Do we still need a space program?

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Khamûl
Yeah, I know, but I had the information handy.

Well good. Im glad. Because it really cant be said enough apparently.

[Dunadan]

Originally posted by Khamûl
continued...

Source: "Shuttle Program Results in Down-To-Earth Technology Discoveries" NASA - October 11, 2000


Besides, how can you argue against a program that gave us Tang?

Thanks for posting that; I'd not seen it before.

Some of these are great, and I don't doubt that the space programme has made an important impact, in addition to leading to the development of an important industry (satellites) in itself. Most of them are fairly trivial or indirect, though, it has to be said. I do have doubts about the cost-benefit ratio. I'd wager that a lot more would come from researching these things directly.

It's good that this debate is being had, though, since we must acknowledge that by directing the space program better, it can serve us better. Sending a man to Mars is insane, in my view. It seems to me that 20 times as much can be accomplished with the same money using unmanned missions.

It's true that the Apollo contracts allowed US companies to develop and test integrated circuits in the 60s, but so did lots of arms of government spending, such as the ICBM program. The US space program was just one aspect of this policy. I think it's misleading to place too much emphasis on this particular contribution. It's really about the US Govt policy of using such contracts to pump-prime the R&D of US contractors and give them a technological lead over competitors. This is still very much the policy, BTW.

cheers

d.

[Earniel]

I'm surprised that no one (seemingly, I may have missed it) mentioned satellites. Aren't they part of the space programm as well? Well maybe not directly but they are very much related. Weather satellites, communication satellites, spy satellites (not so possitive I suppose but that doesn't mean there aren't any), GPS, ect.... We would have been a lot less off without them.

[The Lady of Ithilien]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
I really hate name dropping but I should say here that Sagan was a proffesor at my alma mater and although he really only held classes for a small number of high level grad students he did make a lecture or two to my freshman Astronomy 101 class which simply blew my mind. God its Carl Sagan right there! Giving us a lecture!!

Lucky you!!!

cool segue! This is a fun topic too. and i disagree that theres little evidence for the Cretaceous/Tertiary extinction event. I mean we can find an impact crater of 300 km diameter right off the yucatan peninsula. we find this clear clean layer of irridium deposited right at THAT particular point (and irridium only comes from outerspace pretty much) and its locally maximized but its also found as far away as Denmark and New Zealand. So what ever did that was HUGE. We find shocked quartz all over the place in texas a sign of massive sudden heated force on rocks. We find microtektites in massive quantities as well (super heated glass like rock made from sudden enormous force and heat impact events. Imagine a rock suddenly being melted like hot butter). And ALL of this stuff just happens to date nicely to about 65 million years ago. Which also happens to correspond to the end of the Cretaceous and the end of the dinosaurs. Coincidence?

No, just a respectable compendium of knowledge, with its interpretation up for grabs. You should have checked out that mass extinction site: you would have seen that an awful lot of living things weren't affected at all: besides ferns and seed-producing plants, which one would think would have been among the first hit in this catastrophic heat/fire/global cloud-producing event, "most mammals, birds, turtles, crocodiles, lizards, snakes, and amphibians were primarily unaffected by the End-Cretaceous mass extinction."

Mighty selective catastrophe, no? And anyway, the previous Permian extinction was greater, and we haven't a clue what caused that, though some guess it was glaciation. Pretty puny guess, though. The truth is, the Earth has reworked some of its surface so much since then, there is relatively little left in the record, and so we will never know.

Contentment -- that option we all have all the time -- is to accept that we will never know, and to get on with what we do know because it is all around us in the here and now. And yet so many of us always are trying to escape it....

...we will SPREAD into space. not move FROM earth TO space. i keep having to go back to that it seems.

So we all are and will always be Earthlings?

Originally posted by Dunadan
It strikes me that there's a lot of myths about exactly what the benefits of the space programmes are. Does anyone actually know what these wonderful "off-shoot" technologies actually are?

Khamul's list is impressive. I would also add, that in the context of the "butterfly theory" (one example: a butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing, and there's a blizzard in North Dakota), the effects of the space programs present and past are innumerable and complex. Mankind being what it is, we have adopted them as our own and used them in many ways, as much as possible for our own benefit. So there are definitely benefits.

But this is not to say the world is better. It is only different.

[Khamûl]

Originally posted by Eärniel
I'm surprised that no one (seemingly, I may have missed it) mentioned satellites. Aren't they part of the space programm as well? Well maybe not directly but they are very much related. Weather satellites, communication satellites, spy satellites (not so possitive I suppose but that doesn't mean there aren't any), GPS, ect.... We would have been a lot less off without them.

Excellent point. Satellites are important enough to warrant an entire heading in my paper. They are extremely important in weather prediction and early warning as well as communication and entertainment. The military uses them for reconnaissance too. So yes, satellites are a key aspect of the space program.

