Space travel by humans is not possible now

Paulf Foley wrote:


Ian Parker wrote

1) What is the best way of exploring Mars in the scientific sense? I
think the answer to that question is fairly obvious to anyone who
thinks about it in an unbiased way.

2) What is the best way to inspire our young people? The answer to
that is not quite so self evident. People often say it is manned
exploration. I wonder.
Ah, but the proposed mission to Mars really isn't about scientific
exporation, any more than the Apollo project was. It's about national
prestige. Science is mere window dressing, an attempt to rationalize an
essentially irrational endeavor.

And what is this irrational endeavor, at heart? It's an attempt to
invoke "the spirit of Columbus". That is, since mankind has tradionally
conducted exploration by sending men in vessels, we should continue to
do it that way. Even though we now have a better way, a cheaper, safer,
more effective way. The manned space program isn't forward-looking, but
quite the opposite. It is nostalgic. Nostalgia for Columbus, nostalgia
for Buck Rogers and the pulp heroes of the 1950s.

This is normal. People just do not realize how different the vast
space ocean is from all other oceans that we crossed in the past.

Many people think it is essentially the same. Science fiction stories
told them that it is the same, the moon landings told them it is the
same.

And now many believe that is the same.

But it is not. Space is completely different from all we know,
from all we have experienced so far. The old schemes do not work any
more because there wasn't EVER a living being that went into space.

Robots, and later symbionts of humans and robots will go there. The life
support system will evolve and become perfect, like the life support
system we have now.

We come from water.

We stayed there for almost 2 BILLION years. Until we developed slowly
a life support that allowed us to live in the land. We carried the ocean
with us.

We developed a resistant skin, and a way of using the air instead of
water to breathe.

We will carry the air with us, and we will have to develop a way of
living from the sun's energy in space directly, using a 100% recyclable
thin "atmosphere" that we will carry with us.

This will need progress in genetics and progress in a science that
hasn't even started today: the science of modifications to the body
at the molecular level to make it withstand radiation and vacuum.

Now, we need to carry our oxygen supply, our water supply, etc. In
the next century we will be able to withstand radiation with no damage
since we will modify our gene-repairing mechanism to work more
efficiently and let us survive in space.

Symbiosis with plants can allow us to use solar energy to produce
oxygen from energy of solar radiation, using the CO2 of breathing as
fuel.

A closed circuit "skin" that will integrate completely the life support.

All of this is possible, but it is too far away into the future.
Exploration NOW means realizing that we can't go into space until we
have that kind of system.

So we will send sensors first. We will explore through our machines,
actually we always did that. Explorer used their machines of the time
(ships, planes, whatever) to explore, they weren't naked.

This will be even more true in space. Machines will be absolutely
necessary to survive in an extremely hostile environment.

There are always people that will be entangled in the past, and repeat
again and again the old mantra of "exploring must be done by humans".

Poor guys, they will be very disappointed when they see that exploration
is completely different. Space is not like the earth. It is completely
different.


--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32

jacob navia wrote:
Paulf Foley wrote:


Ian Parker wrote

1) What is the best way of exploring Mars in the scientific sense? I
think the answer to that question is fairly obvious to anyone who
thinks about it in an unbiased way.

2) What is the best way to inspire our young people? The answer to
that is not quite so self evident. People often say it is manned
exploration. I wonder.
Ah, but the proposed mission to Mars really isn't about scientific
exporation, any more than the Apollo project was. It's about national
prestige. Science is mere window dressing, an attempt to rationalize
an essentially irrational endeavor.

And what is this irrational endeavor, at heart? It's an attempt to
invoke "the spirit of Columbus". That is, since mankind has
tradionally conducted exploration by sending men in vessels, we should
continue to do it that way. Even though we now have a better way, a
cheaper, safer, more effective way. The manned space program isn't
forward-looking, but quite the opposite. It is nostalgic. Nostalgia
for Columbus, nostalgia for Buck Rogers and the pulp heroes of the 1950s.

This is normal. People just do not realize how different the vast
space ocean is from all other oceans that we crossed in the past.

Many people think it is essentially the same. Science fiction stories
told them that it is the same, the moon landings told them it is the
same.

And now many believe that is the same.

But it is not. Space is completely different from all we know,
from all we have experienced so far. The old schemes do not work any
more because there wasn't EVER a living being that went into space.

