« Time for a Time Out | Main | Fear of a Fat Planet » The Syntax of the Future29 Jul 2008 05:42 pm
Another sign of desperation at the McCain Campaign as they seem to have hired Matt Yglesias to do their copy editing. Meanwhile, one thing I admire about Barack Obama is that he's taken a principled stand against a pointless overemphasis of manned space exploration even as Hillary Clinton and McCain both sought consistently to pander to the small number of beneficiaries of the status quo. Comments (75)
Indeed. The great tragedy of manned spaceflight is that, while being enormously wasteful of resources and the environment, it achieves precisely no scientific benefits while taking money away from truly valuable unmanned spaceflight. Although it does mean jobs for some contractors. 
Self-deprecating joke is an all-purpose license to engage in hypocrisy. Everyone knows that.
C'mon, Matthew. At least it's a break from McCain's usual "NOUN!!! VERB!!! SURGE™!!!"
Someone should tell McCain that it's no longer necessary to "make ensure"--you can buy it in grocery stores. And Ensure has all those vitamins that oldsters need!
Gregg Easterbrook wrote an article on the Space Shuttle in 1981 that totally (and presciently) ripped the manned space program apart.
Is "Space" really a proper noun and, if so, why is it proper in one part of the quote and not in another?
Glad someone already made the requisite Ensure/old guy joke!
We must make ensure our astronauts explore space for make benefit glorious nation of America.
Indeed. The great tragedy of manned spaceflight is that, while being enormously wasteful of resources and the environment, it achieves precisely no scientific benefits while taking money away from truly valuable unmanned spaceflight. Yet again, the Simpsons provides the perfect quote: Man 2: That's correct, Tom. The lion's share of this flight will be devoted to the study of the effects of weightlessness on tiny screws. Tom: Unbelievable, and just imagine the logistics of weightlessness. And of course, this could have literally millions of applications here on Earth -- everything from watchmaking to watch repair.
Damn, RSA beat me to the 'make Ensure' gag. Though the powder form is more economical for thrifty seniors, it's a bit too dusty to work in zero-gravity conditions.
SpellCheck is a not a substitute for being able to understand what you actually wrote.
In keeping with McCain's muddled messages, maybe we should simplify this to "all your space are belong to us."
I really am torn on the whole "manned space flight" thing. Honestly, I don't care if it is entirely unproductive. NASA needs contractors. Someone is going to get paid. That's a moot point. But putting a man on the moon was one of the defining moments of American History. And putting those rovers on Mars reinvigorated interest in the space program like never before. I've heard people claim the Space Station was a boondoggle, that the Hubble Telescope was a boondoggle, that the Space Shuttle program was a boondoggle... What's the story about the $1 million pen we invented so we could write with ink in space? I have a really, really hard time bringing opposition to the idea. Spel Chekers on it the other hanf, Im aganst.
For extremely obvious gags, the best policy is to type as quickly as possible.
Zifnab - The million dollar pen was developed by a private company, which sold the pens which could be used in space to NASA at a non-outrageous price. It wasn't taxpayer money that went into the development of the pen. Also, who says the Hubble was a boondoggle? They had issues when they first sent it up, but it's been sending back incredible data since 1993, unlike anything people have ever seen before.
Matthew, Meanwhile, one thing I admire about Barack Obama is that he's taken a principled stand against a pointless overemphasis of manned space exploration So what would be the proper amount of emphasis on human space exploration, in your opinion, and how did you make that determination? As Carl Sagan among others pointed out, the establishment of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence beyond the Earth is our only real protection against the loss of human civilization or even human extinction from a global catastrophe.
Zifnab, you're mixing and matching there: Landing a man on the moon was incredibly stirring, and worth doing for its morale effect alone - although I'd say pretty much all subsequent manned spaceflight has been worthless. The lunar effort also returned samples that were of great scientific value, which contemporaneous unmanned efforts probably couldn't have done, although I'd guess it'd now be cheaper to do even that unmanned. The rovers were - and are! - exceptional, both for propaganda and for actual research - but they're unmanned. The Shuttle has been a waste, start to end (and note it'd be a lot cheaper to use rockets and use a small landing vehicle than to discard boosters and service the shuttle after each trip, as they do now). Similarly the ISS is useless. Neither the Shuttle nor the ISS has contributed, or can contribute, anything. Although useful developments have been made on the ground to enable manned spaceflight, the scientific benefits of manned spaceflight are laughable. I can only name 3: collecting moon rocks, repairing the Hubble, and describing the effects of weightlessness on human physiology. The moon rocks have been collected already, and as I said above we wouldn't use humans to get more today. Studying the effects of weightlessness is interesting, though a bit circular, and again we've pretty much got the data. The Hubble, of course, is hugely valuable and was launched in the Shuttle and was repaired in orbit using manned spaceflight. But I suspect a Hubble-equivalent could have been launched without the shuttle, and while the in-orbit repair of the Hubble by humans was a tour-de-force, it would have been cheaper to simply replace the Hubble (heck, we'd then have had one good one and one limited one, which would probably have offered its own advantages).
