Reenergizing the human space effort. (1 Viewer)

[Danny R]

Viking 1 & 2
Galileo
Cassini
Pathfinder
TOPEX/Poseidon
Hubble Space Telescope
Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Odyssey
I'm not saying NASA hasn't done some great work. But none of it has been as inspiring as the Apollo missions. Hubble for instance, while important, just doesn't "inspire" like other missions might. After all, its just another satellite in space, and one that started out deeply flawed at that. Likewise various robotic probes to other planets, while important, just don't capture the people's hearts in a way that a MANNED expedition might.
Columbus didn't send a note in a bottle to the new world.

 

[Max Leung]

Neat discussion here.

I firmly believe that, given current space spending and any foreseeable spending, the cost of the space program is completely irrelevant. No amount of money will address the problems facing this planet unless you address the SOCIAL problems of humanity: Greed. Short-sightedness. Tribalism. Wastefulness. Unconscious bias. Mysticism. And, of course, violence.

All of the above I consider innate human traits. Culture only serves to suppress or enhance the traits, but cannot eliminate them entirely (unless you are willing to use genetic research in an effort to eradicate these traits in the human genome...an impossible task). Anyone who says culture can mold man into anything is lying. I'll side with E.O. Wilson on this point: The human genome limits the expression of culture. In other words, the variety of human cultures are vast, but not infinite.

Only now are a brave (underfunded) handful of scientists probing the limits of human behavior. Is appreciation of physical female beauty innate or learned? (Preliminary evidence suggests that it is innate) Is the taboo against widespread incest cultural or innate? There are no existing cultures that condone incest...if they did, they clearly didn't make it! Are humans polygamous or monogamous? Polygynous, actually. Is the human race the only species that wages war on itself? No. Is there a reasonable explanation for altruism that fits evolutionary theory? Yes (but beyond the scope of this topic!). Is there a reasonable explanation for a mother to drown her kids in seemingly cold-bloodedness that also fits evolutionary theory? If I said yes most people would get very angry.

The only solution to Earth's problems is to, literally, know ourselves. And we are only beginning to ask the questions and apply scientific reasoning and experiment to find the answers. Questions that were posed by Charles Darwin more than 100 years ago in his "Descent of Man", and subsequently ignored by everyone. Until now.

So, you want to save the world? Then you first must ask:

"Why do humans do what they do?"

Until then, let's go to space, and find out!

 

[Mary M S]

If your concerned for whether or not one planet can sustain human population growth.

From US Bureau of Census.

Past: 1950 World Pop. at 2,555,078,074 @ at average growth of 1.47 %

Predicted: 2050 World Pop. at 9,104,205,830 at predicted growth of 0.55 %

The US has only 1/6 of China's current population even with China's very harsh Birth Control regulations in place.

If your a man and worried about the effects of age on your body.

All due to NASA's technology: You can have an EKG. Your pacemaker is now self regulating. Your ultrasound is detailed. Your future artificial hip socket is being flo-tested and improved. Also the components of your possible man made heart valves and composite material are being developed if cloning does not work out for this organ. Who would have guessed that the laser NASA developed to measure Earths ozone level could be used to unclog arteries. And instead of multiple tubes of blood being drawn for 1 or 2 tests there are now 80 to 100 chemical analyses's that can be done on a fingerstick draw, (particularly good for you guys that faint)

And if you don't plan on having children, and you intend to die young, and really all you care about are electronic toys.

Just a few latest: Look up Visar: brand new video imaging stabilization for your computer video downloads and playback.

High-Effic RF Power Amplifier: converts DC to RD, increasing DC-to-RF efficiency dramatically reducing power consumption. (Your battery in your portable electronics will last longer)

Thin film in electro optic computer technology: using light at the speed of light, reducing heat produced by electrons moving thru transistors on electronic circuits. Resulting in faster, smaller, larger bandwidth, computer applications.

(As a added benefit the same optic technologies are slated to change how your future heart surgery is done, if your plan to die young fails.)