Robots, and later symbionts of humans and robots will go there. The life
support system will evolve and become perfect, like the life support
system we have now.

We come from water.

We stayed there for almost 2 BILLION years. Until we developed slowly
a life support that allowed us to live in the land. We carried the ocean
with us.

We developed a resistant skin, and a way of using the air instead of
water to breathe.

We will carry the air with us, and we will have to develop a way of
living from the sun's energy in space directly, using a 100% recyclable
thin "atmosphere" that we will carry with us.

This will need progress in genetics and progress in a science that
hasn't even started today: the science of modifications to the body
at the molecular level to make it withstand radiation and vacuum.

Now, we need to carry our oxygen supply, our water supply, etc. In
the next century we will be able to withstand radiation with no damage
since we will modify our gene-repairing mechanism to work more
efficiently and let us survive in space.

Symbiosis with plants can allow us to use solar energy to produce
oxygen from energy of solar radiation, using the CO2 of breathing as
fuel.

A closed circuit "skin" that will integrate completely the life support.

All of this is possible, but it is too far away into the future.
Exploration NOW means realizing that we can't go into space until we
have that kind of system.

So we will send sensors first. We will explore through our machines,
actually we always did that. Explorer used their machines of the time
(ships, planes, whatever) to explore, they weren't naked.

This will be even more true in space. Machines will be absolutely
necessary to survive in an extremely hostile environment.

There are always people that will be entangled in the past, and repeat
again and again the old mantra of "exploring must be done by humans".

Poor guys, they will be very disappointed when they see that exploration
is completely different. Space is not like the earth. It is completely
different.

You're right, in the near term, until we fully understand what we are
doing, and why we are doing it, space is for flying, not exploring.

Robots can do the exploring, and mostly they aren't exploring space,
they are exploring objects that happen to reside in space.

For humans flying in space in the near term, low earth orbit and
geosynchronous orbit are adequate, LEO for radiation protection, and GEO
for 24 hour sunlight, and getting some radiation protection experience.

The whole 'humans exploring space' mantra is remarkably naive.

Fred J. McCall wrote:
:To find out more about Mars what we need is an agile rover that can
:drill. We would want faster travel than the present rovers and we
:would expect a large number of locations on Mars to be examined.
:

No, what you need is an agile intelligent rover that can replicate
human vision and judgment, drill, fully analyze, and modify its
program based on what it finds, traveling much faster than present
rovers.


We have one. The geologist behind the controls, sitting safely
ON EARTH, without bothering about maintaining the life support
system, bothering about protecting himself from the freezing cold,
trying to avoid the lethal radiation, etc. He can safely focus
on exploring, without concern for all uninteresting aspects of
exploration by humans in person!

And if he is tired, he can pass the controls to someone else,
and take holidays, to restart in a few weeks fresh again.

In other words, what you need is a geologist with a car, a drill, and
a lab.


Obvious. But we have those.

Without men on the scene, what you need is unobtainium.

Both rovers have no humans. Dr Squyres sits safely on earth with
his team of explorers. And they are working 4 years now,

EXPLORING MARS!

They are doing it TODAY, Mr. McCall. Not someday but TODAY.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html



Rovers can't
go fast because they'll miss things and wreck.

Who cares? We are not in the F1 here. Advances in robotics have allowed
to improve greatly the software and the machines are now much more
autonomous than 4 years ago when they first landed.

Better robots will follow.

Automated labs can
only do automated tests. Lots of tests can't be done.


You can do all the tests you want, if you carry them there. If you don't
you can't do them, even if there is a human there.

:
:BTW - A manned Mars expedition would in point of fact be confined to
ne location. There would be immovable living accommodation and
:exploration would be fitted round that.
:

And it would still cover a lot more ground than a rover could and do
it in much, much less time.


No. They would have to worry about their precious LIFE SUPPORT, their
logistics, their energy needs.

Each mars robot survives now with only 300-800W per day. The life
support machines for humans would need 3-4 ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more
than that, just for avoiding astronaut freezing with
night temperatures of -100 Centigrade.

Not to speak about oxygen/CO2 recycling, food, waste disposal,
etc!

Solar energy can't supply that enormous amount of energy.
Mars is farther from the sun than the earth. So you need
enormous quantities of fuel.

ALl tjis makes astronauts much SLOWER than robots, since they could
not go too far away from their air conditioning and that
air conditioning/Life support is FIXED since it needs too much
energy to be transported easily.