[Dunadan]

Originally posted by Eärniel
I'm surprised that no one (seemingly, I may have missed it) mentioned satellites. Aren't they part of the space programm as well? Well maybe not directly but they are very much related. Weather satellites, communication satellites, spy satellites (not so possitive I suppose but that doesn't mean there aren't any), GPS, ect.... We would have been a lot less off without them.

Actually, I did, in the post right above where yours appeared I agree that this is an essential industry these days, especially for telecomms and navigation. My point is that unmanned space flights are far more cost-effective than manned flights (including for positioning satellites).

I don't deny the "pioneering" aspects of sending people into space, I just think it's a very different kettle of fish to the early European explorers. I think our expectations of the future of space travel have always been wildly inaccurate. The money would be far better spent on terrestrial research (or 20 times the unmanned missions).

I think it's a tautology to state that the world is "different" because of the space programme. The question we really ought to be asking is "is it better"?

One might argue that the simple existence of photographs of the Earth taken from the Moon is the single most significant achievement. I'm sure future historians will put it on a par with Copernicus. But surely if that image tells us anything it's that the Earth is fragile and unique, and we should look after it better instead of trying to find other places to turn into a toilet.
In that sense, the space programme is enormously wasteful.

cheers

d.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Dunadan
I don't deny the "pioneering" aspects of sending people into space, I just think it's a very different kettle of fish to the early European explorers. I think our expectations of the future of space travel have always been wildly inaccurate. The money would be far better spent on terrestrial research (or 20 times the unmanned missions).

Frankly Im perplexed at how often people insist we have to take an either/or approach to science. Whats wrong with some scientists looking at earth issues (as so many currently do) and some scientists looking at space issues? We dont need ALL of them just studying global warming or something. Thats limiting. Nor do we need to sit here and decide ok whose gonna get 100% of the money for this stuff. Thats silly. We are a diverse species and we can focus on more then one thing at a time. The problem is generally politics and not science. Some people make idiot decisions about say the environment and then suddenly everyone wants to put every cent into studies that prove them wrong and focus everyones attention on that one issue because its their focus. Well I say broaden your horizans. If you want to explore the artic do that. If you want to explore deep sea vents on the bottom of the pacific do that. And if you want to stand on mars and dig into its soil with your own hands then do that. No sense pecking at each other trying to argue my thing is better then yours so you stop focusing on yours.

Now about the unmanned money thing. We are now just about at the point where we really need to have certain things set up in orbit around earth to better facilitate unmanned device launching if you will. This involves a monstrous project called Project Prometheus which would essentially involve building an immense nuclear reactor in space (!!) to give deep space probes a dramatic boost in propulsive power and electricity in missions beyond Mars, where the sun's rays are too weak to provide the energy for ambitious projects. This will cost a fortune as you can imagine. So either way, manned or not, we are gonna have to open our wallets and spend some serious cash pretty soon.

I think it's a tautology to state that the world is "different" because of the space programme. The question we really ought to be asking is "is it better"?

the world is the world. the earth isnt going anywhere. no matter how foolish we act. the danger is to ourselves and to a good portion of life ON earth currently. not THE earth. If we go extinct then maybe the earth will be better off quite frankly. But I strongly disagree with the idea that we should pull the plug on NASA and pour it all into saving the whales or anything like that. Thats an impracticality. And again we should be doing both.

the question we should be asking is will it benefit humanity in the long run. not focus on our generation. when you are talking about something as grand as space travel you cant expect a pay off in your life time this is about future generations. most people are way too generationaly miopic (only way I could figure to put it).

[Dunadan]

I agree with most of what you say, but I think you've missed the point.

For sure, the Earth will always be here; and sure, the question is instead whether we'll be here.

The point is that when we do intervene to direct science (i.e. by driving trucks loaded with money round to the labs) it would be nice if it were done to some tangible benefit. I never said we didn't need a space programme; what I said was that it's a waste of money to send people into space.

Now, if a fraction of the money had been spent on renewable energy sources... But then, you don't get to play with such lovely, not to say BIG, toys.

Re: Project Prometheus. OMG, just what we wanted. A nuclear reactor hurtling around above our heads. Whose bright idea was that?

[The Lady of Ithilien]

Originally posted by Dunadan
I think it's a tautology to state that the world is "different" because of the space programme. The question we really ought to be asking is "is it better"?

It is a truth.

For such a big endeavor, one needs something fairly absolute and impartial to measure relative worth. And everybody's been messing with our minds so much for so many decades now -- advertising, politicking, just for the heckuvit -- and with the main hook being trying to sell you stuff because it's "better," how can we even ask the question "is it better" meaningfully, that is, in a way that includes both disadvantages and advantages, negative effects as well as positive spin-offs, let alone answer it? How can one frame the matter at all in a way that triggers our mental processes rather than our emotions?

