Re: Barack Obama Publishes His Space Policy

Michael Gallagher wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:10:27 +0100, jacob navia <jacob@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Humans have no place in deep space
as I have demonstrated in this forum several times. The problem of
radiation shielding, tolerance for zero G, and (above all)
the development of space hardware for life support that offers
100 reliability for long periods of time (3-4 years).


None of which are show stoppers. Once upon a time, we wondered if
astronauts could survive a round trip to the Moon. The could and did.
Deep space has its challenges. But they can be overcome.



I didn't say they can't be overcome. Until they ARE overcome however,
humans can't go into deep space unless they want to commit suicide.

Of course deep space is not the moon, a mere 300 000 Km away and a few
days from earth. I am speaking about Mars, for instance, where the
round trip is several YEARS, i.e. 2-3 orders of magnitude longer than
a trip to the moon.

But even if it is possible to send humans to the moon, progress in
robotics and computers make such a trip unnecessary since we can
travel around in the moon using robots much cheaper than going
in person.

Humans can't survive in the moon for longer periods (3-4 weeks or
more) if they have no radiation shielding. BEFORE humans go to
the moon they need to build the moon station using robots, THEN,
longer trips to the moon are possible.

Radio delay to the moon is just 1 second, short enough to make
very easy driving a robot there. Mars is between 600-1200
light seconds away, making a round trip of 1200-2400 seconds
what makes driving a robot possible but more difficult.

My point is: robotic missions allows us to explore NOW, and
develop the technology to enable the trips to space by humans
LATER.

--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32
.

Relevant Pages

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