

Lots, but none of that stuff is in orbit. The cellphone systems of the World are market driven enterprises. They can exist quite nicely without manned space probes. Their technological development was (perhaps) only slightly dependent on the manned space program, and except for a tiny minority, they are terrestrially sighted.

“How many GPS systems are guiding us over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house?”

Lots. But again, most all of the hardware in orbit was put there by unmanned spacecraft. GPS, as you know, was and is a DOD project. It is not dependent on manned craft.

“How many lives are saved with the new medical technology that was developed to track astronaut’s health.”

Some, but you’re talking about very old technology now. Did MRI’s, or cathether based surgeries originate from manned space research? This sort of stuff is based in basic science and very terrestrial.

“this stuff all came about from the funds spent in what you say is a sink hole!”

Nope, but I do agree that much of it was/is a “sinkhole”. What money was spent may have brought some serendipitous discoveries, but directed funding in basic science and specific areas of research would have been a more efficient and responsible investment. Spending bazillions of dollars and employeeing bazillions of people is obviously going to provide some spinoff benefits, but it is not the best use for large expenditures and man-hours if more beneficial research needs are out there requiring investment dollars. The free market is far better at providing solutions to our technological needs than the manned space program ever was.

Phooey, indeed!

this stuff all came about from the funds spent in what you say is a sink hole!

No, all of that stuff came from military or commercial research and development. You do the space cause a disservice by giving NASA credit for inventing and spinning off technologies that it inherited from the military or the private sector.

NASA should be doing basic research and true cutting edge space exploration that the commercial sector and even the military can't or won't do. When NASA does this, they shine. When they get bogged down in operations and competing with the private sector, they waste tax dollars and hurt the marketplace and should be rightly chastised for doing so.

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