Famed Iowa space expert opposes Bush space plan

http://www.usatoday.com/news/science...e-robots_x.htm

headline

osted 1/13/2004 8:23 AM

Famed Iowa space expert opposes Bush space plan
By Patrick Condon, Associated Press
DES MOINES — An Iowa physicist considered to be one of the founding fathers
of space exploration opposes Bush administration plans for a space station on
the moon and a manned mission to Mars.
James Van Allen, the namesake for the Van Allen Belts of intense radiation that
encircle the earth, said Monday that such manned space missions have become too
expensive and better results can be gained by robotic spacecraft.

"I'm quite unimpressed by any arguments for it," Van Allen, 89, said in an
interview from his office at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

"I'm one of the most durable and fervent advocates of space exploration, but my
take is that we could do it robotically at far less cost and far greater
quantity and quality of results," he said.

President Bush is scheduled to announce a major space initiative on Wednesday.
The plan is expected to call for a settlement on the moon in 10 to 15 years,
from which astronauts would launch a manned mission to Mars in 25 to 30 years.

Experts estimate the plans could easily cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

"The president will have more to say during his speech on Wednesday about the
future direction of our space program and the long-term approash we are are
taking to space policy," Scott McClellan said in a press briefing Friday. ...
(cont)

DES MOINES — An Iowa physicist considered to be one of the founding fathers
of space exploration opposes Bush administration plans for a space station on
the moon and a manned mission to Mars.
James Van Allen, the namesake for the Van Allen Belts of intense radiation
that
encircle the earth, said Monday that such manned space missions have become
too
expensive and better results can be gained by robotic spacecraft.


Another one of the lets keep space boring crowd! One main problem with space
probes is that there stupid, they can do only what their programmed to do, if
they were programmed to do it right and sometimes they're not. Witness how long
it took the rover to roll off the lander. I think a manned mission to Mars
would result in a lot more space probes being sent to Mars than would be the
case without one. Probes are going to crawl all over the surface of Mars and
fly through its thin atmosphere. A manned Mars mission will generate public
enthusiasm for space exploration and may result in larger budgets for NASA. If
we keep it to just robotic probe telemetry, enthusiasm and interest will
diminish although scientists may still find it facinating. Without the public's
interest NASA's budget will be subject to future cuts. People will ask, "why
are we doing this?" and so forth. A manned Mars mission has greater
entertainment and educational value. If an astronaut lands on Mars, he can put
on a spacesuit and collect rocks immediately, the public and the news media
won't always have the patience to wait weeks for the rover to move 100 feet. I
also heard that NASA plans to move the rover toward a distant mountain on the
horizon, which at the rovers current speed will take 88 days if it lasts that
long.

Tom

(TKalbfus) wrote in message ...
I think a manned mission to Mars
would result in a lot more space probes being sent to Mars than would be the
case without one.

For the cost of a manned mission you could send literally thousands of
unmanned probes to Mars. Which is likely to be more scientifically
valuable: carpet-bombing the planet with probes, or one manned mission
that covers one small area?

Mark

In article ,
Mark wrote:
For the cost of a manned mission you could send literally thousands of
unmanned probes to Mars. Which is likely to be more scientifically
valuable: carpet-bombing the planet with probes, or one manned mission
that covers one small area?

The combination actually works a lot better than either by itself.

Our one actual data point is the Moon, where unmanned precursors to Apollo
spent about 1/10 of Apollo's budget and came nowhere near returning 1/10
of Apollo's results -- 1/100 would be a generous assessment. Despite that
unfavorable result, unmanned probes do still have a useful role to play.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

(Mark) wrote in message . com...
(TKalbfus) wrote in message ...
I think a manned mission to Mars
would result in a lot more space probes being sent to Mars than would be the
case without one.

For the cost of a manned mission you could send literally thousands of
unmanned probes to Mars. Which is likely to be more scientifically
valuable: carpet-bombing the planet with probes, or one manned mission
that covers one small area?


Why consider science the single most important goal? NASA doesn't
think that way even now which is why it spends so much time
putting together slick publicty material intended to appeal
to the average Joe. If you/NASA think that way you'll see the
money dry up for science and everything else.

-McDaniel

In article ,
Henry Spencer wrote:
The combination actually works a lot better than either by itself.

Our one actual data point is the Moon, where unmanned precursors to Apollo
spent about 1/10 of Apollo's budget and came nowhere near returning 1/10
of Apollo's results -- 1/100 would be a generous assessment. Despite that
unfavorable result, unmanned probes do still have a useful role to play.

This is an extreme example of squinting roughly at the facts so that
you see only what you want to see. You talk as if the Surveyer and
Rover missions were in competition with Apollo to see if astronauts
performed better than robotic missions. In fact it was the opposite:
The unmanned missions, especially Surveyor, were largely in service
to Apollo. Their scientific objectives were constrained by Apollo and
likely truncated outright. Moreover, the Apollo missions carried many
scientific instruments for which the astronauts did nothing. Some of
these instruments were severely constrained by having to travel with
astronauts. In at least one case, an astronaut ruined an instrument
outright.