As Carl Sagan among others pointed out, the establishment of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence beyond the Earth is our only real protection against the loss of human civilization or even human extinction from a global catastrophe. Seriously? The guy who things bullet trains are too expensive is in favor of space colonies?
Yes, Mixner, but wouldn't it make more sense to do this years down the road when our technology will undoubtedly be better? It just seems like it will be more economically feasible a few generations from now. And really, if we happen to kill ourselves before that happens, tough titties. I agree with you in principle, but it doesn't seem worth it right now. We're not going to accomplish anything right now.
Well, physics Prof. Bob Park of the Un. of Marland thinks that the manned space program is a boondoggle. Also, Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg thinks that the manned space program is vastly cost ineffective. Somehow I think that they have more scientific credibility then does Mr. Mixner.
"Curly", Seriously? The guy who things bullet trains are too expensive is in favor of space colonies? Yes, seriously. Not "space colonies" as such, but, as the next step, a vigorous program to send humans to Mars. a self-sustaining human presence in space is simply not. going. to. happen. in. our. lifetimes. Probably. not. no. But many of the precursors to such a presence, including an on-going human mission to Mars, probably have a good chance of happening in my lifetime (can't speak to yours).
"As Carl Sagan among others pointed out, the establishment of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence beyond the Earth is our only real protection against the loss of human civilization or even human extinction from a global catastrophe. Posted by Mixner | July 29, 2008 6:36 PM" There's a campaign platform: "We're going to all live on Mars!" It sounds perfect for a Kucinich-Paul tiny weirdo ticket.
To review Mixner: Public transit: Too expensive Dealing with global warming in a real way: Too expensive Iraq War: Teh Awesomenezz!!!11!1 Sending people to Mars: The most important goal in the world!
You're outdoing yourself in the strawman department, RM.
People like us will never colonize space--the environment is just too inhospitable. Of course maybe some genetically-engineered successor species will live somewhere else. But homo sapiens as a species is going to die on this planet, so get used to it.
No practical scientist would ever recommend sending humans to Mars. The costs are beyond belief, and most of the costs go just to keep the humans alive. Remember that astronauts are not scientists, they are just more adaptable than machines. This adaptability is nearly useless in space or on another planet. The Tom Hanks movie depicted the limits of adaptability, but it was directed at survival. Survival appeals to McCain, but it isn't science. The desire to "send men to Mars" is a signal that the person has zero understanding of science, and zero understanding of when to shut up. Only "no brainers" propose this adventure.
DTM, Can I have a go with that crystal ball of yours, DTM? "tomj", Yes, all those "practical scientists" who not only "recommend" it but are actually working on it are just figments our imagination.
You're outdoing yourself in the strawman department, RM.Mixner, someone is stealing your handle and posting self-deprecating jokes.
The folks who want accelerated manned exploration of space seem to have no understanding of time. The risk of human extinction on earth in the next 500 years due to asteroids is so near zero that it can be ignored. Making a better use of investments than useless spaceflights and flags-and-footprints missions in the next two decades would actually bring us more quickly to a point of human colonization of space, likely to occur in a century or two regardless of McCain's space policy.
The folks who want accelerated manned exploration of space seem to have no understanding of time. The risk of human extinction on earth in the next 500 years due to asteroids is so near zero that it can be ignored. The folks who say things like this seem to have no understanding that asteroids are just one threat and that catastrophes less extreme than actual extinction are also worth protecting against. Over long periods of time, the chances of a global catastrophe become very high. A permanent human presence beyond the earth would be a form of long-term insurance, not protection against something we expect to happen within years or decades.
Of course we won't see a self sustaining human presence in space in our lifetimes. What we also won't see are the truly catastrophic effects of climate change in our lifetimes. So should we do nothing about either? Of course not. There is absolutely no reason why manned space flight and unmanned space exploration cannot be adequately funded. None, whatsoever. The Department of Defense wastes a mind boggling amount of money every single year in its normal appropriations without even considering the money being burned in Iraq. The solution isn't to cut back on man space flight, it's to cut back on useless defense spending and give NASA and other federal departments more money.
whenever i need help makeing a convincing argument, i just quote scenes from The West Wing: Sam: There are a lot of hungry people in the world, Mal, and none of them are hungry 'cause we went to the moon. None of them are colder, and certainly none of them are dumber 'cause we went to the moon.
