Re: Space exploration for the rest of us

jonathan wrote:
"Frank Glover" <starr176@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:EBkTg.50848$uH6.32073@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

jonathan wrote:



Most of us will be dead by the time a human sets foot on
Mars.


Are you suggesting the collapse of civilization?




No, Nasa guesses some twenty years for the moon, and
another twenty for mars. I think that's optimistic.

Mainly because the polls show that the American people
don't support spending money for either goal. So I think
it's a pipe dream to think we'll even see people walking
the moon inside of fifty years. Let alone mars.




> And when they get, they find the same thing

the rovers are finding now.


So land somewhere else. (Although Apollo 12 showed there's even
value in going where a probe's already been.)

Oh, are you suggesting the surface of Mars (or even the Moon) is so
uniform, that what existing landers and rovers have found is all there
is to find?



Before Nasa goes spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer
money, they need to show what they will find that is of
use to the taxpayers. Debate after debate has ended
in the same way.....they can't justify either mission.

So tell me now, what is on the moon that will improve
my life in any tangible way? And I mean improve my
standard of living, or quality of life...etc. No guesses, no
speculation, no vivid dreams of maybe's, but exactly
what they'll find and exactly how that has value.

If you want the money show me what's in it for me.
For the American people.

You can't. So why do you expect to get the money?
Even a begginner in the political sciences can see this
mission is a joint venture between the big contractors
and the administration designed to fleece the taxpayers
and nothing else. A great big money grab, a scheme
with no lasting value or return for the American people.

The American people are not idiots, they'll see right through
the disgusting attempt to enrich a handful at Lockheed and
a few insiders at the expense of the taxpayers and at the
expense of our future. As our research dollars into future
problems and needs are piddled down the tubes on
a completely falacious mission to kick around some
moon dust.

I'm sorry, but even an idiot can see this mission is a
sick joke on the American people, the only ones that
can't are those whose eyes are blinded by childish
dreams of adventure and glory.



Slow down, Jonathan. Don't you see that those exact same arguments could be used against robotic exploration, as well? That it may be *realtively* cheaper doesn't mean that the public won't ask those same questions. You're willing tolet a slice of your tax dollar be used on probes to Mars? Guess what? So am I. (see the quote below my signature)

But we aren't everybody.

Remember (and I never let myself forget), there's an entire category of people who pay taxes and don't care about *any* of this. (Besides, there's a good chance that a LockMart product would be launching *your* preferred payload, too. And if we could launch 'X' number of them, for the cost of one shuttle launch, and the money were to re-allocated in that manner...they'll still make signifigant money on it. Nobody rides for free, it's just a matter of how much.)

That's why I consider cheaper access to LEO the first step in doing *anything* (It's not been described as 'Halfway to Anywhere' for nothing) in space. (And it's a large part of what *I* don't like about the proposed archetecture. It gets us to the Moon, but without something that does what the shuttle was *supposed* to do.)

I often liken the preferred Moonbase situation to what Antarctic exploration is today. That activity stays under the radar, so to speak, partly because each time a plane or ship geos there in support of any of the Antarctic bases (with hardly an automated research device in sight, save for human-placed, and occasionally tended, but otherwise left alone environmental monitoring devices) it isn't a hign-profile, billion-dollar event. They just load passengers and cargo, and go.

Once you have the orbital equivalent of that (and like ships and aircraft, they'll be used for assorted other non-science purposees as well), it's a much simpler matter to stage, check out, assemble in LEO and sned on its way, almost as many manned or unmanned probes as you want. It's *not* as simple as 'having JPL build it, and launch it on an existing rocket.'

Until then, *anything* we launch is going to be somewhat of a nail-biting launch on an expendable vehicle that's flying for the first time, every time. That limitation of launch costs and inability to do orbital assembly and check-out constrains a lot of what humans *or* planetary probes can do. Once you have it, it's easier to design a more robust, and standard set of instrument buses for less than the highly weigh and volume limited machines we have to use now.

These guys can tell you something about low-cost satellite design...

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/AboutAmsat/amsat_history.php

http://www.arrl.org/ARISS/

...but they typically can only get an occasional free ride on someone else's launch.



Then why are we continuing to send probes at all?

If not, if there's more to be learned, then don't presume to know
what a human crew will or won't find.



Because we can find out what we need or want to know from
robotic missions quickly and cheaply compared to manned
missions. I want to know all about mars, why in the flippin
world would I prefer to wait forty, or more likey sixty, years for a
manned mission to mars when the next gen rovers could tell me
just as much, I'll give you almost as much, in less than.........five years.


A: You can't know that it would take five years (how long have we been sending probes there already?). and largely because of...

B: Who can possibly know how long it wil take to know 'all about' Mars (or any other celestial object of interest), no matter how many robots or humans go there. We can't even say that about Earth, yet.


"Oh but a human could move around the surface faster and
make better decision"

Pahlease, the can't if they're not on the surface for another
flippin fifty or sixty years ....now can they?


That it would take that long is *your* assumption. Not mine (and I've said why), nor is it that of many others on this newsgroup.




--

Frank

You know what to remove to reply...

Check out my web page: http://www.geocities.com/stardolphin1/link2.htm

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit."
- Stephen Hawking
.

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