For guys that just like to eat: Let's see new improved tuna net technology. Grain production and handling tech. on & on & on.

Well maybe some would get more immediate satisfaction over spending the same amount of money on video tapes and the motion picture industry in America?

I personally would be happy to try and fund one space launch, by starting a nationwide lottery where one lucky 'tourist' gets to ride the shuttle once a year. I'd be thrilled to take notes on frog behavior during the ride.

I once climbed a glacier, (the closest I'll likely ever be to an out of this world experience). All the national geographics in the world do not do a glacier justice.

What I would'nt give for one look at the big blue planet from a space shuttle window.

 

[RobertR]

Curiously, I think the next real strides we will make in manned space travel will come about as a result of the privatization of access to Earth orbit. Pay close attention to the so-called X-Prize Competition. It will be interesting to see what transpires from that.

That's pretty much my take on the issue, Jack. There simply is no political incentive to do much in Space. And I think the circumstances that sent us to the moon weren't just because of the specifics of the Cold War. It was even more specific than that. Whatever else one may say about Kennedy and Johnson, they were the ONLY two presidents that had the vision to see the moon race through to its successful conclusion. The ones following them have pretty much only paid lip service to the space program more or less out of sheer inertia.

If American business finally does get to see space as profitable, then it will no longer be necessary to argue the politics or philosophy of space (except, perhaps, with the people who seem to have an intense reflexive dislike of technology in general). We'll have that great "I'm doing this because it makes me money" engine working for us.

 

[Ashley Seymour]

I'm not saying NASA hasn't done some great work. But none of it has been as inspiring as the Apollo missions. Hubble for instance, while important, just doesn't "inspire" like other missions might. After all, its just another satellite in space, and one that started out deeply flawed at that. Likewise various robotic probes to other planets, while important, just don't capture the people's hearts in a way that a MANNED expedition might.

The 60's were a decade of manned flight starting with the risky and exciting Mercury, Gemini and the bold and ennobling Apollo first step on the moon. But the followup missions seems to meet a public apathetic to the incredible accomplishments.
I disagree that the above unmanned missions don't capture the people's hearts. I remember the Mars voyager and the first images from that planet. The missions to Jupiter and Saturn and the exciting discovery of an active sulphur volcano on Io. The images from Hubble have been awe insipring and with the highpoint being the collision of Schoemaker-Levy into Jupiter.
If the arguments in this thread are representative of the publics opinion for or against manned missions to Mars then I can see why there is no effort. Why not a little discussion on some of the goals that we hope to achieve.
The Cost
Target Date
How many will go
How Long will it take
How long will they remain on and over the surface
What will be their mission
What will they bring back
What if they discover life - will they remain quaranteened on Mars or in Earth Orbit
Will the mission be straight from Earth, or from a space station
How big will the space station be
Will the space station have to be staffed to support the mission
When will there be followup missions
What will be the size and duration
How much will it cost
???????????????? for all that have been ommitted.
Charleston Heston in True Lies had a line that seems appropriate when responding to the reasons for a manned mission to Mars, "Frankly gentlemen, nothing you have said is exactly blowing my skirt up."

 

[Max Leung]

Stumbled upon this while browsing the BottomQuark headlines:
The Odyssey to Mars.

"The journey to Mars has been a challenging adventure for the 2001 Mars Odyssey team. The project began five years ago with plans for an orbiter and a lander to be launched from the west coast. Two failed Mars missions in 1999 triggered a restructuring of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, and the Odyssey mission was changed to an orbiter only launching from the east coast.
This talk focuses on how the Mars Exploration Program learned from its failures, and how the Odyssey team ultimately overcame the difficulties in delivering their spacecraft on time and on target into orbit around Mars. The presentation will describe how Odyssey is unveiling mysteries of Mars’ mineral and elemental composition, and how Odyssey fits into the broader Mars Exploration Program objective to “follow the water,” seeking to determine if life ever arose on Mars."