Mixner, I hear you, but... Why should I believe that a program to hurry up and put a human footprint on Martian dust is actually going to accelerate our scientific knowledge more, in useful ways about space travel and Mars and materials and energy and whatnot, than putting the same resources into probes and satellites and robot landers? We can't do anything interesting with the people we'd be sending to Mars (bitches!) in the next ten or twenty years. We'd just be accomplishing the human landing, vs. actually gaining so much more from legitimate, meaningful, informative scientific endeavors.
It's like this: We're America, and we do awesome American things that show how awesome we are that nobody else can do because they're not America. Like go to the moon. That being said - we're in a hell of a mess right now. I think any rational person would agree the economy needs fixing, the budget needs balancing, and the deficit needs to start turning around. That has to take top priority when we're talking about what to spend taxes on. Kind of like how we make fun of people who can't pay their credit cards but yet they're taking a vacation to Disneyworld just because they can. Yeah, that's us, and Disneyworld is the space program. Get our finances straight, and we get to do fun stuff like that.
joe lowell, Why should I believe that a program to hurry up and put a human footprint on Martian dust is actually going to accelerate our scientific knowledge more, in useful ways about space travel and Mars and materials and energy and whatnot, than putting the same resources into probes and satellites and robot landers? I haven't argued that a human mission to Mars would be justified on the grounds of expanding our scientific knowledge. I've argued for it on the grounds that it would be the next big step towards protection from the loss of our civilization or species due to a terrestrial catastrophe. By the way, I'm sure there are plenty of people who think even a robotic space exploration program is a waste of money. Yes, it increases our scientific knowledge, but it's still money that could otherwise be spent on tangible human benefits like health care or education.
I've argued for it on the grounds that it would be the next big step towards protection from the loss of our civilization or species due to a terrestrial catastrophe. Right, but I'm talking about advancing to the point where such an effort might be possible, pushing our abilities forward in this area. That's the type of scientific advancement I'm talking about when I wrote useful ways about space travel and Mars and materials and energy and whatnot. This is the type of technological and scientific advancement we'd need to make in order for a sustainable, significant off-world human presence to become possible. I'm saying, at our current stage of technology, putting our space resources into unmanned travel and exploration via a couple hundred probes, satellites, and landers would do more to get us closer to that than the incredibly expensive business of shipping people, water, and everything to Mars.
Mixner said: "By the way, I'm sure there are plenty of people who think even a robotic space exploration program is a waste of money. Yes, it increases our scientific knowledge, but it's still money that could otherwise be spent on tangible human benefits like health care or education." Yeah, uh, by plenty, you mean virtually everyone besides yourself. "Sorry you couldn't get health care or pay for college, we had to throw hundreds of billions at a program to make sure 300 years from now we don't get exterminated by a once in a million year meteor". That's up there with a war on puppies in popular ideas. Pretty much the only argument to support what you're going for is that a .00001% chance of human extinction essentially has infinite value, and therefore it should be reduced no matter the expense. Of course, very few of us view expenditures as a 100% optimization course in optimizing human survival for millenia, and the more practical of us (like, say, every politician ever) tend to care substantially more about the needs of people that are actually alive.
That being said - we're in a hell of a mess right now. I think any rational person would agree the economy needs fixing, the budget needs balancing, and the deficit needs to start turning around. That has to take top priority when we're talking about what to spend taxes on. Er, why? In the 1960s/early 70s, we spent a far larger proportion of our GDP than would probably be required today for a human mission to Mars to put 12 men on the moon for a few hours. And we did that at a time when the country was far poorer than it is today and when we were fighting a hugely expensive war in south-east Asia. Strange that most of those strongly opposed to a vigorous human space program today don't seem to object very strongly, if at all, to the Apollo program.
Mixner: against public transit for commuters and travelers, in favor of it for astronauts.
I'm saying, at our current stage of technology, putting our space resources into unmanned travel and exploration via a couple hundred probes, satellites, and landers would do more to get us closer to that than the incredibly expensive business of shipping people, water, and everything to Mars. Well, obviously, before we send any people to Mars we're going to be sending a lot more robotic vehicles there (though probably not "a couple hundred") to find suitable landing sites, study the Martian environment, and so on. And we'll need to do a lot more human factors research in Earth orbit or maybe on the moon so we can deal effectively with the hazards of weightlessness, radiation, etc. If we started the program today, we probably wouldn't be ready to actually launch people to Mars until maybe the late 2020s.
