If you aren't interested in reading about ISS research, then that's fine - everybody has their own interests, and you're entitled to yours. But, if you aren't going to read about these things, then you should stop commenting on things which you aren't informed about.
No, I'm not actually interested in RASV. I'm interested in what it could do and why it needs to be placed aboard a $100 billion manned orbital complex.
And of course: how important research can be done
without a $100 billion manned orbital complex. Just because things are being done on the ISS does not mean the ISS is being used optimally, or is optimal in any way.
And without that $100 billion facility does not mean research with a stick and a collection of tupperware... maybe it means a $10 billion orbital facility instead.
Just an FYI, if you are looking for a full breakdown of all ISS research, you can do so at the link below, which is displayed prominently on the NASA ISS website, under the "Research" tab.
A lot of it is pure space research, that has most of its importance in study of human and biological reaction to the space environment. Since everyone lives on Earth, this does not really have many real-world applications.
We have some biological experiments that could be recreated on Earth, depending on various conditions (closed ecological systems- I didn't know they were limited to space :dry
.
We have a whole section on space and Earth science, that could theoretically be performed by an unmanned complex/spacecraft.
Some technology demonstrators, again useful for spaceflight, potentially testable on the ground in some way (which they probably were before flying on the ISS).
Taste evaluation of Malaysian Food on Earth and in Space - huh? For $100 billion? Should we taste-test South African or Bolivian food for $100 billion as well? :lol:
Radiation measurement, important for better understanding of LEO environment but inadequate for understanding the radiation flux in BEO locations. Because... LEO is not a BEO location...
Robotics- nothing that couldn't potentially be tested on Earth for far lower cost, obviously has to be implemented in space to be implemented in Space... but is Robonaut really that useful, or is it just a PR stunt?
Spacecraft materials- could also be tested on unmanned vehicles, potentially with less disturbance from EVA activities, vented waste materials, or RCS bursts.
Still no groundbreaking or majorly useful research. A lot of it doesn't benefit people on the ground directly because it is related to the space environment intrinsically. And a lot of it does seem like "hey, we have this facility, let's do something with it... I know, let's find out how X performs in microgravity!"
I think the manned space station paradigm is just another holdover from the Von Braun vision, when space was cheap and pretty much everything on a spacecraft had to be operated by a human. At least this station actually creates a novel environment for study... von Braun's station had artificial gravity onboard, which would ruin all usefulness of the ISS. Then again, things like Earth and space sciences aboard von Braun's wheel station were justified, as the sort of automation we see today was not part of that vision.
But: imagine this;
How many Earth-bound research facilities could you build, for $100 billion?
How many things could all those research facilities do, for a fraction of the cost of the ISS?
How many discoveries could they make?
Even our biggest scientific projects on Earth apparently aren't as costly as spaceflight. Yet many of them provide useful research, while the ISS provides... trivia.
---------- Post added at 23:37 ---------- Previous post was at 23:12 ----------
That is painting an analogy in-between the Americas in the 1700's and the Moon and Mars today.
Yes, they're very different. The Americas require a sailing ship loaded with supplies and crew, while the Moon and Mars require large ground infrastructures, and large spaceships with all their complex subsystems. The New World was a lush woodland, while the Moon and Mars are "hyperdeserts" (actually, this term really isn't accurate...).
The challenge is much greater. But so is our technological ability, the world's population, and tied to that, the enormous infrastructure we enjoy today. When you compare the two, they're actually very similar...
The New World was a long journey away on a large ship stocked full of supplies. Today, we can mathematically know in advance if the ship will make it or not. But back then, they had to stock up and hope for the best. A bad, or lack of wind, a storm, or any failure of the ship would kill them all. These ships weren't cheap, either. They had to carry all the equipment and tools to build a colony in the New World, a knowledgable and experienced crew, and a massive hold for supplies. It was a great technological challenge for them at the time, as well.
Also with a far greater reward. The difference is that their new world actually offered a place to live, and a means of profit, for that risk. You can't blame them for not figuring logistics out properly.
Our population, our technology, does not help the fact that our prospective destinations are useless to us. It started out this way in the 1950s and 1960s and our technology has only increased.
It hasn't helped.
The New World wasn't exactly hospitable, either. I don't know how much people from other countries are educated in early colonial history - but many of the early colonies failed, more than half the people died, there were "staving times", harsh winters, they had to build their own cabins, and in the meantime survive natives, who on occasion, were trying to kill them, and would raid the colonies and burn what little crops they managed to grow in the alien environment.
Let's see;
They had free air.
They had (more or less) free water.
They had (more or less) free land to grow crops.
They had (more or less) abundant wildlife which they could use for food if need be.
They had (more or less) abundant fuel.
Hostile, yes. Unlivable? No. Many people did not survive, but it was still possible and advantageous to survive there for those who did.
And let's get to the biggest deciding factor:
The technology they needed to survive was the same or similar to the technology that they would have used back home during their daily lives.
Now, let's go to Mars:
- A habitat will not be provided for you. You will have to create and maintain your own habitat.
- Food will not be provided for you. You will have to create and maintain your own means of gaining food.
