The Manned Space Program

[Specfiction]

How do people feel about the Manned Space Program? Recently, NASA has a mandate (not funding) to go to the Moon and beyond. Here's how I see it:

Note before reading: When I refer to the "Manned Space" program I mean Men and Women. I use the term "Manned Space" because this term is used by NASA. The only astronaut that I know personally is a woman.



NASA, for the past thirty years, has been afraid of putting forward a workable plan for the man space program. Watching Dan Golden on TV trying to explain why the man space program even exists was a very painful thing to watch. The fundamental problem is how large, multi-year (decade?) programs are funded. Each year NASA has to go back to Congress and get the next installment of their funding. As things change--the amount a particular congressman is getting for his/her state etc.--appropriations wax and wane, and eventually programs fall short of goals and run long on expenditures. Result--little of lasting importance ever gets done.

Another annoying aspect of man space is the inappropriate way in which it is sold, both to congress, and to the American people. Broad visions of exploration and scientific research are the WRONG way to do it. First, most scientists hate man space. As far as they're concerned all this does is take money away from "serious" research, i.e. unmanned missions. Anyone who doubts this only has to read the venom that the late Van Allen had for man space. Second, the greater American public are more than happy watching movies and playing video games. The great public enthusiasm of the 60's is a distant memory. This may be, in part, because America is a much less scientific culture in the 21st century than it was in the 20th century. We like the gadgets, but we know and care little about the science.

Man space will stay bogged down unless and until advocates come up with a viable and attractive business plan that gets both private companies and state governments excited about man space. Once the money starts flowing, the sense-of-wonder will return.

[Galbally]

I think that space will become commercial in the 21st century once the possibilities and technologies come on stream to get into orbit and to nearby planets. The motive will be profit and it will work and companies from all over the world will be involved. Government sponsored manned space missions will continue but they are going to be joint ventures between NASA, ESA, The Russians, The Chinese, and the Japanese. Unmanned space missions will continue as they have been doing, because they are vital to scientific research. Its not a zero-sum game and there are lots of ways that space can be explored, visited, and made us of. In the long term, if we don't move forward into a scientific future, then we will retreat into a superstitious past, and our modern civilization won't last very long before it destroys itself in some war about something.

[Specfiction]

Potentially, the Manned Space program addresses several timely issues.

First, there is a limitless amount of clean solar energy available in space for industrial production. Conceptually, we know how to use this for manufacturing and getting the products back to Earth.

Second, there is a limitless source of many raw materials and manufacturing environments that don't exist on Earth, namely zero gravity and ultra-high vacuum.

Third, and maybe hardest to understand, the ramifications of a sense of the Earth as fragile and un-replaceable. A revealing look at some of this can be found in Buzz Aldrin's book "Return to Earth." Aldrin suffered deep depression and alcoholism, in part due to the tremendous psychological effects of having experienced a different reality than can be had on the face of this small planet. Recently, physicist Hawking has echoed these thoughts. Here is an interesting story on Hawking's perspective:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13293390/

[Bill Sikes]

Specfiction;520327 wrote: Hawking's perspective


Tell me, has that bloke ever come up with anything original, or is it all just

"sausages"?

[Galbally]

Bill Sikes;521372 wrote: Tell me, has that bloke ever come up with anything original, or is it all just

"sausages"?


Yes, he did some original work on the possibility of information not being lost once it had entered a black hole because of the laws of entropy quantum mechanics, and thermodynamics, and how this would effect the matter at the event-horizon of the black hole, its a well-regarded work in physics, though not an earth shattering one in terms of public interest. He has also worked on various ideas in cosmology including the inflation theory first propounded by Alan Guth in the 1970s. He is not just a TV personality. But he is no Einstein either (who is?), not that I have ever heard him claim to be.

[Specfiction]

Tell me, has that bloke ever come up with anything original, or is it all just

"sausages"?


Read his stuff (if you can) and judge for yourself.