Oh, nonsense, Matt. If they'd hired you, at least one of the two words would have been misspelled. As for manned vs. unmanned space exploration: I've been following that issue for four decades -- and, whatever one thinks of robotic space exploration (some of which still strikes me as justified) there is simply no question that manned space travel, either for science or for space industrialization, is so relatively inefficient as to be downright obscene. (Even Gerard O'Neill, in his gigantic "L-5" scheme to set up space industrialization plants and even space colonies to build solar power satellites, emphasized that human presence should be kept to an absolute practical minimum in favor of using robots.) And as for Mixner's hope that we could set up space colonies to "prevent the loss of our civilization or species due to a terrestrial catastrophe": quite apart from the grotesque cost of trying to set up such colonies -- as opposed to using the same amount of money to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring in the first place -- it will be tens of millions of years before humanity or human civilization is in danger of obliteration by any NATURAL catastrophe, such as a strike by another Dinosaur-Killer asteroid or one of the "supervolcanoes" that also come along every few tens of millions of years. By contrast, wherever we set up human space colonies, whatever deadly little weapons (nuclear or biological) that we've created ourselves to obliterate others of our kind will very quickly and easily follow. (And, by the way, the same technology we can use to divert asteroids can be used just as easily to DELIBERATELY aim a large one at Earth. It's a pretty safe bet that, if we hang around for a few thousand more years, some political faction or religious nut group -- probably living in space itself -- will do just that.)
Mixner, you know the argument you like about the government not picking technological winners? How, if the government has launched an Apollo Program to cure polio in 1920, they would have come up with the world's most expensive iron lung? Apply that here. If NASA imposes the goal of making a human flight to Mars possible ASAP, we're going to end up with a "world's greatest iron lung"-style spacecraft that can go to Mars, and do nothing else. So we can yell "woo hoo." If we let the researchers chase a thousand different goals that actually have scientific value, we don't know where we'll end up, but it's probably going to be somewhere better than putting all our resources into filling a spec for the SuperMachine.
there is simply no question that manned space travel, either for science or for space industrialization, is so relatively inefficient as to be downright obscene. "Inefficient" for what? Expanding scientific knowledge? So what? No serious proponent of a human space program I have read argues that it would justified purely on grounds of scientific knowledge. And as for Mixner's hope that we could set up space colonies to "prevent the loss of our civilization or species due to a terrestrial catastrophe": quite apart from the grotesque cost of trying to set up such colonies -- as opposed to using the same amount of money to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring in the first place -- We may be able to reduce the risk from at least some such kinds of potential catastrophe by spending money, but we certainly can't eliminate it. it will be tens of millions of years before humanity or human civilization is in danger of obliteration by any NATURAL catastrophe, such as a strike by another Dinosaur-Killer asteroid or one of the "supervolcanoes" that also come along every few tens of millions of years. Huh? We're "in danger" from them now. The longer human civilization and the human species is confined solely to the Earth, the greater the danger of obliteration becomes.
Postscript: A very large (and apparently growing) number of planetary scientists are pointing out the huge Catch-22 in manned Mars landings. The only thing that could possibly justify the huge cost of a manned Mars expedition (we're talking $400 billion here, absolute minimum) would be the discovery by robots of evidence of either present or fossil life on Mars (which must definitely be microscopic). But the moment a manned ship lands anywhere on Mars, it will disastrously contaminate the entire landing area with released Earth germs and organic material that will overwhelm any such evidence. (Huge numbers of Earth bacteria will leak even out of the seams in the crew's spacesuits during their long-range expeditions away from the lander.) You can't sterilize a manned ship, as you can a robot. One possible solution that's been proposed is to limit human Mars expeditions to just orbiting the planet, with the crew using radio remote control to operate sterilized rovers and sample-return vehicles that could rocket uncontaminated samples back up off the surface into Mars orbit where the crew could pick them up in a contamination-protected way. (This would also avoid the very long radio-signal time gap that makes it so hard to explore any world beyond the Moon by robots controlled directly from Earth.) But we're still talking about one hell of a lot of money.
Me: "t will be tens of millions of years before humanity or human civilization is in danger of obliteration by any NATURAL catastrophe, such as a strike by another Dinosaur-Killer asteroid or one of the 'supervolcanoes' that also come along every few tens of millions of years." Mixner: "Huh? We're 'in danger' from them now. The longer human civilization and the human species is confined solely to the Earth, the greater the danger of obliteration becomes." Me: Mixner, you totally ignored the last half of my message: spreading humans around the solar system will do almost nothing to reduce our chances of destruction, because the danger of destruction of both our civilization and our species comes overwhelmingly from OURSELVES -- and that danger will faithfully follow every single colony we set up in the Solar System (and, where the human population of Earth itself is concerned, will actually be INCREASED seriously by establishment of colonies elsewhere in the Solar System. I assure you that hard-SF writers have not overlooked that little fact; you should start by reading some of the recent stories on the subject by Joe Haldeman, Charles Sheffield, Greg Bear and Gregory Benfield.)
Mixner, you know the argument you like about the government not picking technological winners? How, if the government has launched an Apollo Program to cure polio in 1920, they would have come up with the world's most expensive iron lung? I don't think the government should be in the business of "picking technological winners" in general, as a matter of industrial policy, but that doesn't mean I oppose all use of public funding for scientific and technological purposes. Did you seriously think otherwise? If NASA imposes the goal of making a human flight to Mars possible ASAP, we're going to end up with a "world's greatest iron lung"-style spacecraft that can go to Mars, and do nothing else. I haven't suggested that the goal should be a human flight to Mars "ASAP." I think "ASAP" would be a foolish condition to apply. As for funding, public funding is needed because of the huge costs of the undertaking and the lack of any near-term commercial value. But I certainly think commercial corporations and market-like incentives should be used in the design and implementation of the program.
I don't think the government should be in the business of "picking technological winners" in general, as a matter of industrial policy, but that doesn't mean I oppose all use of public funding for scientific and technological purposes. Did you seriously think otherwise? No, I don't. We're having a discussion about how best to spend money on scientific and technical purposes, right now. My point was more about the central planning of resources necessary to make NASA a "put a human on Mars ASAP to do nothing but get there" machine, vs. letting a thousand flowers bloom and following up success. I think "ASAP" would be a foolish condition to apply. OK, great. Me too - we should work towards it, but not ASAP. That being the case, I ask again, why make manned space flight the focus of our efforts, if the need to have someone ready for Mars mission isn't anywhere near imminent? Why not spend half a century or a century on getting really, really good at exploring and testing and navigating, and worry about adding in people when there is something useful a person can add to the payload?
Is it some sort of romantic humbug? Because I gotta say, I was pretty blown away when that craft touched down on Mars on July 4th a few years ago. And Hubble pictures - did you know Bush cut the money necessary to keep that working, so he could "go to Mars?" And the moons of the outlying planets - those probes are going to be scientific goldmines. I love this stuff. I don't see how a human just being there while a much-less-impressive mission is carried out is necessary for us to have romantic humbug.
we're talking $400 billion here, absolute minimum You mean you're talking that number. Where does it come from? Me: Mixner, you totally ignored the last half of my message I didn't think it was worth bothering with. you should start by reading some of the recent stories on the subject by Joe Haldeman, Charles Sheffield, Greg Bear and Gregory Benfield Since Charles Sheffield died about five years ago, and there's no SF writer called "Gregory Benfield" (presumably, you mean Gregory Benford), your knowledge of the fiction in this area doesn't seem terribly impressive. The magnum opus for space colonization SF is probably Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, which I suggest you read. In general, you seem very badly informed, and I may soon consign you to the "too stupid to bother with" bin.
That being the case, I ask again, why make manned space flight the focus of our efforts, if the need to have someone ready for Mars mission isn't anywhere near imminent? Why not spend half a century or a century on getting really, really good at exploring and testing and navigating, and worry about adding in people when there is something useful a person can add to the payload? We could try to stretch a human Mars mission out over many decades to achieve higher levels of reliability and safety, but that would increase the cost and the chance of cancellation. On the other hand, I think Apollo probably should have been done more slowly. It was rushed because of Kennedy's "before this decade is out" political timetable. I think the timescale envisaged in the NASA design reference proposals--two to three decades to first human landing--is probably about right.
I've argued for it on the grounds that it would be the next big step towards protection from the loss of our civilization or species due to a terrestrial catastrophe. Mixner's agenda: "fuck the world, I wanna get off." Also: hot roboseks w/ Glenn Reynolds.
The only thing that could possibly justify the huge cost of a manned Mars expedition (we're talking $400 billion here, absolute minimum)... Cumulative federal outlays over the course of the three or four decades needed to put humans on Mars will surely be in the neighborhood of two or three hundred trillion in today's dollars; $400 billion spread out over that amount of time quite clearly is an amount of money the country could easily afford. And that's not even taking into consideration the likelihood of the participation of other governments. I strongly suspect it won't be American taxpayers alone paying for a manned Mars mission. The issue isn't affordability. The issue is political will.
NASA's cost estimate for development and first operational mission of a program to land humans on Mars is around $50 billion in current dollars. The European Space Agency's estimate is about $40. Subsequent missions are estimated at about $10 billion each by NASA, and about $7 billion each by ESA.
Ahem. The European Space Agency's estimate is about $40 billion.
I can't be the only person thinking that working towards sending Mixner to live on another planet sounds like an excellent project.
Carl Sagan pushed for robots to explore space, and he was right, and we don't have to under-fund NASA for that kind of science, so why the hyperbole of "manned space exploration"? We are too far away from any of other planets, beside our moon, so robots are it for now, and there ain't nothing wrong with that.