- A habitat will not be provided for your food. You will have to create and maintain this habitat.
- Resources, where they can be found, will need to be converted into a useful form before they can be utilised. You will need to create andmaintain the infrastructure to do so.
- Transport outside of your limited habitat will kill you unless you create and maintain the means to do so first.
Sorry, but you can stand in the New World, and the chance of immediately dying (mauled by wild animal, shot by native, eat poisonous frog, etc) is quite low.
Stand on Mars, and without an expensive and complicated and specialised piece of equiment, you
will die. Almost immediately.
In terms of hospitality - we actually have it better off with Mars. It's not a hyperdesert.
Oh yes it is, very much so. Worse than pretty much anywhere on Earth. The only places that might be worse, are the deep oceans (because there's a lot of pressure there), or the polar/alpine deserts (only because the air is thicker than that on Mars and might rob your heat more effectively).
Pretty much everywhere on Earth has better resources than on Mars. For starters, Earth has air. You need to keep warm in Antarctica or cool in the Sahara, but you don't have to worry about an air leak.
There's lots of water ice - from which you can extract water to drink, and oxygen to breathe, or to provide oxidizer/propellant for your ERV.
At a cost. You need a good power source and all sorts of equipment to perform meaningful ISRU. If you rely on ISRU and your equipment fails, you die fairly quickly.
Oxygen is also rich in the soil, and so is nitrogen. Nitrogen can be used for breathing air as well
On Earth, we have never had to split apart the chemical content of rocks in order to breathe...
And not only can we bring our own shelters along - inflatable greenhouses or habitats
All have their limitations and their dangers.
but we can land a fully built "cabin" on the surface
Again, limitations and dangers. And cost.
In the New World, you could maybe build your cabin out of wood. Wood is preexisting building material. On Mars, there is no preexisting building material- you will have to make it first. The materials might be there, but you can't just cut them down and stack them into a shelter.
What do we think of those who refused to fund the early explorers? Was it worth it?
If it ended up being such a bad thing for them, no, it wasn't worth it.
Are you
proposing wasting money and sending people to their deaths?
That sounds like a very bad idea to me.
Of course, as someone living on this continent I'd say yes. But this even effected the whole world. How would World War I or II have been different, if the New World had never been colonized? Or more realistically, what if the colonization took place decades or centuries later, and the USA was some small, third-world country, during WWI and WWII? What about the spread of communism during the cold war? The Korean War?
What if the ability and knowledge to colonize hadn't had been there at the time of the Irish potato famine, of the religious persecutions in England?
So... you're suggesting we waste money and effectively kill people, to colonise unlivable hyperdeserts, so these colonised hyperdeserts can come back to us in several hundred years and defend us from an entirely hypothetical World Aggressor?
I don't buy it. Sorry. If Venus was a jungle and Mars was a meadow...
All brought about because of our ability to colonize the New World - which at the time was less survivable for the early pre-colonial explorers than Mars or Luna would be for our astronauts today.
Wrong. Please try to understand the technical limits faced by people in a hostile environment, and then try to understand the technical limits faced by people who are situated in a place that doesn't even have an 'environment' of any sort.
Space is far, far more dangerous than the New World was.
And when you look at the potential - the significance and value of it all - and look at what it costs! T.Neo, my point in mentioning the two holidays was to highlight just what tiny amount of funding NASA receives - how their budget is literally two days of a year compared to some of the larger federal programs. You wouldn't even have to declare two holidays - you could just add two extra sick days to the benefits of government workers. How can anyone say all of this that I've described - isn't even worth that insignificant amount? You could add a holiday and two sick days to government benefits - just purely for it's own sake.
Why don't you want to use money here on Earth? To help
real people in the
real world? Not people in some far-off hypothetical scenario that you came up with?
I'm not against funding the Space Program. I'm against waste of money in the space program. With the space program we need to figure out how to do what we do for far less and increase the advantageousness of the whole operation.
A colonisation effort would be a massive waste of money.
Now you could say "You're talking about colonies!" Yes, I am. And of course they're a long ways away. But how do we ever expect to reach that point of technological ability if we don't work towards it? Newer, better rocket engines and space-based powerplants don't come from other types of research. This technology isn't going to just fall into your lap. It needs funding, research, and development. Colonies are always going to be a long ways away if we don't take steps towards them. Spaceflight is always going to be too expensive if we don't get better technology for it, and more experience.
Just as a comparison between the New World and Space, how much do you think it cost someone to get to the New World?
How much do you think it would cost to send someone to Mars, with realistic technology?
Space powerplants won't help you here... if they are magical, they will help, but they will sadly also be impossible.
That's only one argument... Nevermind the economic, inspirational to boost economy and technological devlopment, as well as direct scientific and technological benefit arguments I made earlier, and are being made now...
Scientific and technological benefits that
can be performed for far less money. I personally posit that to say otherwise is to act close-minded in an attempt to defend manned spaceflight.
This colonisation will not benefit anyone, those are extremely poor environments there. Our future here lies in making the best use of the environment(s) we have.
You don't lock away the sky, but you better keep a firm grip on the ground, lest your head float away...