« Ultimate Blogs | Main | Gender Based Taxation » Differences!18 Feb 2008 09:30 am Policy contrasts between the Democratic contenders have sometimes seemed rare, but here's a couple: Clinton was more enthusiastic than Obama about human space travel and domestic oil production when the Democratic presidential candidates conducted separate telephone conferences with the Houston Chronicle editorial board. Advantage, Obama! Though Clinton is clearly taking the more Texas-friendly line here. Comments (67)
Ah, Matthew. Space, the final frontier. But wait a second. Didn't we do that 40 years already? Same old, same old from the Clintons again. Nothing original at all. If you need human space travel, just watch a episode of B5! And who needs domestic oil production when our good friends the Saudis are willing to sell it to us at a cheap price? LOL. 
I guess there really is a difference, maybe a generational difference, in viewpoint, here. To this old codger Space Travel is inspiring...(surely Barack's inspirational hero JFK inspired a lot of people with it) and increasing domestic oil production might be one of the many factors in going towards oil independence. So exactly what is wrong with either? And why would you be happy with someone who doesn't want to increase domestic oil independence and isn't the least bit inspired by the thought of broaching the final frontier?
I suppose a manned mission to Mars is too much to hope for?
Barry: Space travel costs billions and to what end? Lefty huggers of trees aren't exactly jumping up and down at the prospects of Anwar drilling, new refinery building, or increased offshore production. Have you been smoking your Grandson's Canadian redbud again?
Human space exploration achieved its purpose in the 60s of massively boosting science education and research, but that's because there was a cold war on. Does Clinton really think it will have the same effect now? All the interesting and productive science is being done with unmanned missions. Obviously you need to maintain some manned capacity for repairs and so on, but it absolutely shouldn't be the focus.
So she's enthusiastic about domestic oil production. What does that mean? "Clinton said her White House agenda would include environmentally friendly policies that would create millions of jobs. . . .She said she voted for legislation to expand oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico because she backs such projects that have local support and are environmentally sound." Yeah, and I have a plan to solve the energy crisis by opening a nuclear plant next to Malibu, provided it gets local support and is environmentally sound.
Sputnik? Seriously? That's a wing-nut's wet dream.
Sure space travel is inspiring, but we've accomplished all we can with human payload given fuel constraints. When people see just the price tag for getting enough juice to Mars to get the astronauts home, they'll flip. As it is, the human crew on ISS doesn't do much, and we can barely get the shuttle up without ripping its heat shield off. The answer of course is unmanned satellites or projectiles that can actually do science. But aside from pretty pictures from Hubble, those don't inspire much... How about we start repairing roads and bridges before we throw money at outer space?
Space travel costs billions and to what end? REG: Yes, all right. But apart from reliable weather forecasts, perfect navigation, cheap worldwide phone services, search and rescue, environmental imaging, forest fire monitoring, arms reduction verification, sixty-channel television, discovering the origin of the Earth and Moon, and vastly increasing our knowledge of the solar system and the rest of the Universe, what has space travel ever done for us?
"Policy contrasts between the Democratic contenders have sometimes seemed rare" Quite true, if you willfully chose to ignore universal healthcare.
ajay...all that came from manned space missions? Wow.
Petey:
But, he said, the next president needs to have "a practical sense of what investments deliver the most scientific and technological spinoffs — and not just assume that human space exploration, actually sending bodies into space, is always the best investment." Obama gets it. This is one of the things I like about him. He thinks through these issues in a very practical and logical manner. As a man of science myself, I appreciate that quality.
if i understand obama's position correctly, he wants to cut nasa spending to fund HS science education. nasa is already scaling back on manned space travel for the next few years, and unmanned space travel is definitely much much more important, useful, and efficient than manned space travel, but i think its important to keep some money and research happening so we dont have a knowledge gap when we want to pick up our manned space travel again. also any nasa funding cuts is ridiculous, they already have annual budget cuts. i dont really like the positions by either candidate, if they really want to fund innovation and science, they'd give nasa and other science agencies a lot more money. we're losing technology and knowledge every day by not funding science more.
