When is manned spaceflight preferred?

On 5/5/2008 9:28 PM, BradGuth wrote:
On Apr 2, 8:18 pm, wrote:
Can anyone refer me to papers/reports which study
when one might need manned spaceflight? What
tasks can't robots do?

In a biologically toxic, physically extreme and often gamma plus X-ray
saturated environment, unless you're talking about a one-way human
style expedition as having no budgetary or time limitations of getting
that expendable astronaut onto such remote locations, whereas instead
rad-hard and robust robotics are not likely 1% the cost, as well as in
most instances representing the one and only viable option.

In other words, 10 robots for 10% the cost of one astronaut seems far
better, of much faster deployments and by far cheaper per required
science feedback.
. - Brad Guth

================================================== ======

I think the money argument is true as far as it goes, but that it
doesn't go far enough. Spend money / save money: send out machines.
Where my problem with this is, *for why?*

Which makes this argument a root of my belief the most practical use for
space, is *for people*. If you look from that point of view,
exploration comes into focus and you can see where it's going. For
people. But for reason I do not see, nearly everyone thinking about
space seems to come up to some variation on "Man was meant to explore"
and never notices how us humans live in a human environment and when we
grow and expand somehow, human environment is the first part of what's
new. Thus "space exploration" needs to come to "people Out There" asap,
and that's not an intellectual exercise.

As I try to picture it, the big picture, this universe is a dangerous
place, not our friend at all; and if we stay around for a while depends
entirely upon ourselves and luck. The style nowadays seems to leave all
that up to luck: a real bad strategy. So I'd like to see today's
robotics explorers set into a perspective where what we're up to, is to
get *ourselves* out to Luna, to Mars, to the asteroids, and etc. Then
when astronomical or social catastrophe strikes here on Terra, we don't
have all our historical and racial eggs in this one target, I mean, Terra.

Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Fri 2013 Jun 07]

On Jun 7, 1:03 pm, Martha Adams wrote:
On 5/7/2008 2:03 PM,BradGuthwrote:









On Apr 7, 6:41 am, "Jeff Findley" wrote:
"Herman Rubin" wrote in message

...

Robots cannot even do a good job of surveying Mars.
Robots cannot think, and if one needs a half hour round
time to communicate, it is necessary to be very careful
near the edge of a cliff or a slope. So robots moving
at one mile per day explore little.

The two Mars rovers are often touted as a pair of cheap, unmanned, missions
able to cover more terrain than a lander. While true, they do move very
slowly. Over the years, they have covered distances that are still very
small when compared to what the Apollo astronauts did in the (obviously
manned) lunar rover.

It's also interesting to note that with a man on the spot, equipment like
the lunar rover can be made a lot "dumber" than an unmanned piece of
equipment. The man in the suit can be the control system, communications
system, and even the maintenance system for the equipment. I believe I
recall one of the rovers getting an improvised fender, installed by an
astronaut on the spot. That's more than a bit difficult to do remotely.

Here's a reference (I love Google):

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missio...7/surface_opp/

The above shows a nice "traverse map" showing how far the Apollo 17
astronauts were able to travel with the lunar rover as well as a close up
picture showing the "repaired" fender.

The other thing to note about manned missions is that you typically plan on
bringing the astronauts back at the end of the mission, so adding "sample
return" to the mission is far easier than trying to design it into an
unmanned mission. An unmanned sample return mission would be a very good
mission to fly to Mars, but this mission always seems to be just beyond the
limits (technical and cost) of what an unmanned mission can do using today's
launch vehicles.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

.

Most any terrestrial science technology can be safely deployed upon
the likes of Mars. However, of far better worth than even peeing on a
hot rock, is to send a robotic rigid airship to cruise efficiently
around Venus, well below them acidic clouds.

