News WSJ: Europe Ends Independent Pursuit of Manned Space Travel

[Urwumpe]

A failure within itself? Maybe not. A failure externally?

SES says you are not living in reality.

http://www.ses.com/ses/PDFs/MediaRoom/Financial/Annual_Report_2010.pdf

 

[T.Neo]

Satellites are part of unmanned spaceflight, not manned spaceflight.

Here I am talking about human spaceflight, even when I leave out the 'human' bit...

 

[Urwumpe]

Satellites are part of unmanned spaceflight, not manned spaceflight.

Here I am talking about human spaceflight, even when I leave out the 'human' bit...

Sorry, but I think your selections are just for trolling, and I am so selective now as well that I am ignoring your selectiveness. You attack spaceflight in general and always jump back to manned when you feel framed. And I get tired of it. if I ever might wonder why South Africa has no successful spaceflight program, I will remember you and that you have no sense for success at all.

How do you rationally measure the success of manned spaceflight? By gold and silver returned from the moon? Martian slaves? Seriously: You can only go by one measure: Could we have done it better with unmanned technology.

And that is pretty easily answered: Even for such propaganda missions as landing on the moon, the scientific value returned by the manned missions exceed the scientific value of unmanned missions that followed by far.

The Russian unmanned soil sample missions returned lunar soil at the scale of grams. The every US manned mission returned kilograms and contrary to the Russian probes, they had not been forced to take samples from what is by chance below the probe collector arm, but also had been able to do a good selection of typical and atypical rocks at their landing sites, build up a large seismometer grid with accuracy, even take samples of unmanned probes that had been on the lunar surface for years.

Now, you will go by "Do we need this knowledge". Yes. WE as whole do need it. No, you don't need it. You personally maybe are lucky with the knowledge where to find a shovel to dig yourself a hole, and call it success when you are finally buried. But the remaining 6 billion humans on this planet need this basic research.

You can not always tell in advance, what you will discover when researching a question, and when you discover something, you will often not know how important this discovery is yourself, until you finally get a call from Oslo after some decades without much attention - because a very innocent basic research by you finally resulted in many applications that changed the world: And you are the point where all paths of fate join.

 

[T.Neo]

Sorry, but research doesn't just become universally useful just because it is research. You can research many things that are maybe useful to a small niche group, but not to everyone.

If we really, really need to research some moon rocks one day, then we will do it then. And we will moan about it because nobody did it before. But we also had no need to. What is wrong with that? Often times, things that are low priority lose out to things that are of a higher priority.

The measure of success of human spaceflight isn't measured in "could a robot have done this better", it is "could this have been done better". That doesn't shut humans out of the equation. Maybe it shuts the historical scenarios out of the equation, but it could offer new ones as well.

Wouldn't it be better if we could have gone to the Moon for 90% of the cost of the Apollo program? Or that there could have been weeklong stays and more extensive operations on the surface? Exploration of more promising areas and phenomena? Wouldn't that program have been more successful?

if I ever might wonder why South Africa has no successful spaceflight program, I will remember you and that you have no sense for success at all.

:rofl:

Ironically, if I were Emperor... I would command this country to have a spaceflight program. It would be motivated by heavily selfish reasons, of course.

Of course, this spaceflight program would be better than the spaceflight program SA has in reality, which consists of a deactivated ICBM and an exceedingly annoying website.

Maybe that is successful in the eyes of some.

 

[Ghostrider]

I have no idea why you're using a spaceflight forum if your going to act like one of those people that cry about how diverting the less than 1% that space flight gets financially will magically make problems humanity has faced for decades suddenly go away.

Loneliness?

 

[Urwumpe]

Sorry, but research doesn't just become universally useful just because it is research.

Wrong. When somebody experimented with cut glass and this experiments one day resulted in people showing strange monsters in the drinking water - how useful was this research when it resulted in the discovery of important medical treatments 300 years later. Without the microscope, the causes for many illnesses would never have been discovered. But when the microscope was first invented, it had little practical use.

Ironically, if I were Emperor... I would command this country to have a spaceflight program. Because I think spaceflight programs are 'cool'.

Which is why your spaceflight program will fail. Because 99% of spaceflight is not cool.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

You don't understand. I'm saying that if people exert enough effort in important fields, many problems we have faced for decades, will go away after a lot of hard work.

I'd rather fix those problems than field some huge Mars colonisation program. I'm not saying I would anihillate space budgets, just that problems in the here and the now are far more important than unlivable hyperdeserts elsewhere.

But that's exactly what happens now. Space does not take priority over other issues. Space is a very very small effort compared to other things. That's why it's less than a half of a percent of the US federal budget. Would you decrease that further? I'm a fan of space, but I'm not suggesting we stop funding other important things to pay for it.

If the US spent half their money on space, you would have an argument, but they don't. They spend less than a half of a percent. So, your argument about there being more important things than space doesn't make sense, because that is already reflected in the US budget.