 

[Kirk Gunn]

Columbus didn't send a note in a bottle to the new world

Columbus' goal was not to discover a new world - he had the "I'm doing this because it makes me money" engine at work, trying to find a new water route to India.
Too bad for him it didn't make much money in his lifetime....
Privatization of Space Travel is an interesting topic, but in today's politico-economic environment, any truly private endeavour would be marred with excessive/costly government oversight. While http://www.sea-launch.com/ is interesting, it's hardly "private".
Imagine the CAFE (mileage/emission) standards on a private shuttle !!!!

 

[Julie K]

But none of it has been as inspiring as the Apollo missions.

I was deeply inspired by the Viking missions. While I remember the Apollo 11 landing, I was really too young to be deeply changed. But when Viking came along later...
Todd,
As long as you and your daughter's launch vehicle stays within its proscribed trajectory and does not veer off toward inhabited territory, I'll refrain from sending the DESTRUCT command

 

[Philip Hamm]

I generally agree with Ron-P's opinion. There is plenty of work to do here on Earth before we commit to a large scale space program. I think the "baby steps" we're taking are fine. I don't think our technology is nearly where it needs to be in order to accomplish usable (beyond research and sending sattelites up / maintaining them routinely - which IMO is a huge baby step - much more important than "Apollo") space travel.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Hey, Philip--or anyone, for that matter:

Are youfamiliar with space activist Robert Zubrin's "Mars Direct" concept for effecting a manned mission to Mars on the cheap? If NASA were to adopt a similar plan, there would be less "ammunition" for arguing against manned interplanetary travel from an economical standpoint.

Though Zubrin's "live-off-the-land" mission model involves some serious risks, one needs to put the entire matter into perspective: The notion of sending astronauts to Mars is inherently a risky matter.

We can do it all, really. NASA technology could do more for alleviating many human ills than just throwing money at entitlement programs. Space exploration is about taking the long view, while the rest of this is couched in electoral politics--which is the short view.

 

[Grant B]

I'm not saying NASA hasn't done some great work.

I have quite a few friends who worked on the HST. Lockheed built the HST. When test engineering told NASA a systems test would coost $27 Million, NASA screamed and said we don't need it.

When it became operational and out of focus (which a systems test would of caught), the first thing NASA did was point their finger and said Lockheed did it

Now that it's working properly ....Look at the great things NASA did.

I have the original presentation from Shuttle Rocket Motor Manufactuer recommending they replace the shuttles rocket motors O rings about 6 months before it went high order. NASA said it was a 'goodie' and declined it...said it was a make work project.

 

[RobertR]

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[Pascal A]

Okay, I really did want to stay out of this because I am a NASA design engineer (not a contractor), and took a substantial pay cut in the idealistic belief of doing a service to humanity so clearly I am biased, but I did just want to address this point.

Now that it's working properly ....Look at the great things NASA did.

I worked on the initial HST servicing (repair) mision, and several subsequent servicing missions, and NASA (at least in my center) works on a badgeless system. Both NASA and contractors personally invested long hours to fix HST. There are not ten of us watching a guy with a screwdriver. Lockheed, pardon the pun, did not work in a vacuum, without the technical expertise of NASA. NASA provides the concept, and because of budget constraints have had to turn over day to day operations to contractors. This isn't a result of idleness, but pragmatism.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Pascal:

Thank you!

It would be great if you would stay around in this one as long as the thread remains active.

May I ask, have you met Story Musgrave personally? His work on the first HST "repair" mission was inspiring. Musgrave is one of the few STS-era astronauts to command media attention on a scale similar to the first four classes of NASA astronauts. I think he is a heroic figure.

JB

 

[Pascal A]

Thanks, Jack. No, I haven't met Story Musgrave in person, other than the crew visits (Q&A and autographs) that he has done over the years, but he is very highly respected throughout the NASA community. To be honest, most of us felt betrayed by the administration for strong-arming him into retirement, especially after the subsequent announcement that John Glenn was selected as a (cough, cough) payload specialist on aging. Nevertheless, he handled the Glenn mission media commentaries with such diplomacy, grace, and dignity. He is definitely a class act.

