Posted on 09/25/2005 6:45:25 AM PDT by KevinDavis
NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin met last week with reporters and editors at The Post. Here are some of the questions and answers:
What can humans learn in space that robots couldn't?
The thing that you can learn with humans in scientific enterprises are all of the things that you didn't send the robot to find out. With a human you're doing the opportunistic plan, the uncorrelated observation. You know, you see this over here and that over there, and you put them together.
When you know what question you want to ask and what measurement you want to make, it's almost always to your advantage to do that robotically or, at most, use the human to put the thing in place. There's no question about it. When you don't know what you don't know, when you don't know what the questions are, we do very poorly at attempting to figure out what those questions ought to be by using robots.
But the goal isn't just scientific exploration . . . it's also about extending the range of human habitat out from Earth into the solar system as we go forward in time. . . . In the long run a single-planet species will not survive. We have ample evidence of that . . . [Species have] been wiped out in mass extinctions on an average of every 30 million years.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Humans "notice" things and can make split second decisions based on constantly changing variables.
Reminds me of an early sci-fi program on TV years ago.
Beings from another planet came to Earth and invited all to come and visit their planet and were in the process of taking people to do just that, in fact they had taken people ther for months.
Well someone finially translated a book they had given us titled, "How to Serve Man", it was a cookbook....
You mean cripple space exploration and human expansion so we can wait for the inevitable on the planet?
Excellent! When is NASA gonna develop terraforming protocols for Mars & Venus??
"It all boils down to "we should spend this money, and cripple science and exploration and innovation for the next generation-- as we did to OUR generation, because a few boys and their fanboys crave a cool ride.""
Nonsense.
See the NASA inspired PRIVATE efforts described at: http://www.heinleinprize.com/index.htm
bump
Want to impress me Mr. Nasa?
First show me a cheap way to deliver groceries and pick up the trash from the Space Station.
Quit thinking so big - show us you do something small and cheap, earn our respect again - then propose something grand.
I must confess - I'm a little tired of NASA's weekly grand plans.
He's nuts.
I fear, however, that Rutan and his toadies have jumped the shark. People are starting to notice that even if Rutan succeeds in what he want in the way of tourism--that it'll be the same dreary rides as with the Shuttle. I'd love for the frivolous pilots to get what they want--thrills and glory and bragging rights in the pilot's lounge--and let the engineers expore space.
"Deep Impact" went 200M miles into space. It struck an object going 100K per hour with an object going 18K miles per hour. It returned photos and new knowledge about the behavior of solar system inhabitants with no need to cater to the safety and egos of pilots.
It is crazy to believe that we can do any significant human space travel before we fully exploit the potential of robotics. It is the robots who will have to lead the way, or we will never be able to go.
But the dizzy pilots are too selfish to allow the focus to ever drift away from them, wonderful them. Pilots stopped space exploration in the seventies, and they are determined to continue crippling it in the name of their overriding and stunningly SELFISH agenda. My ride. Mine, mine.
If your goal is a bloated government agency that spends pork money, then he's doing a great job.
We have the opportunity now to replace the shuttle with a genuine launcher, but they've instead gone backwards about 40 years.
Watching Apollo V1.0 on DVD would be more enjoyable than spending hundreds of billions recreating it as Apollo V2.0
Damn straight! I read replies to this message and marvel. Is this the same country that dispatched the Lewis and Clarke expedition? That went to the Moon in less than 10 years? That purchased the Louisiana Territory, the Southwest, and Alaska? Great nations and cultures EXPLORE and COLONIZE. Mike Griffin understands the big picture and the dream. Ad Astra Per Aspera!
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