(1) First of all, Mixner, my apologies for misspelling Greg Benford's name. (I've only been reading him since 1969, after all.) As for Sheffield; yes, I'm well aware of his death. I was referring to that whole series of novels he wrote a few years before his death on a devastating nuclear/biological war between an Asteroid Belt-based society and the Earth -- which left most of Earth uninhabitable, in addition to slaughtering most of the several hundred million people living in the Belt by then. (2) As for Kim Stanley Robinson, let's quote his well-known views ( http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/kim_stanley_robinson_interview_000626.html ): "Mars is not important, compared to people starving down here. It's interesting, but in the historical context you bring up, interesting is not enough. Same with space exploration. The Only Good Excuse for our focus on Mars and space more generally, in this moment of history, is that we can learn things out there that can help us deal with the environmental crisis unfolding here on Earth. It has to be asserted that space science is an Earth science, and that like the other Earth sciences it is needed to help us get through the next couple centuries with less environmental damage than otherwise would occur... "[The possibility of life on Mars] complicates the humans-on-Mars picture very severely. On the one hand, it's an inducement to go and look for life. On the other hand, we will not want to contaminate Mars with Terran bacteria etc., when we have such an interesting prospect as life on another planet before us to study. So the hunt is on (now) but it will have to be a very careful hunt. And if we find life, then humans settling on Mars becomes a serious problem in environmental ethics, etc., and will be a matter for discussion by the whole human community, not just the space community." Sounds kinda like Obama, don't he? (3) As for NASA's estimate that a manned Mars mission would cost only "$50 billion": please. It was, after all, NASA that swindled Reagan into initiating the Space Station by assuring him that it would cost a total of only $8 billion. Off by a little matter of $100 billion. And, 12 years before that, it was NASA that swindled Congress into initiating the Shuttle by deliberately understating its operating costs by two orders of magnitude -- a move that 1970s Shuttle program manager Robert Thompson actually guffawed about during his testimony to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Read the transcripts -- http://caib.nasa.gov/events/public_hearings/20030423/transcript_am.html : "Mr. Thompson: 'At the time we were selling the program [to Congress] at the start of Phase B, the people in Washington, Charlie Donlan, some of them got a company called Mathematica to come in and do an analysis of operating costs. Mathematica sat down and attempted to do some work on operating costs, and they discovered something. They discovered the more you flew, the cheaper it got per flight. (Laughter) Fabulous. So they added as many flights as they could. They got up to 40 to 50 flights a year. Hell, anyone reasonably knew you weren't going to fly 50 times a year. The most capability we ever put in the program is when we built the facilities for the tank at Michoud, we left growth capability to where you could get up to 24 flights a year by producing tanks, if you really wanted to get that high. We never thought you'd ever get above 10 or 12 flights a year. So when you want to say could you fly it for X million dollars, some of the charts of the document I sent you last night look ridiculous in today's world. Go back 30 years to purchasing power of the '71 dollar and those costs per flight were not the cost of ownership, they were only the costs between vehicle design that were critical to the design, because that's what we were trying to make a decision on. If they didn't matter -- you have to have a control center over here whether you've got a two-stage fully-reusable vehicle or a stage-and-a-half vehicle. So we didn't try to throw the cost of ownership into that. It would have made it look much bigger. So that's where those very low cost-per-flight numbers came from. They were never real.' " (4) Moving on: The GAO ( http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/File/Reports/Ares1_GAOrep_2007nov29.pdf ), in October 2007, quotes NASA as saying that it plans to spend $230 billion over the next two decades on the Constellation Program and its very small manned lunar base -- with very little of that money going into the stupendously more difficult development of a manned Mars ship (complete with nuclear engine, very long-term closed-cycle life-support system, extremely efficient shielding against natural radiation, adequate self-contained supply of installable spare parts and medical equipment, etc.) (5) Now, let's look at the current NASA-ESA estimate of the cost of a single unmanned Mars sample-return mission (no men; a spacecraft weighing only a few thousand pounds and returning a 1-pound Mars sample), according to the July 8, 2008 "Space News": $5 to $8 billion. (NASA's official figure stabilized at that level several years back; I was at the Jan. 2005 meeting of NASA's Mars Strategic Roadmap planning group when a NASA official threw the $5 billion figure at the assembled scientists, spurring a mutter of "Jesus Christ" from one of them.) Why, of COURSE a multi-man Mars mission would only cost ten times that. We need only pull out our Harry Potter wands and command it (provided you have the right kind of magic feather inside the wand). (6) Finally, to Jasper: the question, of course, is not whether a $400 billion manned Mars mission would cost only a few percent of our total GDP over that period. The question is whether there are better alternative uses for that $400 billion.