Space travel (humans in space) produced few of the benefits ajay has listed. Almost all science in space has been done by unmanned platforms, because humans are just too fragile and the space environment so harsh. Our astronauts come back from extended orbital missions gravely ill, their bone and muscle mass wasted, their calcium metabolism severely out of whack. Often they must convalesce for long periods before they can resume a normal life. They take on life-shortening radiation doses. With today's technology, a manned mission to Mars is a death sentence for the crew. Unmanned probes and satellites are a wonderful technology, but at present anned spaceflight is just theater. The ISS is a technology development project with no actual uses, and it'll be ditched into the ocean soon after it is "completed". No important science has been done on the ISS, or has ever been done on the ISS. See the collected works of Robert Park's What's New a scientist's repeated takes on this topic.
not just assume that human space exploration, actually sending bodies into space, is always the best investment. I was scratching my head reading that, astounded that this sensible idea is actually coming out of the mouth of a major politician. At last somebody who might stop shoveling money into the useless manned space program. so we dont have a knowledge gap when we want to pick up our manned space travel again. That'll be around the time when humans learn how to not need: expensive life support systems; massive redundancy for safety; and a return trip from wherever they're going. Also when humans can figure out how to shut themselves off to conserve resources on years-long flights to distant destinations. Once all that's ready, humans might belong back in the space exploration business instead of unmanned probes.
I've also heard that the one likes oat bran and the other raisin bran.
So, Senator Clinton pandered to the editorial board. They reported on it, and then endorsed Obama. +1 for the Chronicle.
Why is Clinton's taking a Texas-friendly stance in Texas remotely noteworthy? She promised DC voters just last week to give them representation when she was president as she's done with local issues all over the country. The only thing that would be remotely newsworthy along these lines is if Clinton actually took sides against the local issues.
The human body is unlikely to ever tolerate space travel adequately; a few million years of evolution underneath an atmosphere will do that to ya'. If human civilization is to survive the next extra-terrestial or geological catastrophe, it will be because outer space is seeded with artificial intelligence that humans created. The research capital should be directed to AI research and unmanned missions.
I think BHO also recognizes that in some instances (as in space ship One) private companies competing against each other maybe able to deal w/the next space challenges better and more efficient and create more jobs. NASA may need to follow that model as more competition. Oh God, I'm a screaming liberal but BHO is making me see the light of free market econ.
I think BHO also recognizes that in some instances (as in space ship One) private companies competing against each other maybe able to deal w/the next space challenges better and more efficient and create more jobs. NASA may need to follow that model as more competition. Oh God, I'm a screaming liberal but BHO is making me see the light of free market econ.
I think BHO also recognizes that in some instances (as in space ship One) private companies competing against each other maybe able to deal w/the next space challenges better and more efficient and create more jobs. NASA may need to follow that model as more competition. Oh God, I'm a screaming liberal but BHO is making me see the light of free market econ.
How can the merican People consider a Muslim, "dyed in the wool" type, raised by Radicla Extremists & he was not even born in the United States. Thought we had a clause that prevented that. And have you read about the CHURCH he proposes to belong too, a Very BLACK AFRICA Church with radical ideas. Has anyone checked to see the true source of all his campaign funding. I think we ould not be sdurprosed that it comes from Muslim Oraganizations, Bin Lade for one- Check it out before we all are too sorry to do anything about it. We are going to even let him SWEAR in on the KORAN?? Check newspaper photos of him during the National Anthem & see he does not even place his hand over his heart- just stands there. Is he an AMerican- knows nothing about the country- except he is on a course to send us totally "Down the River" Wake p AMerica
How can the merican People consider a Muslim, "dyed in the wool" type, raised by Radicla Extremists & he was not even born in the United States. Thought we had a clause that prevented that. And have you read about the CHURCH he proposes to belong too, a Very BLACK AFRICA Church with radical ideas. Has anyone checked to see the true source of all his campaign funding. I think we ould not be sdurprosed that it comes from Muslim Oraganizations, Bin Lade for one- Check it out before we all are too sorry to do anything about it. We are going to even let him SWEAR in on the KORAN?? Check newspaper photos of him during the National Anthem & see he does not even place his hand over his heart- just stands there. Is he an AMerican- knows nothing about the country- except he is on a course to send us totally "Down the River" Wake p AMerica
How can the American People consider a Muslim, "dyed in the wool" type, raised by Radical Extremists & he was not even born in the United States. Thought we had a clause that prevented that. And have you read about the CHURCH he proposes to belong too, a Very BLACK AFRICA Church with radical ideas. Has anyone checked to see the true source of all his campaign funding. I think we would not be surprised that it comes from Muslim Oraganizations, Bin Lade for one- Check it out before we all are too sorry to do anything about it. We are going to even let him SWEAR in on the KORAN?? Check newspaper photos of him during the National Anthem & see he does not even place his hand over his heart- just stands there. Is he an AMerican- knows nothing about the country- except he is on a course to send us totally "Down the River" Wake up America!!!!
Bob, the rule is "what I tell you three times is true". You've got a handle on the three times part, but the true part needs work.
"But apart from reliable weather forecasts, perfect navigation, cheap worldwide phone services, search and rescue, environmental imaging, forest fire monitoring, arms reduction verification, sixty-channel television, discovering the origin of the Earth and Moon, and vastly increasing our knowledge of the solar system and the rest of the Universe, what has space travel ever done for us?" Yes, where would we be without our satellite phone switchboards manned by sexy space operators, our astronaut meteorologists who forecast the weather from their space stations, and the camera-wielding cosmonauts who bravely monitor our forests for fires? Our modern world owes a debt of gratitude to the magic of human spaceflight!
LMAO...what would a day be without a "dyed in the wool" moron like Bob Kelly going on some sort of crazed rant. As I like to say, the interweb is an equal opportunity employer - all crazed, watchtower-type wackos can apply.
Ah, Still Undecided, Columbus was funded by the Spanish. What's happened to Spain since then? A small weak country with little or no influence in the world. So you want us to turn out as weak and powerless like Spain? No siree Bob for me!
I wish to draw Still Undecided's attention to the startling fact that no colonial power ever made a serious attempt to establish a colony on the peak of Mt. Everest. Now it's possible that this represents a failure of courage and foresight. But I think it more likely that the explanation is : Human space exploration is like Mt. Everest, except all the difficulties are a million times worse. We went to the Moon, and that was a splendid achievement, like being the first on Everest. But not even the most monomaniacal of mountaineers has ever proposed that the peak of Everest would be a good place to establish a settlement. That's because it's not. And the Moon and Mars are far far worse.
So all Obama supporters are now lining up against manned spaced exploration?
Believe it or not, you can support Obama and not endorse all of his positions.
We're talking about a manned mission to Mars, not making it the fifty-first state. My pardon. I thought you meant your analogy to Columbus to be taken seriously. Apparently not. So all Obama supporters are now lining up against manned spaced exploration? Yes. All of us. Every single one. With less snark : I grew up on science fiction, and once upon a time I really really wanted to be the first person to set foot on Mars. I will gladly support a manned mission to Mars when you can find a way to get the astronauts there and back alive. To my knowledge, this is not currently possible. I'm not very happy about this, but it appears to be the case. Don't take my word for it, though : see for yourself It's not surprising that George W Bush is ignorant of these facts. It is a bit surprising that some supporters of manned space exploration apparently are.
Believe it or not, you can support Obama and not endorse all of his positions. Glad to hear it, Kelly. It's odd to see MY and some of his commenters deriding the manned space program.
I read Obama's position as not particularly interested in funding manned space exploration. They aren't going to overcome the barriers you point out if they aren't given the mission. I think manned space exploration should be a funded goal. I prefer Hillary's position of pursuing "an ambitious agenda in both space exploration and earth sciences" and supporting "the next generation of spacecraft for a robust human spaceflight program."
For more information on why your dreams of colonizing the solar system(or the glaxy, ftm) are just that, dreams, I refer you to this wonderfully educational and depressing essay by Charles Stross, a sci-fi author whose work has been nominated for various Hugo Awards some 5 years in a row now. (I'm a big fan of Accelerando. You must read that book.)
So all Obama supporters are now lining up against manned spaced exploration? If I were you I'd vote for Hillary based on this point. This certainly ranks up there as one of the issues of our time. Question: Must you always be such a contrarian and pedantic putz?
Complain to Yglesias. He felt it was worth blogging about.
OTOH, the ion drive currently in use on the Dawn asteroid mission is one of the superb technologies for which space enthusiasts have been waiting since Willey Ley's 1951 Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel (I think that Bonestell did the beautiful illustrations). Extremely efficient. Extremely controllable. Truly elegant stuff. Our probes could really be going places if our space program funding were controlled by scientists rather than Congress.
"So all Obama supporters are now lining up against manned spaced exploration?" I've been against manned space flight (as a priority, not in general) for a long time. What excites me about the space programme are things like Hubble and Soho and Lisa and Cassini and Messenger, not jaunts to Mars or the space station. I'd rather precious science funds went to projects that produce interesting data and drive new research programmes. I'm glad to see Obama understands why I have that position. Nothing more.
Sure space travel is inspiring, but we've accomplished all we can with human payload given fuel constraints. Written by a person who apparently has no clue of what they're talking about. I realize a lot of you oppose human space travel under any circumstances and can't imagine any use for it, but why do you feel the need to just make things up.
as a member of the aerospace community i find obama's stance in this arena troubling (not to mention many of the comments in this thread horribly uninformed and wrong). i still support obama. but mostly in spite of his space platform.
as a member of the aerospace community i find obama's stance in this arena troubling (not to mention many of the comments in this thread horribly uninformed and wrong). i still support obama. but mostly in spite of his space platform.
