Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Eye Candy

Phil Plait passed along this fine link: hi-res shots of life outside the space shuttle.

Posted by bjkeefe at 1:52 AM
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15 comments:

Adam said...

Good stuff.

Of course, I don't believe that we should have a manned space program at all. NASA is in large part a multi-billion dollar subsidy for the aerospace industry.

As is much of the DOD, which should also have some of its toys taken away from it until we have a balanced budget.

11:13 AM, May 14, 2008
Beth said...

All those pictures look surreal.
I do love that one showing "Canada" although I have mixed feelings as to space exploration (the $$$$ spent).

11:36 AM, May 14, 2008
Rick said...

I think there are several good reasons for having humans in space, including:

--no people means no public interest means no tax dollars means no space program at all

--looking at stuff on a computer screen is not the same as being there

--there is no shortage of "volunteers" willing to risk it

--etc.

10:14 PM, May 14, 2008
bjkeefe said...

Beth:

I heard (ex-Canadian) David Rackoff one time on This American Life, talking about the way the shuttle is viewed in Canada. He said every time a news program up there mentions it, it's always "the US space shuttle with the Canadian-built robot arm." Is this true (if exaggerated)?

Adam:

I'll chime in with kyklops -- I remain in favor of humans going into space. I agree with you that NASA has become, in some ways, another branch of the corporate welfare system, and I am definitely against directing NASA at this point to plan for a crewed mission to Mars.

However, I still want to see people up in space. There is a real romance and inspiration to this, and as Arthur C. Clarke, it's not possible to build such a good all-purpose troubleshooter for less money than it costs to add life-support systems. What I'd like to see is an end to the monopoly on crewed missions that NASA currently holds, and it does look like it might be starting to happen. (e.g.)

7:33 AM, May 15, 2008
bjkeefe said...

Shoulda been:

... as Arthur C. Clarke said ...

7:35 AM, May 15, 2008
Beth said...

Slightly exaggerated but, yeah, true. We do tend to hear about (and mention) that Canadian contribution to the shuttle a fair bit up here.

Hey, it's an important piece, right?

8:36 PM, May 15, 2008
Rick said...

I think Beth is basically right on this point, Brendan. I would only add that where a wingnutter would see it as some kind of Canadian "over-compensation,"it's really just a way to keep Canadian tax payers interested in the space program. Japanese TV plays up any connection it can to the space program as well, and both countries are major players (although more behind the scenes).

9:23 PM, May 15, 2008
bjkeefe said...

B and k:

I hope I didn't sound like I was dissing the Canadians for their pride in being part of the Shuttle program, and yes, Beth, the robot arm is key to most missions.

I'm glad that the Canadian media promotes this, too. I think the US MSM could do a better job in this regard.

If you want to hear that episode of This American Life where this seed was planted in my head, visit here. You can stream for free or download for a buck. Rackoff's bit is near the beginning.

5:44 AM, May 16, 2008
Adam said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
6:28 PM, May 18, 2008
Adam said...

Reasons given for a manned space program:

"--no people means no public interest means no tax dollars means no space program at all"

So what if there is no public interest? Trust me, putting up private telecom satellites, military satellites, etc. will mean plenty of money for general rocketry. There will always be a need for space as satellites have become so integral to our way of life, but sending men to space is a waste of money, since the requirements for say, a manned shuttle mission and an unmanned satellite launch are so different, with the former being massively more expensive.

"--looking at stuff on a computer screen is not the same as being there"

So what? How many people have been to space? It can't be more than a few hundred, ever. While I'm sure that it was a wonderful experience for them, why should we subsidize these fantastic experiences for a few hundred people? A more spectacular waste of money is difficult for me to imagine.

"--there is no shortage of "volunteers" willing to risk it"

So what? I'm sure there would be plenty of volunteer willing to risk an all expenses paid government funded trip to do something risky yet inspiring like climbing Mount Everest or base-jumping off Angel Falls. What this has to do with any argument for why we should flush billions of dollars down the NASA manned-space-flight toilet is beyond me.

6:30 PM, May 18, 2008
Rick said...

Adam,
I guess I should have made myself a bit more clear: I believe the ultimate and rational end of any space program to be the colonization and exploitation of space by human beings. We can argue the nuts and bolts of it (certainly there are a lot of missions that would be cheaper if handled remotely; certainly there is a lot of money wasted; etc...), but I think it's the proper role of national governments and institutions to get the ball rolling. And you can't start a colony without people.

12:23 AM, May 19, 2008
Adam said...

I'm pretty sure that space colonies will remain in the realm of science fiction. Certainly in our life-time, but I really don't think that mankind will ever develop methods of propulsion fast enough to send human beings anywhere further than Mars or our Moon.

And really I don't think terraforming, as intriguing as it sounds, is ever going to be a viable technology. Maybe I'll be posthumously proved wrong 500 or 1,000 or 2,000 years from now, but I doubt it. There are just too many problems imposed by the laws of physics. Even if I am wrong about the viability of terraforming, I think that the likelihood of human kind destroying itself before it can successfully terraform Mars is pretty good. In the here and now, though, the idea of colonizing space with humans seems pretty far-fetched, and like a serious waste of money. Right now it seems like all we'll be able to do is send a few lucky human beings to the moon, to the space station, and possibly to Mars on some of the most expensive tourist trips ever.

9:08 PM, May 19, 2008
bjkeefe said...

I'm with kyklops on this:

I believe the ultimate and rational end of any space program to be the colonization and exploitation of space by human beings.

You're probably right about it being unrealistic to think that we're going to get out there anytime soon, but I don't share your long-range skepticism. The space elevator and ion drives, for example, are already at the theoretically plausible stage, and we've only just begun to explore what genetic engineering and nanotechnology might yield when thinking about terraforming a planet or building a self-sustaining colony ship.

Also, given the many completely paradigm-shifting discoveries humans have made over the course of technological history, I think it would be the height of hubris to believe that we'd already discovered everything worth discovering.

6:38 AM, May 21, 2008
Adam said...

"Also, given the many completely paradigm-shifting discoveries humans have made over the course of technological history, I think it would be the height of hubris to believe that we'd already discovered everything worth discovering."

I'll grant you that, but some of the things that science has discovered have made some of the typical science fiction scenarios seem literally impossible. The amounts of energy required for near light speed propulsion, for instance, seem to indicate to me that there is no way we'll ever get to say, the next closest star within a human lifetime.

Perhaps there will be, many years from now, changes like successful suspended animation or massively increased lifespan that make a 20,000 year voyage doable or maybe there will be improvements that lead to terraforming that make colonization of our own cosmic neighborhood possible, but frankly I'll be dead for hundreds if not thousands of years by the time these conceivable technological advances occur.

I mean this is not a question about short-changing our children or grand-children, you really have to have a cosmic view of the sweep of human history to be into spending money now on technology that may, possibly, lead to science fiction type scenarios hundreds or thousands of years in the future. I personally would prefer cutting the fat on the already bloated Federal Budget. Let the EU and the Japanese worry about space colonization; we subsidize their defense so much that they owe us something.

5:39 PM, May 21, 2008
bjkeefe said...

I grant that our current understanding of physics does make the pessimistic outlook more defensible. In particular, I'm not holding my breath for a propulsion system that gets anywhere near c. But, you never know. At the end of the 19th century, many of the top minds thought physics was completely understood, a few loose ends aside, and could give a very consistent and comprehensive explanation of the universe. So, you never know.

That aside, I also think more in terms of colony ships, orbiting societies, and bubbles on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, for the short term. I don't think any of those are out of the question with just a little bit more progress in existing technologies. The real trick will be figuring out how to cut a few orders of magnitude off of launch costs, and dealing with things like radiation and low-gravity health risks. If you figure out how to get tonnage into orbit cheaply, though, that goes a long way to being able to bring up countermeasures for the health problems.

I'm mostly with you in thinking the time has passed when we can let NASA have a monopoly on further crewed flights. What we need now are some entrepreneurs and risk-takers.

I'm also with you in thinking we need to cut the Federal budget, and also in thinking that the EU, China, and Japan might well move ahead of us into space. I'd like to see us cutting our defense budget and putting more resources into space, and I think that a movement by others into space could reinvigorate competition. If it ends up that the US lags behind, though, I'll be happy no matter who's making progress, as long as someone is.

12:19 PM, May 22, 2008

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