You folks do realize it's not nearly as humanly or rather ET
insurmountable as we've been told, and most certainly not
technologically insurmountable for robotics. Would you like to see
for yourselves?
. - Brad Guth

================================================== =======

How about *above* the acid clouds? Seems to me, Venus might be a good
place for a city buoyant like a blimp, floating above the clouds. I
don't know the atmosphere pressure gradient there, but from sf writing
I've seen, I've an impression a near-Terra atmosphere pressure exists
there above the clouds, making the floating city feasible. Like in Star
Wars.

A large conical reflector, and a lot of tech, would make a sub-Mercury
orbital station possible. Might be named Vulcan, of course.

Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Sun 2013 Jun 02]

Yes indeed above, but why not deploy a composite rigid airship that'll
fly for as long and as low as you'd like?

Above them icy cold upper most clouds of Venus would be quite
interesting (other than too much solar and cosmic radiation for most
of us), and at least on the sunny side there'd never be any shortage
of clean renewable energy derived from the solar shade of a million PV
panels.

On Friday, June 7, 2013 7:02:56 PM UTC-7, Martha Adams wrote:
On 5/5/2008 9:28 PM, BradGuth wrote:

On Apr 2, 8:18 pm, wrote:

Can anyone refer me to papers/reports which study

when one might need manned spaceflight? What

tasks can't robots do?



In a biologically toxic, physically extreme and often gamma plus X-ray

saturated environment, unless you're talking about a one-way human

style expedition as having no budgetary or time limitations of getting

that expendable astronaut onto such remote locations, whereas instead

rad-hard and robust robotics are not likely 1% the cost, as well as in

most instances representing the one and only viable option.



In other words, 10 robots for 10% the cost of one astronaut seems far

better, of much faster deployments and by far cheaper per required

science feedback.

. - Brad Guth


================================================== ======


I think the money argument is true as far as it goes, but that it

doesn't go far enough. Spend money / save money: send out machines.

Where my problem with this is, *for why?*



Which makes this argument a root of my belief the most practical use for

space, is *for people*. If you look from that point of view,

exploration comes into focus and you can see where it's going. For

people. But for reason I do not see, nearly everyone thinking about

space seems to come up to some variation on "Man was meant to explore"

and never notices how us humans live in a human environment and when we

grow and expand somehow, human environment is the first part of what's

new. Thus "space exploration" needs to come to "people Out There" asap,

and that's not an intellectual exercise.



As I try to picture it, the big picture, this universe is a dangerous

place, not our friend at all; and if we stay around for a while depends

entirely upon ourselves and luck. The style nowadays seems to leave all

that up to luck: a real bad strategy. So I'd like to see today's

robotics explorers set into a perspective where what we're up to, is to

get *ourselves* out to Luna, to Mars, to the asteroids, and etc. Then

when astronomical or social catastrophe strikes here on Terra, we don't

have all our historical and racial eggs in this one target, I mean, Terra.


Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Fri 2013 Jun 07]

Robotic science is not only quicker and far safer for both worlds, and it's even faith-based correct as well as nearly politically neutral, but it has also been doable for decades.

Without knowledge of what another planet or moon has to offer, such as via close encounter inspections by our robotics, we have no business going there in person.

Applied technology should also vastly increase the range and scope of what sorts of off-world places are Goldilocks suitable, just like right here on Earth where applied physics and our best technology gives us access to extreme environments that would otherwise be instantly lethal to Goldilocks (except Tardigrades, diatoms and a few other microbes might actually survive and even somewhat adapt to such terrestrial extremes).

Even exploiting our physically dark and naked moon should have been accomplished by now, with TBMs excavating their way into its paramagnetic basalt crust, providing a nearly ideal underground habitat that could accommodate most every living thing on Terra, should the need arise, and thereby at least some of our eggs having another shot at surviving in spite of humans manage to do to Earth or how greatly damaged by an asteroid impact it gets.

What planet(s) or moon(s) should be focused upon next?

How about Venus?

On Friday, June 7, 2013 1:03:05 PM UTC-7, Martha Adams wrote:
On 5/7/2008 2:03 PM, BradGuth wrote:

On Apr 7, 6:41 am, "Jeff Findley" wrote:

"Herman Rubin" wrote in message



...