At last somebody who might stop shoveling money into the useless manned space program. I don't know what you imagine would happen to the money we'd save by canceling the manned space program. My guess is that we'd spend it on the things we spend money on already - mainly the war and DoD (not cures for cancer, or universal health care). Even at that, if we shut down NASA entirely, we'd barely cover 1 month's worth of the price of the Iraq war.
john: I am vain enough to think that the "horribly uninformed and wrong comments in this thread" are likely mine. I would be happy to learn that I am wrong about almost any of the assertions I have made. Please point to evidence documenting advantances in space medicine that would allow astronauts to survive a Mars mission (I think the two really bad problems are zero-gee metabolism effects and energetic radiation), or to any important science that has been done or will be done on the ISS, and I will gladly change my tune, and publicly retract. Thanks.
Ah, Still Undecided, Columbus was funded by the Spanish. What's happened to Spain since then? A small weak country with little or no influence in the world. Right, Columbus destroyed Spain. Next you'll explain how their colonies in America caused the collapse of the British Empire.
you are indeed vain. i stopped reading at 'nasa has been scaling back manned mission funding'
If we could strap McCain, Bill and Hill into a rocket set for Pluto- I'd give up health care.
People need to be clearer about criteria. If we're talking about supporting pure or applied science, it's not obvious that bodies in space is a good use of limited resources. (And it's plain stupid to contend that making a choice to fund other things first, given limited resources, is tantamount to being "against manned exploration.") If the idea is some more focused effort at state-supported technological development, people need to say what the goal is. A lot of the defenses boil down to saying you should do it to do it, and learn about doing it. As the excellent mockery of Ajay's ridiculous list showed, and as the ludicrous efforts to justify the space station over the last decade have demonstrated, specific defenses of the "manned" part are not easy to make. So if you want to defend government directing resources toward bodies in space, lay out your policy goals, and explain why this is the best way to accomplish them.
if what i've heard of obama's stance on this are correct, he intends to scale back funding on constellation and extend the run of the space shuttle. i don't know for sure if this is still the plan. but from people i know personally who are directly involved in these programs, it is seriously stupid. regardless of whether you want to phase out most of our manned exploration, extending the shuttle program now will cost money. mostly since we spent the last couple years phasing it out and starting up a new manned mission platform. don't get me wrong. i think unmanned missions are for the most part a better return on the country's investment. but the way that obama is looking to get money out of the manned mission programs is not very smart.
No quarrel there. The shuttle should go and the space station should go.
the space station should go. Go where?
This is interesting, though it's hardly something I expected to be an issue in the primaries. I do think that there's something to be said for the Space Program. Sending a man to the moon did inspire a generation and make the sciences sexy for a lot of kids and adults alike. Nowadays, not so much. I would like to see NASA develop programs that have the potential to engage public interest in a way that could prove mutually beneficial, though I'll admit I have no idea what those could be. All that aside, this is just more shameless pandering from Camp Clinton. She's just trying to make sure the space delegates get seated at the convention.
"Petey: So you are backing Clinton now?" Unenthusiastically,yes. Solely over UHC. I find both candidates rather unappealing, with Clinton being a bit more unappealing than Obama. But UHC trumps everything else for me. Your mileage may vary. I fully understand that things like UHC are a low priority amongst the demographics of the lefty blogosphere, and thus I will be in the minority in these environs over the next few months. But even the crucial aspect of UHC set aside I generally tend to identify with Clinton's working class wing of the Party, as opposed to Obama's upscale/AA coalition. And ironically, if you told me 6 months ago that'd I've ended up voting for Clinton, my third choice at the time, I'd have thought you were a loony-tune. It's been an interesting nomination race so far, no?
"Petey: So you are backing Clinton now?" Unenthusiastically,yes. Solely over UHC. I find both candidates rather unappealing, with Clinton being a bit more unappealing than Obama. But UHC trumps everything else for me. Your mileage may vary. I fully understand that things like UHC are a low priority amongst the demographics of the lefty blogosphere, and thus I will be in the minority in these environs over the next few months. But even the crucial aspect of UHC set aside I generally tend to identify with Clinton's working class wing of the Party, as opposed to Obama's upscale/AA coalition. And ironically, if you told me 6 months ago that'd I've ended up voting for Clinton, my third choice at the time, I'd have thought you were a loony-tune. It's been an interesting nomination race so far, no?
