Is Space flight worth it?

[insanity]

Is manned spaceflight a worthy investment to begin with?

Mod Note: Posts moved from http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=10726

 

[Andy44]

And is manned spaceflight a worthy investment to begin with?

Shh! You're not supposed to ask that question!

But, for the sake of argument, let's say it is a worthy investment.

At least I think it is. But I don't want to force other people to pay for stuff I want.

(Oops! Didn't mean to bring that up, either!):tiphat:

 

[tblaxland]

At least I think it is. But I don't want to force other people to pay for stuff I want.

Ah, the Randian hero: "I swear — by my life and my love of it — that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

 

[insanity]

Ah, the Randian hero: "I swear — by my life and my love of it — that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

In other words, " the poor." However, Andy, we're not going there again:tiphat::rofl:

I imagine that questioning the necessity of manned space flight on this forum won't win me any beauty contests, but I think if we are going to talk about the future of space policy it is important that we really ask ourselves rather or not the investment is worth it.

I'm not so sure that it is. I really love the romantic ideal of humanity conquering the cosmos or something, but what is the payoff? We can do most of the science with robots, and we can develop complex missions doing things that human life is not suited for- long distance travel in space. Engineering that stuff will deliver the same technical achievements we've come to expect from NASA.

 

[Dambuster]

And is manned spaceflight a worthy investment to begin with?

YES.

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2008/05/ernst-stuhlinger.html

 

[Donamy]

Let's all go back to living in caves ! Life was simpler then.

 

[Eagle]

I imagine that questioning the necessity of manned space flight ... we really ask ourselves rather or not the investment is worth it.

I'm not so sure that it is. I really love the romantic ideal of humanity conquering the cosmos or something, but what is the payoff? We can do most of the science with robots, and we can develop complex missions doing things that human life is not suited for- long distance travel in space. Engineering that stuff will deliver the same technical achievements we've come to expect from NASA.

I absolutely agree that this question needs to be brought to full debate. The implications of the decision need to be made clear.

On one hand there is the expansion of man throughout the solar system and perhaps beyond. We are limited by what what we may find and how we choose to use it.

On the other is to live only on Earth, expanding until its resources exhaust us, then stagnating until the end of the Earth.

One choice leads to life without a clear bound, the other leads to a certain death.

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Then again, we are not a hive; and certain individuals will make our brighter future certain.

 

[Dambuster]

I absolutely agree that this question needs to be brought to full debate. The implications of the decision need to be made clear.

On one hand there is the expansion of man throughout the solar system and perhaps beyond. We are limited by what what we may find and how we choose to use it.

On the other is to live only on Earth, expanding until its resources exhaust us, then stagnating until the end of the Earth.

One choice leads to life without a clear bound, the other leads to a certain death.

I think you've pretty much wrapped up the debate right there!:thumbup:

 

[Andy44]

Yes, I've read Atlas Shrugged, as well as Fountainhead and other Rand works, but I'm not an Objectivist or a "Randroid". I'm just a plain-jane libertarian with a drinking habit.

However, at the root of all this stuff is the fact that humans pay for things they think are worthwhile.

Unless, of course, they are forced to pay for things they do not think are worthwhile.

Which, where I come from goes by names like theft, extortion, etc.

You guys who are gung-ho for manned spaceflight really need to think about this. There is a moral angle to this. It's part of the reason why the public doesn't get all excited by this space stuff, even though most of them are not drunken libertarians.

Heck, I love spaceflight and science and I am almost apathetic about Constellation.

Now, I don't want to start an argument and have this post deleted (which REALLY irritates me), I'm just trying to give you guys another angle to think about.

As long as it's a real program, I hope that Ares works better than expected. I have friends who work in the field, and like it or not, the thing has my country's flag sticker on the side of it, and you gotta root for the team and all that.

I'll leave you guys alone and go finish off this bottle of wine...

 

[jinglesassy]

personally i could care less about constellation program and the ares 1 really doesnt look like it could fly

 

[tblaxland]

I really love the romantic ideal of humanity conquering the cosmos or something, but what is the payoff?

You need to define how to measure the payoff first. I see human spaceflight as largely delivering emotional payoffs, the downside being that the payoff is only there if you really care about it (I happen to, but I recognise that others don't). The economic benefits are easily questionable, as are social benefits. The Stuhlinger letter that is usually trundled out in these discussion demonstrates a need for society to invest in scientific exploration but does not IMHO imply a need for transporting humans around in space to do that exploration, despite that being its specific subject matter.

Yes, I've read Atlas Shrugged, as well as Fountainhead and other Rand works, but I'm not an Objectivist or a "Randroid". I'm just a plain-jane libertarian with a drinking habit.

:lol: I was not knocking you. Besides, I need the libertarians/objectivists to prevent fence-sitting centrists like me from being seduced by the socialists/collectivists (and vice versa). :tiphat:

 

[Zachstar]

You cant say "emotional payoff" not anymore.

Joe Sixpack is not going to be seriously affected by landing on mars. As by then if we don't have fusion energy we will be in the midist of a serious serious energy crisis. and even if that was not the case they will be more worried about the next celebrty screw up anyway.

Failure to understand this is what caused NASA to face cut after cut. Shuttle does not compete with Michael Jackson ISS does not compete with Kobe Bryant... And they sure as hell do not compete with a class being held in a closet...