I think the timescale envisaged in the NASA design reference proposals--two to three decades to first human landing--is probably about right. I'm sure that the experts on space flight over at NASA are breathing a sigh of relief that Mixner thinks that they are on the right track. I mean, if Mixner had a hunch that they were wrong, then surely all the expertise they could bring to bear on the subject would be of no utility to their surely doomed project. Actually, Mixner, maybe you should run over to the NASA blog and pester them for links to evidence for their claims of the feasibility of manned Mars missions. You could also rant about the outrageous subsidies per passenger mile for manned spaceflight and point out that the trend for the past 50 years has been that people don't go to Mars and that NASA's efforts to change that fly in the face of America's revealed preferences vis a vis the earthbound lifestyle. Unless, of course, you think that Mars is destined to become a suburb of Earth and that pretty soon people will just fly there in their cars of the future.
Postscript: It was Reagan's science advisor George Keyworth -- after his unsuccessful attempts to persuade Reagan not to believe the grotesque underestimates of the Space Station's cost that Reagan was being fed by the lying sleaze that he had appointed as NASA Administrator -- who said bitterly: "All government agencies lie part of the time, but NASA is the only one I know of that does so MOST of the time." To which one need only add that NASA has a perfectly logical motivation for this: it has far less real justification for its current spending levels than most government agencies do.
I think Adam got it right, the moon landings were planned and made in the 1960s, when by pretty much every measurement the US was in better shape than it is now. Even if the technology had been available, no one would have seriously suggested trying to do them in the 1930s, and in fact they were cancelled during the bad economic times of the 1970s. If you read the financial news at all, you can pretty much figure out whether the next ten years will be more like the 1960s or the 1970s. I think the ultimate objective of the space program should be to terraform Mars, so we can rape....I mean develop the planet like we did Earth. However, we can probably get closer to that goal by figuring out how to get humans living permanently and sustainably (no outside assistance) in Antartica. Once we do that we have a shot at Mars. Until we reach that point there is a strong case for mothballing NASA.
What, specifically, are these mankind-ending threats that we can only address by sending a handful of explorers to Mars for hundreds of billions (or a whole colony of folks for many, many trillions)? Why, for example, is sending a small group of people to a hostile planet like Mars a better defense against naturally-caused extinction events than building many underground bunkers at various locations around the world?
Another sign of desperation at the McCain Campaign as they seem to have hired Matt Yglesias to do their copy editing. Apparently not, because in the excerpt, they spelled "I" correctly.
I'll just note again the idea of our species as such ever colonizing space is really ridiculous, because anywhere remotely close to us is simply way too hostile of an environment. The basic problem is that humans require a lot from their environment: food, water, air, protection from radiation, insulation from temperature extremes, and so on. We are also sensitive to the exact nature of the gravity field we live in, light cycles, and so on. So, recreating all this somewhere in nearby space for enough humans to create an independent civilization would be an outlandishly expensive project, and there is no guarantee it could ever be done on a permanently self-sustaining basis. Again, though, what might happen is that we genetically engineer one or more successor species that can colonize space. For example, rather than terraforming Mars (which could never entirely work anyway), we might be able to genetically engineer a successor species that can live on Mars as it is, and so on for other nearby places. Alternatively or in conjunction, we might be able to genetically engineer a species that can actually travel between solar systems, which would open up the range of possible environments these successor species could colonize. None of that will save homo sapiens from extinction on our planet, however, because it won't be homo sapiens living on Mars, or travelling between the stars, and so on. But if those successor species outlive homo sapiens, one could arguably call that a continuation of our "civilization" past the extinction of homo sapiens. With that understanding in mind, the next step to such colonization of space isn't sending human beings to Mars. The next steps are twofold: using unmanned missions to gain a continually better understanding of the conditions in space, and meanwhile working toward the ability to engineer the necessary new species. And fortunately, the former will be a lot cheaper than a manned mission to Mars, and for the latter we have plenty of other economic incentives anyway.
The question is whether there are better alternative uses for that $400 billion. Sure, it could pay 10% of the cost of invading Iran. Woot! Honestly, we pay $2 trillion to invade Iraq without batting an eye, but $400 billion spread across several decades to put a man on Mars and people are wetting their pants over it? Give me a break. Fucking hell people, of course we need to put a man Mars, if for no other reason than because we can and sometimes it's worth reminding everyone what Mankind is capable of. Lighten up and dream a little, Francis.
J.B., Fortunately for my intellectual consistency, I also opposed wasting trillions on the Iraq War. And incidentally, I think that is indeed an illuminating parallel. There were actually arguments for the war of the sort: "Fucking hell people, of course we need to invade Iraq, if for no other reason than because we can and sometimes it's worth reminding everyone what America is capable of." Generally, I get very nervous when people stop analyzing things in terms of costs and benefits, and start talking in terms of glory. At best the pursuit of glory tends to leave people worse off than they could have been by wasting resources, and at worst it ends up just directly harming people, up to and including by killing them. So while it is true a glory-seeking manned mission to Mars would potentially waste fewer resources than the Iraq War and probably not kill anyone, that hardly redeems it in my eyes.