Petey: "I fully understand that things like UHC are a low priority amongst the demographics of the lefty blogosphere." Damn that is depressing, but true.
Cut the unnecessary military funding, you could solve most of the country's problems AND go to Mars. It's not an either/or situation, when you're spending a TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR on the military and security. Interestingly, tech pundit Bob Cringely is involved in the Google Lunar X Prize: "Two weeks ago, when Google and the X Prize Foundation announced the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize contest for the first private group to land a remote-controlled rover on the moon and complete a set of mission goals, I knew I had to try to win... I am 100 percent sure that Carnegie Mellon will build a better rover than Team Cringely (like the name?), but I am just as certain that my team will beat their team to the Moon. How can I be so certain? Well, I have a few advantages, among which are irrational optimism and the ability to suspend my own disbelief, if not that of others. And then I have my REAL advantages -- other members of Team Cringely who actually know what they are doing. I'll be revealing these team members as the effort progresses, but among my partners in crime are several senior space scientists from Russia who have already landed and driven rovers on the Moon. It helps to have done this before." If he can do it - or anybody else - it will demonstrate what can be done when a bureaucracy like NASA isn't involved. NASA has been justifiably criticized for decades for being too cautious, over-engineering everything, and still managing to screw up big time. The time they managed to lose a Mars mission because they forgot to translate feet into meters, for instance... I'm unconcerned about manned missions because the real technological future is in getting rid of chimpanzees anyway. Transhumans will go anywhere and everywhere since they won't be subject to biological weaknesses. They won't need a lifeline to Earth, either, since with nanotech, they can build whatever they need from any local materials. A Transhuman only needs five things: 1) An Energy source. All this is feasible in the next fifty years or so if we just shrink the DoD budget to something rational.
Obama's weak human space policy is his weak point for me. It's the only thing about him that I really, really don't like. I think that he seriously is underestimating the importance and value of "bodies in space." That's also disrespectful toward the astronauts who sacrifice so much for the betterment of our nations science, and serve as quintessential role models for America's youth.
I would be happy to learn that I am wrong about almost any of the assertions I have made. Please point to evidence documenting advantances in space medicine that would allow astronauts to survive a Mars mission (I think the two really bad problems are zero-gee metabolism effects and energetic radiation) Zero gee? Well, it takes six to nine months to get to Mars. The record for free-fall flight is fourteen months - the cosmonaut in question survived and is still alive. (Valery Polyakov in 1990-91, if you want to look it up). Yes, long-haul flight means rehabilitation afterwards, but there's no reason this couldn't take place on the surface of Mars as easily as on the surface of Earth. Energetic radiation? Estimated exposure for the round trip is 0.5 - 1 Sv; below the threshold even for mild radiation sickness (especially since it would be taken over a year rather than in a single dose), but it would mean a slightly increased risk of cancer. No joke - but not a death sentence either. (The risk's minimal compared to the other dangers of spaceflight; demonstrably, flying in the Shuttle carried a 1% risk of death, but that didn't seem to discourage people).
The idea that exploring space requires humans to actually be inside the spaceships is almost as stupid as the idea that exploring the microscopic world requires shrinking humans down to a really small size. From an intellectual standpoint, strongly supporting manned spaceflight should be an automatic disqualifier for someone seeking the presidency.
Advantage Obama for sure. I read this yesterday. HRC is pandering to the Houston market in her comments, quite obviously so. Obama's comments are simply logical and rational. He didn't say that he wouldn't support manned space travel. He only said that our focus and our funding should be subject to some scrutiny in terms of the returns it provides us. If human space travel would provide greater scientific benefits in a given situation, then we'll do that. If a probe will do the same job at lower cost, then that's what makes sense to do. What's the problem here?
"The risk's minimal compared to the other dangers of spaceflight; demonstrably, flying in the Shuttle carried a 1% risk of death, but that didn't seem to discourage people" Well, living carries a 100% risk of death, and if you had the chance to go into space, wouldn't you take it?
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Heads in the Sand
The Clinton science team is off message. From CQ Politics: "In a not-so-subtle jab at Obama, [Clinton science advisor Tom Kalil] noted several times that Clinton was "the only candidate" who has given a speech about science policy, on the 50th anniversary of Sputnik Oct 4th to the Carnegie Institution of Science."
I thought speeches were, like, bad or something?
The Clinton campaign needs a pragmatic Mr. Rourke. Solutions everyone! Solutions!
Posted by joejoejoe | February 18, 2008 9:40 AM