Call me a pessimist, but I don't think we can any more. Hence all the "gee whiz" stuff and pretty pictures. Just ads, as well as signs that the space program has devolved into one more matter of interest groups saying "what's in it for me," rather than the focus of national, indeed, global unity, pride, and effort that it once was.

That's OK. We don't really need it.

[Insidious Rex]

Figured this was a good a place as any to give official salutes to the late space probe Galileo which ended its much to short life by plunging itself into the planet Jupiter on Sunday and vaporizing in its atmosphere.

*taps* *moment of silence*

despite set backs Galileo proved an incredible resource for obtaining information heretofore unknown on Jupiter and its many sattelites. Once again proving the worth of maintaining a space program. It may have just been a machine but there were a lot of tears at mission control in Houston yesterday.

Rest in piece(es)
1989-2003

(hey how many vehicles can say they made it 2.8 billion miles without an oil change)

[Sween]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
(hey how many vehicles can say they made it 2.8 billion miles without an oil change)

Thats some good milage maybe NASA should make cars could become a good self funding operation

[Earniel]

Originally posted by Insidious Rex
despite set backs Galileo proved an incredible resource for obtaining information heretofore unknown on Jupiter and its many sattelites. Once again proving the worth of maintaining a space program. It may have just been a machine but there were a lot of tears at mission control in Houston yesterday.

Rest in piece(es)
1989-2003

*sigh*

Bye-bye Galileo.

I wish they just could have kept him in orbit around Jupiter, but there was apparently too much risk of Galileo crashing on Europa.

I always get sad when they turn off or destroy these sattelites that have reached such incredibly vast distances from our planet. Especially since so many of them kept working for years longer than originally planned.

Galileo may have been made up by mechanical parts but to some it was more a dream than a machine.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Eärniel
*sigh*

Bye-bye Galileo.

I wish they just could have kept him in orbit around Jupiter, but there was apparently too much risk of Galileo crashing on Europa.

yeah! i found that incredible! that they actually did this because of the potential that alien life could have been contaminated by microbes on the space probe. They calculate the odds of life being under the ice surface of Europa were to great to take the risk! how cool is that!

[Earniel]

Well, I was actually surprised that they took the possibility of life on Europa in account and not wanting to contaminate it with earth-based bacteria. But I think it's a very responsible thing to do. It shows that they're very careful with what they're doing, which is a smart thing to do given the scarce information we have on planets with possible life.

It also reminded me of the prime directive from Star Trek.

[Khamûl]

So how do we find out if there's life on Europa or not? If we land a spacecraft, there's the chance that we'll contaminate it.

[Wayfarer]

Excuse me, but I think I ought to bring up something that I haven't noticed mentioned in this topic.

Let's forget research and exploration for a moment. Let's consider pure practicality.

The earth can obviously only support a certain amount of people. It's carrying capacity could vary, sure, but eventually we're going to have so many people we run out of places to grow food and plants to produce oxygen. What then?

The orginization WorldWatch puts earth's current carrying capacity at between 2 (american quality of life for everyone) and 12 (subsistance diet for everyone) billion people. Other estimates have the earth topping out at 9-12 billion.

My favorite answer is to work towards allowing immigration. Space stations, moon bases, colonies on mars. Birth control, of course, but humanity has an ingrained need to explore.

[Ruinel]

Originally posted by Wayfarer
... Let's consider pure practicality.

... but eventually we're going to have so many people we run out of places to grow food and plants to produce oxygen. What then?....

Soylent Green! hello? Sheesh!

My favorite answer is to work towards allowing immigration. Space stations, moon bases, colonies on mars. Birth control, of course, but humanity has an ingrained need to explore.

And birth control, for those who need to explore.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Khamûl
So how do we find out if there's life on Europa or not? If we land a spacecraft, there's the chance that we'll contaminate it.

well i think what they have planned (in fact its already on its way) is a satellite that would orbit Europa, carrying a radar instrument able to penetrate the ice and map any ocean that's present. And a second instrument would measure Europa's surface accurately enough to register changes pointing to the presence of subsurface water.

Now if all the signals are positive then the next step would be to visit that ocean with a drill or a melt-thru-the-ice robot probe. The key is that this probe would have to be completely sterile. And apparently Galileo was never sterlized in this way. Which is why they were worried about it coming in contact with Europa.

But even if all goes as planned we wouldnt be seeing any Europa ice or water till at least 2009 so dont stay up waiting.

[Bombadillo]

Still? Never. We never needed a space program. The study of space is pure science. That's actually what it's called. pure science- any study or studies performed only for the sake of gathering information.
In other words, we'll never need this, but I want to know.

Space is just a curiosity.

EDIT: Do I /support/ our space program? Sure! Why not, after all? Sure, a bunch of people died, but that should be expected. And they do use our money, but they're giving us all that space information. That's cool! I'm interested, I'd pay to see that.

[Khamûl]

You know, I really should post my final term paper. I think I've got it saved on my computer. If anyone is interested in reading it, let me know and I'll see if I can find it.