DTM, I'll just note again the idea of our species as such ever colonizing space is really ridiculous, You're not "noting" it, DTM. You're merely asserting it. And your argument for that assertion (it would be difficult and expensive with near-term technology) is stupid. You simply have no basis for making even tentative predictions about the state of space colonization in the long-term future, let alone dogmatic statements that it will never happen.
You simply have no basis for making even tentative predictions about the state of space colonization in the long-term future, let alone dogmatic statements that it will never happen. There is ample "basis" for making such a tentative prediction: human irrationality and aggression, the enormous expense, the distances, the harshness and uncertainty of remote locations, the daunting technological challenge, the scant margin for error. Surely you meant something like, "I don't share your pessimism regarding space colonization." It wouldn't have been as belligerent, but doesn't the preference for belligerence reinforce his pessimism?
DMonteith, Actually, Mixner, maybe you should run over to the NASA blog and pester them for links to evidence for their claims of the feasibility of manned Mars missions. NASA has been studying human missions to Mars for decades and in recent years has issued a series of Design Reference Mission reports and cost estimates derived from the Mars Direct plan popularized by aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin. The most recent is the Design Reference Mission 5. The program architecture has been developed in detail and provides for an on-going series of missions to establish a permanent human settlement on the planet. Initial versions of space vehicles to be used in the program, including the Ares series of heavy launch vehicles and the Orion crew vehicle, are already in development.
There is ample "basis" for making such a tentative prediction: human irrationality and aggression, the enormous expense, the distances, the harshness and uncertainty of remote locations, the daunting technological challenge, the scant margin for error. No, the expense and difficulty might provide a reasonable basis for predicting that colonization will not occur in the near-term future, but that's not what DTM claimed. He claimed that it will never happen. That's the stupid assertion I am referring to.
You simply have no basis for making even tentative predictions about the state of space colonization in the long-term future You simply have no basis for making even tentative predictions about the state of population density and urban development in the long-term future.
Mixner: "NASA has been studying human missions to Mars for decades and in recent years has issued a series of Design Reference Mission reports and cost estimates derived from the Mars Direct plan popularized by aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin. The most recent is the Design Reference Mission 5. The program architecture has been developed in detail and provides for an on-going series of missions to establish a permanent human settlement on the planet. Initial versions of space vehicles to be used in the program, including the Ares series of heavy launch vehicles and the Orion crew vehicle, are already in development." All of which is every bit as believable as NASA's initial declared prices for Shuttle and Station. (By the way, the Orion vehicle is only a minute part of the cost of any Mars mission, and the Ares vehicles aren't much bigger a fraction.) Again on this subject: While he was NASA Administrator, Sean O'Keefe proposed an unmanned one-way "Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter" -- weighing only 9 tons -- that would have used a reactor-powered engine (tremendously smaller than the one needed for any manned Mars ship), but of course would not have needed any long-lived, self-contained life support system for several humans, very thick radiation shielding, manned landing vehicle, etc. NASA cancelled it after their own estimate of its cost quickly rose past the $16 billion level (not counting the launch vehicle, and not counting the 36% cost reserves that NASA also recommended): So, what we have here is further proof that Mixner's $50 billion cost tag for a a 4-man 2-way trip to Mars, with large lander, is -- how can I put this as politely as possible? -- absolute crap.
Mars belongs to America!
Once Comrades Lenin and Stalin have perfected the Red Army's People's Rockets of Joy and Happiness, they will spread communism to Mars! But trains are too expensive.
Mixner, For some reason you seem to be ignoring the entire other half my argument. My claim isn't that Earth will never send living beings to colonize space. My claim is that we are highly unlikely to send homo sapiens to perform that task, but rather will likely send one or moe genetically engineered successor species. So, my argument isn't just that doing things like "terraforming" Mars to make it suitable for colonies full of homo sapiens would be ridiculously expensive (and never completely doable, unless you think we are going to find a way to increase the gravity field on Mars). My argument is that there is every reason to believe the far better path will be to do things like genetically engineer living beings who can actually live on Mars as it is. So, I actually agree technological advances will allow us to send living beings to colonize space. Again, it is just highly likely the technology in question will include a lot of genetic engineering of those beings first.
Comments closed August 12, 2008. |
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Heads in the Sand
Even though you poke fun of yourself here, it's a bit rich for you to be criticizing anyone's editorial gaffes.
Posted by right | July 29, 2008 5:46 PM