Robots cannot even do a good job of surveying Mars.

Robots cannot think, and if one needs a half hour round

time to communicate, it is necessary to be very careful

near the edge of a cliff or a slope. So robots moving

at one mile per day explore little.



The two Mars rovers are often touted as a pair of cheap, unmanned, missions

able to cover more terrain than a lander. While true, they do move very

slowly. Over the years, they have covered distances that are still very

small when compared to what the Apollo astronauts did in the (obviously

manned) lunar rover.



It's also interesting to note that with a man on the spot, equipment like

the lunar rover can be made a lot "dumber" than an unmanned piece of

equipment. The man in the suit can be the control system, communications

system, and even the maintenance system for the equipment. I believe I

recall one of the rovers getting an improvised fender, installed by an

astronaut on the spot. That's more than a bit difficult to do remotely.



Here's a reference (I love Google):



http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missio...7/surface_opp/



The above shows a nice "traverse map" showing how far the Apollo 17

astronauts were able to travel with the lunar rover as well as a close up

picture showing the "repaired" fender.



The other thing to note about manned missions is that you typically plan on

bringing the astronauts back at the end of the mission, so adding "sample

return" to the mission is far easier than trying to design it into an

unmanned mission. An unmanned sample return mission would be a very good

mission to fly to Mars, but this mission always seems to be just beyond the

limits (technical and cost) of what an unmanned mission can do using today's

launch vehicles.



Jeff

--

A clever person solves a problem.

A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein



.



Most any terrestrial science technology can be safely deployed upon

the likes of Mars. However, of far better worth than even peeing on a

hot rock, is to send a robotic rigid airship to cruise efficiently

around Venus, well below them acidic clouds.



You folks do realize it's not nearly as humanly or rather ET

insurmountable as we've been told, and most certainly not

technologically insurmountable for robotics. Would you like to see

for yourselves?

. - Brad Guth



================================================== =======



How about *above* the acid clouds? Seems to me, Venus might be a good

place for a city buoyant like a blimp, floating above the clouds. I

don't know the atmosphere pressure gradient there, but from sf writing

I've seen, I've an impression a near-Terra atmosphere pressure exists

there above the clouds, making the floating city feasible. Like in Star

Wars.



A large conical reflector, and a lot of tech, would make a sub-Mercury

orbital station possible. Might be named Vulcan, of course.



Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Sun 2013 Jun 02]

I have a whole major thing of using a composite rigid airship, capable of sufficient buoyancy and velocity as for cruising above the clouds, but ideally suited for efficiently operating at or below 15 km, and even capable of landing on Venus.

Atmospheric pressure is not a biological problem that's insurmountable, and those surface temperatures can be technically managed up to 811 K within existing technology.

On Friday, June 7, 2013 7:02:56 PM UTC-7, Martha Adams wrote:
On 5/5/2008 9:28 PM, BradGuth wrote:

On Apr 2, 8:18 pm, wrote:

Can anyone refer me to papers/reports which study

when one might need manned spaceflight? What

tasks can't robots do?



In a biologically toxic, physically extreme and often gamma plus X-ray

saturated environment, unless you're talking about a one-way human

style expedition as having no budgetary or time limitations of getting

that expendable astronaut onto such remote locations, whereas instead

rad-hard and robust robotics are not likely 1% the cost, as well as in

most instances representing the one and only viable option.



In other words, 10 robots for 10% the cost of one astronaut seems far

better, of much faster deployments and by far cheaper per required

science feedback.

. - Brad Guth



================================================== ======



I think the money argument is true as far as it goes, but that it

doesn't go far enough. Spend money / save money: send out machines.

Where my problem with this is, *for why?*



Which makes this argument a root of my belief the most practical use for

space, is *for people*. If you look from that point of view,

exploration comes into focus and you can see where it's going. For

people. But for reason I do not see, nearly everyone thinking about

space seems to come up to some variation on "Man was meant to explore"

and never notices how us humans live in a human environment and when we

grow and expand somehow, human environment is the first part of what's

new. Thus "space exploration" needs to come to "people Out There" asap,

and that's not an intellectual exercise.



