Thoughts on the "Shuttle gap"

Since there is really nothing for human beings to do in space that makes much sense, I expect that manned space programs of the U.S., Russia, China, and the E.U. will fold up or at least be drastically curtailed during the next couple of decades. The waste of scarce resources is going to be harder and harder to justify during an economic time of troubles. Of course, it is true that the Easter Islanders went on putting up those giant statues right up to their collapse so maybe I'm just expressing the hope that mankind doesn't pull a global Rapa Nua on itself. Twenty or thirty years from now will be time enough to look at the state of the technology and decide whether a space program that isn't a pyramid or potlatch has become feasible.

If we fail to engage in space exploration, when we have exhausted all the local accessible materials we need to maintain a civilisation of technological advancement, we will be unable to get to those in space (and, incidentally, put our manufacturing off-planet to reduce pollution).

Humans being there is a part of that equation.

Moreover, we spend in one month more on military adventurism than we do in a decade of space exploration. And we have done this for decades. Sorry, Jim, I'm in complete disagreement with you here.

The basic problem with the Shuttle was the early decision to have a vehicle that would carry both crew and cargo as well as Congress mandating that all civilian and military use the SSTS. I thought I read somewhere (don't have time to look it up) that the US Air Force wanted to continue using ELVs but were not allowed to.

The current version of the Atlas isn't man rated, but could be: No major hurdles to upgrade Atlas V rockets for people However, it would take several years for this to happen.

My hopes are for private industry to finally take over and just let NASA handle the R&D.

Back in the '60's at the height of the space program, I happened to see, and mentally connect, annual figures for cost of the picking up highway litter, and the budget for the space program. We spent more on picking up litter than on the space program at its most developed. I imagine the gap in funding between the two programs has grown with time. Does this support an argument that the space program is overfunded?

At present, only about 5% of a space rocket gets into earth orbit, which is why, last numbers I saw, it cost $10,000 per pound to put anything up. These numbers do not rule out the economic rationality of unmanned space ventures; but once you add in the enormous weight of all the stuff required to keep a human being alive and safe in a vacuum, you've got a problem. All the wishful thinking in the world is not going to change the fact that we're at the bottom of a gravity well, that space is extremely hostile to living things, and that the distances to anything very interesting are, well, astronomical.

Now it is perfectly possible that advances in basic science and engineering will make things different in the future at which point I will cheerfully change my tune. I like the idea of space travel as much as anybody. I just don't see how manned space travel is likely to give us practical access to scarce resources. What, knowledge aside, is valuable enough to be worth the expense of fetching it from the Moon or Mars a current or foreseeable prices? As near as I can tell, we're pretty much stuck on this planet for the duration, whatever that turns out to be. The worse thing about the space program is not that it wastes money--as you rightly point out we waste a lot more for far more dubious projects--but that it provides us all an excuse for not facing up to our existential situation.

Jim Harrison: Do you use a GPS? A non-stick frying pan? Own anything made of carbon fibre? Ever had a CAT scan or had cause to set off an EPIRB? Do you rely on a weather forecast for your work or leisure planning?

Saying that humans can't do anything useful in space neglects the huge range of (largely unpredicted) benefits the space industry has had on the ordinary person. Including those of use whose taxes have never been spent on it. We don't know what will happen if we send more people into space, but I would put money it affecting our lives in some way.

Turn it over to Virgin Galactic I say. They'll do it cheaper, make it much more fun and maybe even turn a profit.

Teflon was invented in 1938. Cheer up, there's always Tang.

More serious answer: of course there were technological spin offs from putting a man on the moon. Thing is, there would also have been technological spin offs from doing something intrinsically useful in basic science or unmanned space exploration. And space boondoggles spend money that could have been used for more promising projects. You often hear the expression, "we put a man on the moon. Why can't we do x?" But part of the reason we didn't do x is precisely because we put a man on the moon.

By the way, everybody is in favor of non-manned space efforts since they have a real payoff. The issue is manned space flight.

Of what use is a new born baby, indeed? The problem is that automated probes will not be able to adapt, on any account I know, to the conditions of mining and manufacturing in the outer solar system, over the long term. Perhaps we can do a lot with automated probes - in fact I think it has a much higher immediate payoff than human travel. But we cannot do all that we need to do, I think.

The problem that faces interplanetary spaceflight is, of course, radiation, both solar and cosmic. And I can't see how that can be overcome easily or cheaply (can we hollow out a nickel-iron asteroid and put it in a transplanetary orbit with a large scale ecosystem inside?).

It's a conspiracy between Kazakhstan, Russia, and the United States. Everybody knows that Russia is going to collapse before the middle of the century, so leaders in all three countries are working on getting an intervention and pacification force assembled at Star City in Khazakhstan. All under the guise of expanding Russian space capablities. Even as we speak American troops are engaged in reforming the Russian military, teaching elite Russian forces how to fight using American doctrine. At the same time U.S. Army civil teams are engaged in teaching American style government to selected Russian government officials

In the meantime, as the world is focused on American screw ups with NASA's new shuttle, the real work is going on in cooperation with Virgin Atlantic and Lockheed to develop a space plane capable of carrying 200 passengers. When the ball drops Russian and American forces already in Khazakhstan will be joined by reinforcements from the United States. These troops will be linked up with pre-positioned equipment and move out to relieve Ukrainian forces occupying Moscow and Polish and Hungarian forces occupying Minsk.

The real Problem with the shuttle is that they scarified the Saturn 5 to do the initial design studies so there was no going back. They could not say maybe this isn't such a good idea and they had to cobble it together to make it work some how, any how.

I think it is time we stopped paying for that error and go back to the drawing board and build a new rocket from scratch using the best modern technologies and materials.

Everybody knows that Russia is going to collapse before the middle of the century

What???

These troops will be linked up with pre-positioned equipment and move out to relieve Ukrainian forces occupying Moscow and Polish and Hungarian forces occupying Minsk.

Do you happen to have any counterarguments to me declaring you crazy? (Evidence, preferably.)

Alan Kellog: Is that comment serious or joking?

I happen to think that Jim Harrison is probably right. Manned space travel, great as it sounds, is probably, at least for the time being, impractical. Oh, I agree that interstellar colonization may (if possible) be necessary for the long-term survival of humanity, but we've got a lot more serious issues in the short run. If asteroid/lunar mining ever proves practical, I strongly suspect that it will be fully automated. I see no reason why another decade or two of advancements in computer technology shouldn't produce computers capable of running a mining operation on its own, subject to periodic policy instructions from Earth (e.g., focus more on iridium, we don't need much nickel right now, so cut back on that, etc.) Once set up, there would be very little expense. The mining products could be sent to Earth in the form of disposable ships (whose metal would then be recycled - such ships are not unprecedented, incidentally)

It's not just manned missions to some planet, we do real research in zero-G that needs a human and results in real practical applications. We do bio research on protein crystals on the ISS (crystals that have to be grown in zero gravity) and that result in new pharmaceutical developments. We do biological research on humans in zero gravity that result in knowledge of the human system and have applications in medicine. We've developed new light weight materials. We've examined plant growth and a million other small but relevant experiments. All of these missions have two things in common. One, they needed a human presence in zero gravity to achieve and two, there was no one outside of NASA trying to achieve them.

There's also an element of lost US leadership in a technical field to consider. As an American, I appreciate having a technical advantage, which brings the best and brightest here, investments in US firms, and promotes the advancement of US technical institutes and universities.

I'm certainly not saying all missions should be manned, there are real unmanned opportunities as well. But a part of our mission should be to keep some human presence in space. The cost, comparatively, is not that much.