costs
- From: "Brian Gaff" <briang1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 07:24:06 GMT
Seems to me that countries grapple with the costs of sending people and to
some extent, other craft into space for anything but boring commercial uses.
However, a look back at the history of humans shows that we have always
explored and yet in almost all cases, there was no known pay off at the end
of it. Often there was none, but sometimes there was of course.
So, we wrestle with the 'why spend money to arse about in space and maybe
lose lives' syndrome.
The reason is, there is no reason other than we seem to need to do it. Its
in our make up. Should not this be seen as a good enough reason? OK, so the
Shuttle costs a bomb and indeed so will any human transportation system with
its, or better capabilities, In real terms though, compared with money
wasted on stupid arms schemes, and over administration inefficiencies, its
pretty cheap per person per year.
So I suspect that Orion will not be great, as its just another bit of tin
can technology. Maybe after seeing how humans need to be able to go hands on
to fix stuff out in space, some enterprising person will find a way to get
this sort of technology out to old satellites to either bring them back or
fix them, cutting the debris problem over time.
It also of course, shows how poor we still are at making systems that last a
significant time in the alien environment. You will need to be damn sure of
your repair capabilities if you intend to live on Mars!
Brian
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