 

[T.Neo]

Wrong. When somebody experimented with cut glass and this experiments one day resulted in people showing strange monsters in the drinking water - how useful was this research when it resulted in the discovery of important medical treatments 300 years later. Without the microscope, the causes for many illnesses would never have been discovered. But when the microscope was first invented, it had little practical use.

That is only one example.

If I tell you, that there is an interesting thematic pattern in episodes of the A-Team, it is sure interesting for people who are interested in the filmographic aspects of the A-Team... but pretty useless trivia to everyone else.

Which is why your spaceflight program will fail. Because 99% of spaceflight is not cool.

Exactly. Not to anyone but a small niche group, anyway.

But that's exactly what happens now. Space does not take priority over other issues. Space is a very very small effort compared to other things. That's why it's less than a half of a percent of the US federal budget. Would you decrease that further? I'm a fan of space, but I'm not suggesting we stop funding other important things to pay for it.

If the US spent half their money on space, you would have an argument, but they don't. They spend less than a half of a percent. So, your argument about there being more important things than space doesn't make sense, because that is already reflected in the US budget.

Well, yes.

But in the minds of some people, space is this hugely important overbearing thing, that is our "glorious future". But that isn't why we must spent that 0.6% on spaceflight.

Wouldn't it be awesome if our civilisation was a developed and competent and capable one, that also happened to perform space research for comparatively little financial effort?

 

[Urwumpe]

That is only one example.

If I tell you, that there is an interesting thematic pattern in episodes of the A-Team, it is sure interesting for people who are interested in the filmographic aspects of the A-Team... but pretty useless trivia to everyone else.

The question is not how many examples exist in the scientific history of the world (Aristotle jumps into mind), but how many examples you actually need until you realize that you know nothing about science at all and how it works.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Wouldn't it be awesome if our civilisation was a developed and competent and capable one, that also happened to perform space research for comparatively little financial effort?

Yes, it would be.

 

[Codz]

Wouldn't it be awesome if our civilisation was a developed and competent and capable one, that also happened to perform space research for comparatively little financial effort?

It would also be awesome if I crapped money and if rockets ran on dreams.

 

[T.Neo]

The question is not how many examples exist in the scientific history of the world (Aristotle jumps into mind), but how many examples you actually need until you realize that you know nothing about science at all and how it works.

Oh no, I'm fully aware of how science works, I'm just questioning whether some things are worth it or not.

I know that is a very unpleasent question to ask, but I think it is one worth asking, even in the area of scientific research, where a "this isn't worth it" would be a highly painful answer.

Is it really a priority, to get data on some rock on Mars? Does this really help people in our world today? Is there an urgent need for this research?

If we do not collect this data today, what do we lose?

Yes, it would be.

Isn't having a developed, competent and capable civlisation of higher priority than manned spaceflight?

Why then, is manned spaceflight 'essential for our glorious future'?

It would also be awesome if I crapped money and if rockets ran on dreams.

What is that supposed to mean?

Should we forget a whole ton of real problems, and instead spend large amounts of money on things that have relatively little impact on people?

That sounds horribly selfish, short-minded and damaging to me.

 

[Codz]

That sounds horribly selfish, short-minded and damaging to me.

It's incredibly ironic that you call us short minded when your the one whining about fixing todays problems and not at all looking at the future, which is space. There's only so much room on Earth.

 

[T.Neo]

If we either can't fix our problems here on Earth or shouldn't bother, as you seem to imply, what makes you think we should even bother with space?

Also, as extensive as space may be, it is incredibly inhospitable. What goes on here on Earth is far more valuable than what goes on in space, and it will remain so for a very long time.

Do you know how many avenues there are for the future, that exist right here on Earth? And are also useful elsewhere? Is it really your philosophy that we shouldn't care about those?

 

[Codz]

If we either can't fix our problems here on Earth or shouldn't bother, as you seem to imply, what makes you think we should even bother with space?

Also, as extensive as space may be, it is incredibly inhospitable. What goes on here on Earth is far more valuable than what goes on in space, and it will remain so for a very long time.

Do you know how many avenues there are for the future, that exist right here on Earth? And are also useful elsewhere? Is it really your philosophy that we shouldn't care about those?

I'm saying why can't we care about both. As Pete stated, we only have around a half of a percent of the US federal budget invested in space travel.

 

[T.Neo]

I'm not arguing with that, my point is that some things take priority over others, and right now manned spaceflight has extremely low priority compared to many other things.

 

[Codz]

I'm not arguing with that, my point is that some things take priority over others, and right now manned spaceflight has extremely low priority compared to many other things.

The US space program gets maybe 0.75% of the US budget. Manned space flight gets a fraction of that. How could we make that any lower and still be effective?

 

[T.Neo]

You could start by eliminating money-sucking cost-plus-overrun contracts and pointless political pork-barrel spending...

 

[Codz]

You could start by eliminating money-sucking cost-plus-overrun contracts and pointless political pork-barrel spending...

Ther are far more of those in other agencies...

 

[T.Neo]

Yes. Why not start with NASA?