The only reason these days I support going beyond LEO for manned spaceflight that if done right has great real economical spinoffs. Apollo paid for itself. Shuttle might pay for itself. ISS will never pay for itself.

 

[SiberianTiger]

I'm not so sure that it is. I really love the romantic ideal of humanity conquering the cosmos or something, but what is the payoff? We can do most of the science with robots, and we can develop complex missions doing things that human life is not suited for- long distance travel in space. Engineering that stuff will deliver the same technical achievements we've come to expect from NASA.

Eventually, conquering space will pay it off.

 

[Ark]

You cant say "emotional payoff" not anymore.

Joe Sixpack is not going to be seriously affected by landing on mars. As by then if we don't have fusion energy we will be in the midist of a serious serious energy crisis. and even if that was not the case they will be more worried about the next celebrty screw up anyway.

Failure to understand this is what caused NASA to face cut after cut. Shuttle does not compete with Michael Jackson ISS does not compete with Kobe Bryant... And they sure as hell do not compete with a class being held in a closet...

The only reason these days I support going beyond LEO for manned spaceflight that if done right has great real economical spinoffs. Apollo paid for itself. Shuttle might pay for itself. ISS will never pay for itself.

Joe Sixpack is never going to give a crap about NASA, because he's only got the better part of a high school education and his pastor has him convinced the world is only 6,000 years old. Most people are just too bloody stupid to comprehend that the world is round, and the air ends a few miles up, let alone understand what it takes to travel in space.

Therefore, it's up to people who actually understand the value of spaceflight to advocate for it, because the half-retarded trailer slobs never will. In the long term (i.e., after the next season of Lost) it's the only thing that will save the species from dying at the bottom of our gravity well, killing each other over the last deposits of coal.

 

[Moonwalker]

Joe Sixpack is never going to give a crap about NASA, because he's only got the better part of a high school education and his pastor has him convinced the world is only 6,000 years old.

And that the moon is empty:rofl:

Joe Sixpack might be interested in chips, beer, TV, his car and football but that's it.

I think that ~ 98% of the humankind is not seriously interested in manned space flight at all. Maybe 50% of the people of the "developed" world think it is amazing, well if you ask them, but they don't know much about it and don't really care at the end. To find people who are seriously interested is quite hard in real live, at least in Germany. I've never met one, beside in the internet only. "Oh, you're intersted in space flight, so you're a big Star Treck fan?". That's what you mostly get...

But does it matter? Of course not. Space flight happens because there are intelligent and interested scientists, engineers and responsible politicians luckily. What is needed is the money of Joe Sixpack, but his opinion actually doesn't matter. He anyway mostly isn't intersted if his money goes to war, space flight or whatever.

 

[SiberianTiger]

To find people who are seriously interested is quite hard in real live, at least in Germany.

No, that apparently shouldn't be a problem:

 

[Arthur Dent]

@SiberianTiger
Most people on that bridge probably thought: Awesome, the Americans are selling their Space Shuttles to Germany.

 

[Zachstar]

That "its up to smart people" stuff stinks of power grabbing. This is the USA. If your country does something differently have at it but here you don't just ignore the population.

And right now the population wants healthcare and education.

 

[reject]

That "its up to smart people" stuff stinks of power grabbing. This is the USA. If your country does something differently have at it but here you don't just ignore the population.

And right now the population wants healthcare and education.

Agreed. History is littered with examples of ruling elites riding roughshod over the masses in the belief that they knew what was best for the "great unwashed". Such systems usually came to a very sticky end.

It's easy to sneer at the population at large being too unimaginative or too dumb to see beyond the end of their nose. I'm sure I've done it, it's a soft target. You have to remember that by and large these are people just trying to survive and provide for their family. In the current social and economic situation space just doesn't figure highly. Putting footprints on the moon doesn't put food on the table or treat grandpa's Alzheimer's.

There's no point in complaining that people are too stupid to grasp the benefits of space exploration. This misses the point entirely. If we as advocates of space cannot make the argument for exploration in a way that captures the imagination of the public then it is more a reflection of our inability to make a coherent case than the "stupidity" of the audience to appreciate it. Vague notions of how great for humanity and how patriotic it is don't cut it anymore like they did in the 60s. People want to know concrete benefits. They work hard for their $$$s and really HATE the thought of it being wasted. If they want to feel good about themselves there are thousands of other and much cheaper ways to do it than sink billions into a space program that might possibly maybe perhaps put somebody back on the moon before 2020.

 

[Moonwalker]

@SiberianTiger
Most people on that bridge probably thought: Awesome, the Americans are selling their Space Shuttles to Germany.

Jep. Most people who visit museums that display aviation and space flight stuff are not really interested in it the way orbiteers are interested in for example. The majority just wants to take a look, say "wow" and take a few fotos (when you listen to them it often is quite funny because you'll notice that they actually don't really know what exactly they are looking at without reading the description, for example confusing the US Shuttle with Buran or Mercury with Apollo). It's mostly the same clientele who visits mining museums or zoos -> to have fun and see something they usually don't see in their free time. There is nothing wrong with it of course but you usually don't meet a lot of people that are seriously interested in that stuff in their free time like orbiteers I guess. My free time for example hugely consists of aviation and space flight stuff, even that much that visiting museums actually is quite boring to me (just like planespotting). I'd need something different, a little bit more, like an individual tour through the Kennedy Space Center for example, especially the VAB with a stacked Shuttle or Ares in it :lol: