Good news for space policy

Greg Kuperberg wrote:

In article ,
Christopher M. Jones wrote:
See, that's where you're wrong. In principle and under the right
circumstances manned and unmanned spaceflight would be completely
different. But as practiced now, especially by NASA, they are not all
that terribly different, except perhaps in cost.

No they are completely different, and not only in cost. Manned
spaceflight is much more expensive and unmanned spaceflight is much
more useful. And that's what the public doesn't realize. Most people
think that they are about equivalent.

Define 'useful.' Sadly, not a lot of people are that excited about
the data from unmanned probes (unless perhaps they involve cool
pictures) either.

If you mean things like satcoms, those are basically as invisible
(when was the last time you saw the caption 'via satellite' on
television?) to the public as a microwave relay tower. And in a way,
they *should* be invisible parts of the infrastructure.

Many don't even consciously think of the space-based aspect of
weather images anymore.

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 18:11:20 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

I suspect you have no idea what most people think.

....He doesn't. And what makes his touting that worthless poll so
pathetic is that he, a *math* geek, is claiming that a poll conducted
of 800 morons is highly reflective of the beliefs of the entire
nation.


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

"Christopher M. Jones" wrote:

"Joann Evans" wrote:
Define 'useful.' Sadly, not a lot of people are that excited about
the data from unmanned probes (unless perhaps they involve cool
pictures) either.

Dead wrong there. The thing is that those "cool pictures" crop
up quite often, and a lot of people *are* interested in that
geeky space science stuff as long as it's on a level that they
can understand. And the reason a picture from the surface of
Mars is "cool" is not necessarily because it's intrinsically
interesting but because it's *Mars*. The Marsness is what
makes the difference between a picture of a boring, desolate
landscape not dissimilar from the southwest (but perhaps with
fewer interesting features and a "cool picture" that lots of
"ordinary" people buy posters of and hang on their wall. The
same thing applies for different folks and different data, the
IR spectrum of a rock on Earth vs. a rock on Mars for a
geologist, for example.

We don't disagree. Now, ask the same non-space enthusiast about
anything other than interesting images, or probes looking for biological
activity. (Which are indeed profound activites.) They'll not get it.

"Cool pictures" are just a different side of "interesting
science return". You wouldn't denegrate all space science
missions by saying that space scientists aren't interested in
them unless they involve "cool science" would you?

Who's denigrating? *I* would like to know things like where the solar
wind merges with the interstellar medium, or the metal content of
certain asteroids, but that's not what Joe Average relates to.
Nevertheless, a lot of space (and non-space) science is of that
non-exciting nature. Therfore, I still contest the original assertion
that the public somehow percieves unmanned space activity as more
'useful' than manned space activity. (Not all of the latter is
'exciting' either, but entertainment was indeed never the point.)

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 23:32:56 -0500, "Christopher M. Jones"
wrote:

"Cool pictures" are just a different side of "interesting
science return". You wouldn't denegrate all space science
missions by saying that space scientists aren't interested in
them unless they involve "cool science" would you?

....And yet, quite a lot of the space critics that run their mouths off
around here also tend to have this opinion that if the data return
isn't cold, hard data with no actual interest to anyone outside of
their little clique, it's nothing but fluff and has no real value.

"Well, the bands of gasses may look 'spectacular' to the average beer
drinking Joe Punchclock, but I'm more interested in the ratio of H
isotopes to protopolypeptide chains that may have evolved in the
D-level of the upper regions of the outer atmospheric shell,
specifically where the Io flux-torus contacts the level itself. Had
NASA not thrown a stupid optical camera on that probe, and put a real
spectrometer to *our* specification on it, we'd have all the data we
wanted!"

....What these self-righteous dip****s tend to forget is that the old
adage still applies: Buck Rogers - $$$. The need to see what's on
the other side of that mountain in a physical image is inherent to our
nature. Leaving out the "cool" aspects of science is what turns 90% of
people off on it, and people who are turned off don't want their tax
dollars "wasted" on things that are boring.

Bottom Line: Standard policy is that no matter what the probe is, put
an optical camera on it that can send back something "cool" to keep
the public interest alive and stimulated.


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

support your argument, that the average American finds, for
example, the composition of Europa, or the discovery of a Planet 30
light years away, to be useful.

Actually, average citizens probably *do* care about such discoveries because of
the potential to discover alien life on these astronomical bodies. For
philosophical reasons, people really do want to discover such. Even though
SPS, or lunar resource extraction, would be *far* more "useful."

Joann Evans wrote:

Who's denigrating? *I* would like to know things like where the solar
wind merges with the interstellar medium, or the metal content of
certain asteroids, but that's not what Joe Average relates to.
Nevertheless, a lot of space (and non-space) science is of that
non-exciting nature. Therfore, I still contest the original assertion
that the public somehow percieves unmanned space activity as more
'useful' than manned space activity.

The recent manned space activity has been mucking around in LEO. If the
public were to perceive the I.S.S. as yielding less bang for the buck as
unmanned probes, I'm not sure I'd disagree.

And I don't see that it has to be a competition: manned vs unmanned. The
probes we're sending to Mars may give some very useful information that
could be used to prepare for later manned missions.

Hop
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

G EddieA95 wrote:

Actually, average citizens probably *do* care about such discoveries because of
the potential to discover alien life on these astronomical bodies. For
philosophical reasons, people really do want to discover such. Even though
SPS, or lunar resource extraction, would be *far* more "useful."

And NASA follows the average citizen's leanings here, which is why they are
much more worked up over the oceans of Europa than they are SPS.

Me, I'm thinking that in a world of lunar resource extraction in support of SPS
industries in HEO, the question would not be whether or not the USA cares to
send a probe to Europa, but whether or not the National Geographic Society
cares to.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We should ask, critically and with appeal to the numbers, whether the
best site for a growing advancing industrial society is Earth, the
Moon, Mars, some other planet, or somewhere else entirely.
Surprisingly, the answer will be inescapable - the best site is
"somewhere else entirely."

Gerard O'Neill - "The High Frontier"

Joann Evans wrote:
"Christopher M. Jones" wrote:

"Joann Evans" wrote:
Define 'useful.' Sadly, not a lot of people are that excited about
the data from unmanned probes (unless perhaps they involve cool
pictures) either.

Dead wrong there. The thing is that those "cool pictures" crop
up quite often, and a lot of people *are* interested in that
geeky space science stuff as long as it's on a level that they
can understand. And the reason a picture from the surface of
Mars is "cool" is not necessarily because it's intrinsically
interesting but because it's *Mars*. The Marsness is what
makes the difference between a picture of a boring, desolate
landscape not dissimilar from the southwest (but perhaps with
fewer interesting features and a "cool picture" that lots of
"ordinary" people buy posters of and hang on their wall. The
same thing applies for different folks and different data, the
IR spectrum of a rock on Earth vs. a rock on Mars for a
geologist, for example.

We don't disagree. Now, ask the same non-space enthusiast about
anything other than interesting images, or probes looking for biological
activity. (Which are indeed profound activites.) They'll not get it.

No, a lot of people will get that one.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

G EddieA95 wrote:
support your argument, that the average American finds, for
example, the composition of Europa, or the discovery of a Planet 30
light years away, to be useful.

Actually, average citizens probably *do* care about such discoveries because of
the potential to discover alien life on these astronomical bodies. For
philosophical reasons, people really do want to discover such. Even though
SPS, or lunar resource extraction, would be *far* more "useful."

Depends on what you find out about biology from the life you find on
Europe. Lots of pharmaceutical funding is spent on much more desperate
and hopeless things that trying to send a probe to 30 light years away
to see what useful things it will find.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

G EddieA95 wrote:
what you find out about biology from the life you find on
Europe. Lots of pharmaceutical funding is spent on much more desperate
and hopeless things

If totally alien life-forms were that useful to medicine, we'd be plumbing the
deep-ocean vents for possible drugs. Much nearer than Europa and about as
separate from human biology.

AIUI, mass interest in xenobiology is philosophical, not practical.

because we neither have found any yet / definitive signs of any yet
(oxygen on an exoplanet would be a definite sign) nor has the biotech
industry competition gotten out of infancy.

plumbing deep ocean vents is just for now too expensive compared to
just going to a random reef and getting a net full of sponges, corals
fish...

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++