 

[BrianW]

When it [the HST] became operational and out of focus (which a systems test would of caught), the first thing NASA did was point their finger and said Lockheed did it

I doubt this very much. First, the initial problem with the HST was with its primary mirror, which was not built by Lockheed. Second, absolutely no “systems test would of caught” the mirror’s flaw. That’s because there is absolutely no way the HST’s focus could have been tested prior to orbit.
The reason the HST was out of focus was because its primary mirror is too flat. And even though the problem with the HST’s primary mirror was fully anticipated during design, no amount of additional pre-launch testing would have revealed that the mirror was not the proper shape.
How could this be? The mirror was, in fact, tested and retested for proper shape and axial symmetry before being launched into space. Numerous articles were written about the mirror’s brilliant design and its amazing reflectivity across the entire optical spectrum. So why couldn’t the designers tell that the mirror was not the correct shape? Simply because the huge mirror assumes a different shape in the weightlessness of space. And yes, the designers were well aware of this fact. They intentionally designed the mirror to be excessively flat in the presence of Earth’s gravity and fully expected the mirror to “un-flatten” once it was in orbit. Very precise calculations were made with regard to the tensile strength and stress endurance of glass in order to calculate the modified gravity-laden shape, and this modified, Earth-bound shape was achieved and tested to be within very tight tolerances. In other words, the mirror was intentionally designed to be out-of-focus on the ground so that it could snap into focus once it was in orbit. So “checking the HST’s focus” prior to orbit was simply not possible, since it would have been out of focus due to the force of gravity on its structure. If it had been built to be in-focus on the ground (and therefore testable), it would have been uselessly out-of-focus in orbit.
The trouble was that nobody had ever made a piece of curved glass this big before and launched it into space. Everything we knew about the nature of glass and its structural response to weightlessness was learned from much smaller pieces. And structural engineering is based on nothing if not empirical data. We just didn’t know enough to calculate exactly how much Earth’s gravity would bend a spherical section of glass the size of a caboose. In retrospect, it seems natural to expect that the designers’ calculations would have been a little off, and as it turns out, the primary mirror did not un-flatten quite as much as they had expected.
How off were they? The mirror is just two microns too flat at its outer edge.
That’s all. Just two microns. I believe the HST's primary mirror still stands as the largest object in history to be built with such precision.
And the problem was easily corrected with secondary optics.
So not only was HST’s original near-sightedness not preventable before launch, it was easily correctable after launch. Far from being the debacle the press originally claimed it to be, HST has done more to influence our ideas on cosmology and the nature of the Universe than everything else combined since the beginning of history. I consider HST one of the greatest successes of the modern space program, and I’d hire any of the brilliant men or women who worked on its myopic primary mirror in a heartbeat.
There are plenty of debacles that have been wrought by NASA, but the HST is most certainly not one of them.

 

[Brad Porter]

And the problem was easily corrected with secondary optics.

Hey! The way you say that makes it sound like anybody could have done it. We at Ball Aerospace are quite proud of the job we did on COSTAR.
Ooops! I told myself I wasn't going to get involved in this thread.
Brad

 

[Jack Briggs]

This is an aerospace employee-friendly thread, Brad. Contribute, please!

 

[BrianW]

Brad, you’re right, of course. COSTAR brought capabilities to the HST beyond even the theoretical limits of the original design. You have every reason to be proud.
Still, I think even you’ll agree that designing and installing COSTAR was about ten thousand times easier than installing this thing would have been.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Brian, thanks for the post about the HST mirror. Back in the late 80s I used to work as an operator on a Perkin-Elmer supermini computer, and when I read about Perkin-Elmer's mirror work I was a little dismayed, as my experience with their engineering was very positive.