As I try to picture it, the big picture, this universe is a dangerous

place, not our friend at all; and if we stay around for a while depends

entirely upon ourselves and luck. The style nowadays seems to leave all

that up to luck: a real bad strategy. So I'd like to see today's

robotics explorers set into a perspective where what we're up to, is to

get *ourselves* out to Luna, to Mars, to the asteroids, and etc. Then

when astronomical or social catastrophe strikes here on Terra, we don't

have all our historical and racial eggs in this one target, I mean, Terra.



Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Fri 2013 Jun 07]

Yes indeed, Earth has been a very dangerous place for us as well as ETs, so they'd best keep their distance.

A terraformed interior of our moon could put a lot of our eggs in a very failsafe kind of place.

On Friday, June 7, 2013 1:03:05 PM UTC-7, Martha Adams wrote:
On 5/7/2008 2:03 PM, BradGuth wrote:

On Apr 7, 6:41 am, "Jeff Findley" wrote:

"Herman Rubin" wrote in message



...



Robots cannot even do a good job of surveying Mars.

Robots cannot think, and if one needs a half hour round

time to communicate, it is necessary to be very careful

near the edge of a cliff or a slope. So robots moving

at one mile per day explore little.



The two Mars rovers are often touted as a pair of cheap, unmanned, missions

able to cover more terrain than a lander. While true, they do move very

slowly. Over the years, they have covered distances that are still very

small when compared to what the Apollo astronauts did in the (obviously

manned) lunar rover.



It's also interesting to note that with a man on the spot, equipment like

the lunar rover can be made a lot "dumber" than an unmanned piece of

equipment. The man in the suit can be the control system, communications

system, and even the maintenance system for the equipment. I believe I

recall one of the rovers getting an improvised fender, installed by an

astronaut on the spot. That's more than a bit difficult to do remotely.



Here's a reference (I love Google):



http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missio...7/surface_opp/



The above shows a nice "traverse map" showing how far the Apollo 17

astronauts were able to travel with the lunar rover as well as a close up

picture showing the "repaired" fender.



The other thing to note about manned missions is that you typically plan on

bringing the astronauts back at the end of the mission, so adding "sample

return" to the mission is far easier than trying to design it into an

unmanned mission. An unmanned sample return mission would be a very good

mission to fly to Mars, but this mission always seems to be just beyond the

limits (technical and cost) of what an unmanned mission can do using today's

launch vehicles.



Jeff

--

A clever person solves a problem.

A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein



.



Most any terrestrial science technology can be safely deployed upon

the likes of Mars. However, of far better worth than even peeing on a

hot rock, is to send a robotic rigid airship to cruise efficiently

around Venus, well below them acidic clouds.



You folks do realize it's not nearly as humanly or rather ET

insurmountable as we've been told, and most certainly not

technologically insurmountable for robotics. Would you like to see

for yourselves?

. - Brad Guth



================================================== =======



How about *above* the acid clouds? Seems to me, Venus might be a good

place for a city buoyant like a blimp, floating above the clouds. I

don't know the atmosphere pressure gradient there, but from sf writing

I've seen, I've an impression a near-Terra atmosphere pressure exists

there above the clouds, making the floating city feasible. Like in Star

Wars.



A large conical reflector, and a lot of tech, would make a sub-Mercury

orbital station possible. Might be named Vulcan, of course.



Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Sun 2013 Jun 02]

There's not much to do above 65 km, and for the most part you'd be freezing to death at least half of the time, and seriously damn cold the other half of the time. Solar and cosmic radiation of the bad kind would also be an issue.

A composite rigid airship could operate safely and efficiently well below those acidic clouds (say 15 km), landing as often as needed. A shuttle craft gets you to/from Venus L2.

Why not utilize the best available technology in order to exploit a nearby planet like Venus?