And no, it is not really the only "data point". The entire history of
space shuttles and space stations has been a fruitless attempt to keep
astronauts relevant to science. Hubble was cut short and delayed, and
held to a poor orbit, so that astronauts could chaperone and service it.
Now we see the final outcome of that. Now they have cut the final
unconvincing connection between astronauts and interesting space science.
More than the news headlines suggest, it is an afterthought. Astronauts
can't service Chandra, or Spitzer, or any space telescope other than
Hubble. (Not to mention MOST!) Meanwhile the two astronauts left in
space are doing nothing interesting. Year by year, Congress and NASA
have drifted to the conclusion that they consistently refused to believe:
Astronauts just don't matter any more.
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

(Mark) wrote in message . com...
(TKalbfus) wrote in message ...
I think a manned mission to Mars
would result in a lot more space probes being sent to Mars than would be the
case without one.

For the cost of a manned mission you could send literally thousands of
unmanned probes to Mars. Which is likely to be more scientifically
valuable: carpet-bombing the planet with probes, or one manned mission
that covers one small area?

You are incorrect on several counts. Firstly, only
the absolutely most insanely expensive manned Mars
exploration *programs* (encompassing many missions)
would cost even remotely on the order of a thousand
times more than a single unmmaned Mars probe. On
a strict mission to mission comparision basis the
cost multiplier is more like tens to perhaps low
hundreds. Secondly, the effectiveness per dollar
of manned missions in producing science data is
much greater than that of unmanned probes. Any
manned Mars mission costing tens of billions of
dollars will almost certainly be able to produce
more science than the equivalent number of
unmanned missions for the same price (with today's
technology anyway).

Your tired arguements are based on $20,000 per pound shuttle costs to
LEO. Google big dumb booster, Truax SeaDragon, and TRW LCLV. They
represent a paradigm shift in cost to orbit at around $200 per pound.
We should be building
80 foot diameter tanks in shipyards made from autoclave-free
Ultrasonic Tape Lamination cured carbon-fiber. We should launch and
land them in the ocean, so we don't have to build more Kennedy Space
Centers. They should be refueled with retired nuclear aircraft
carriers that make cryogenic hydrogen and oxygen from sea water at
sea. When you cut the launch costs by a factor of 100, the whole game
changes. Truax has been saying it since the mid-fifties. Maybe
somebody like Pete Aldridge will listen.

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/sea...rlv01 144.xml

In article ,
Joann Evans wrote:
So you believe an expendable-launched HST would live indefinitely?

If you can keep replacing it, sure, why not?
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

In article ,
Greg Kuperberg wrote:
Our one actual data point is the Moon, where unmanned precursors to Apollo
spent about 1/10 of Apollo's budget and came nowhere near returning 1/10
of Apollo's results...

The unmanned missions, especially Surveyor, were largely in service
to Apollo. Their scientific objectives were constrained by Apollo and
likely truncated outright.

They were indeed somewhat truncated... because meeting them would have
been still more expensive, and there was no reason to spend that extra
money with Apollo imminent.

Moreover, the Apollo missions carried many
scientific instruments for which the astronauts did nothing.

Not very many. Even instruments which had no astronaut involvement once
running were set up by the astronauts -- not something that would have
happened by magic without them.

...In at least one case, an astronaut ruined an instrument outright.

And in at least one other, the astronauts saved an experiment that would
otherwise have been a complete loss. (None of the various plans for core
drills on Surveyor would have worked, given the unexpected difficulties of
core drilling in lunar regolith. It would have taken years just to figure
out the problem. The astronauts managed to get reasonable results from
the start, despite badly inadequate equipment.)

And no, it is not really the only "data point".

The subject under discussion is exploration of planetary surfaces, not
spaceflight in general. Nobody seriously disputes that if all you want to
do is snap pictures from a distance, or measure particles and fields in
open space(*), and you're willing to throw the equipment away after a few
years, robots do an excellent job.

(* Note that for all Van Allen's fame, this is all he's ever done -- he
has no experience with trying to make things work on planetary surfaces.)

More than the news headlines suggest, it is an afterthought. Astronauts
can't service Chandra, or Spitzer, or any space telescope other than
Hubble.

And in general, this was agreed to be a drawback -- a compromise that was
accepted, sacrificing the notion of a space telescope as an observatory
and accepting limited life and reduced flexibility, to reduce up-front
costs and simplify technical problems.

Don't forget Compton, which would have been nearly useless without
astronaut intervention. (Hint: antenna deployment is important.)

...Year by year, Congress and NASA
have drifted to the conclusion that they consistently refused to believe:
Astronauts just don't matter any more.

It is vacuously true that astronauts don't matter if you don't have them
doing anything where astronauts matter. And that is very definitely the
fault of Congress and NASA.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |