Re: Sickening Discussion

qed100_at_hotmail.com
Date: 01/05/05 

Date: 5 Jan 2005 03:40:15 -0800

hpywife927@yahoo.com wrote:
> Mr. Martin,
> Your "logic" is pathetic. So, in your view, robots can do better
than
> people? If memory serves, this same discussion went on during
Apollo.
> The fact is, robots cannot feel, taste, smell, nor have HUMAN
REACTIONS
> to what they find. Do you think this is a waste of money? As for
> landing a human body on Mars, we could have done so DECADES ago if
we'd
> had the foresight and determination to do so. It is people like you
> who keep shutting that project down...just like we stopped Apollo and
> allowed an ERRANT PENTAGON SATELLITE to discover water on the Moon!
In
> my opinion, that was the single-greatest embarrassment NASA has ever
> had. At the time of that news conference, I was holding a college
> astronomy textbook in my hand that SWORE there was no water on the
> Moon! So, how did 12 men miss it, and a piece of crap satellite pick
> it up? FUNDING. Why don't we get our focus back, and honor those
who
> have given their lives in the pursuit of space exploration, instead
of
> relying upon technology to do OUR work for us? NO robot will EVER
> replace the human will, spirit, or mind.

I never said that robots can replace the human or spirit. I never
advocated that I'd want to. Quite the contrary. Go back and re-read
what I said. I said(paraphrasing): "astronauts carry out others'
programs of research; astronauts operate the instruments". But lookie,
lookie here... that's what the robots are for! They are instruments,
and they are for their sponsors' programs of research. In the long run,
the data returned is ALWAYS carried back, in some fashion, to the
several billion people who are still on Earth. A probe is a probe,
whether or not a component of that probe happens to be a technician we
call an astronaut.

WE back on Earth want that data. We on Earth send the probes, with or
without a human body on board, to satisfy *OUR* human spirit, *OUR*
appetite for new insights into the character of nature. The human will,
spirit & mind are quite alive and well, right here on Earth.

And it is *OUR* human ingenuity which allows us to probe increasingly
larger regions of the planetary neighborhood in ever finer detail- by
way of machines. *WE* create them. And no astronaut has EVER done any
work in space without the machines. What? You wanted them to walk on
the Moon without even carrying their cameras? Cameras are instruments.
There are cameras onboard unmanned probes. What other things did the
Apollo crews do? Oh, yes, of course, THEY ERECTED & OPERATED MORE
INSTRUMENTS. And they did it for me and for people like me, back here
on this other planetary body, Earth.

I repeat: 99.999...9% of the entire Universe will NEVER be set foot
upon by warm bodies sent from Earth. It's just too big. Like it or not,
we are stuck with that fact, and we are stuck using our human smarts to
figure out ways to make up for that condition. The exploration of most
of the stuff in the Universe *WILL* be done exclusively by way of
telescopes mapping various bandwidths working from right here or very
near Earth. There's no other way. So, for nearly all of the world
astronauts aren't even an option.

The near planetary neighborhood? Same thing. It takes waaaayyy too long
for projectiles to travel between Earth & most of the other planets. So
astronauts are out of the question there too. But what's that you say?
You say that it's only a matter of time before technology will allow
rapid interplanetary travel? That's probably true. But it is A MATTER
OF TIME. It won't happen for a very unknown time yet to come. I'm not
willing to put off exploring the planets merely 'cause someone like you
thinks it's just not worth it without there being human bodies onboard
to operate the instruments. As is an empirical fact, those instruments
can be (and are even as I speak) operated by people... who are right
here at home. I dunno about you, but I consider myself fortunate to
have been alive in an age when this can be accomplished. And it's
utterly amazing to me that there are expeditions at this very moment to
the very edge of interstellar space: Voyagers 1 & 2. This is treasure
I'd give my left nut for.

Ok, so are there some planets that people can visit with existing
technology in a doable length of time? Yes. The Moon, Mars and some
asteroids. Am I opposed to any of these? Absolutely not. We could have
both people and robots on the Moon several times a year. Or we could
have both people and robots on Mars. But instead our space-dollars get
spent on the shuttle & ISS, doing nothing of any importance that cannot
be done way more affordably with unmanned satellites.
THIS-IS-NOT-THE-STUFF-OF-LEGEND. The current crop of astronauts &
cosmonauts are definitely not my heroes.

But if you can't see the basic equivalence of the human spirit whether
on the ground or riding the rocket, then I pity you.

-Mark Martin

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