Why ever would you use "the last stage of the rocket" for this? Where
have you been through the rest of the discussion where I already
suggested how easy this 'problem' was to solve simply dividing your
mission into two pieces?


1) Sending robots
2) Sending humans

We agree about (1). But why do we need (2)?

:
:I notice that you are French. I am British, just the other side of the
:sleeve (La Manche).
:

And I note that neither of you have any hope of a major manned OR
unmanned program on your own, which explains much of what follows.


No. We collaborate in a thing called "European union". And we have
reached Saturn, Mars, Venus, and the moon with our machines. Obviously
we do not have any manned plans besides the ISS that we do (as with the
Saturn expedition) together with NASA.

But of course you have never heared about that apparently.

I would recommend you to inform yourself at

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/index.html

:
:I have always felt that a scientific effort of any
:sort should be international. I also feel that any large scale
:commercial project should have international backing and support.
:

There you go 'feeling' again. Try that 'thinking' thing, instead.


You should follow your own advice.


--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32

On Jan 20, 4:56 pm, kT wrote:

Robots can do the exploring, and mostly they aren't exploring space,
they are exploring objects that happen to reside in space.

For humans flying in space in the near term, low earth orbit and
geosynchronous orbit are adequate, LEO for radiation protection, and GEO
for 24 hour sunlight, and getting some radiation protection experience.

The whole 'humans exploring space' mantra is remarkably naive.

Hmm, I think humans need to get out there in the long run. However,
the emphasis ought to be on cost effective robotic crafts in the
nearterm. There is no reason for humans themselves to go beyond the
Earth/Moon system, for the next few decates.

Basigly, we need technological improvements as well as improved
reliability. As a result, I´m an advocate of going back to the Moon,
as it´s nearby and also because it´s hostile enough being there for
technological fixes applied there being applicaple once we begin to
emerge into deepspace from the Earth/Moon system.

In the meantime actual manned travel ought to be brief, and only done
when actually useful to do so. Eventually, going to Mars will be
useful...but not till many more robotic mission have been sent there.

There are things that humans can do that robots can´t. However, there
is yet so much untapped potential for these robotic missions that it´s
much more sensible to focus on them in the near term.

It´s really mainly once something really interesting has been found by
a robotic mission, that a reason for sending humans might arise.

Einar

On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:42:44 +0100, in a place far, far away, jacob
navia made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

This is normal. People just do not realize how different the vast
space ocean is from all other oceans that we crossed in the past.

Of course they do. Certainly people in this newsgroup do.

Many people think it is essentially the same. Science fiction stories
told them that it is the same, the moon landings told them it is the
same.

They told us no such thing.

Please provide a single example of someone who "thinks it is the
same," or abandon your latest foolish straw man.

Einar wrote:

Hmm, I think humans need to get out there in the long run. However,
the emphasis ought to be on cost effective robotic crafts in the
nearterm. There is no reason for humans themselves to go beyond the
Earth/Moon system, for the next few decates.

Basigly, we need technological improvements as well as improved
reliability. As a result, I´m an advocate of going back to the Moon,
as it´s nearby and also because it´s hostile enough being there for
technological fixes applied there being applicaple once we begin to
emerge into deepspace from the Earth/Moon system.

In the meantime actual manned travel ought to be brief, and only done
when actually useful to do so. Eventually, going to Mars will be
useful...


Problem with going back to the moon is we've been there, done that. I
see little political future for actually carrying out this mission,
paying the staggering cost in a time of budget deficit, a looming social
security crisis, and serious health care funding problems. The best
possible outcome of Back to the Moon is repeating a past success, and
there is the real possibility of tragic and humiliating failure. And
there's not even the incentive anymore of a space race against the
godless Commies.

Returning to the moon is supposedly a stepping stone to Mars. If a
mission to Mars doesn't make sense, then there is no reason for the moon
mission.

Sure, there's bound to be technological improvements over the next
decades. Most likely in electronics, communications, computers, AI,
remote sensing. All stuff that underscores the logic of robotic
missions. I doubt people will evolve much in the coming decades. And
given the trouble we still have getting people into even low earth
orbit, I doubt rocketry will advance much in the coming decades either.

I doubt that any kind of manned space exporation can be called
"useful". This is another misleading aspect of the Christopher Columbus
analogy. He wasn't sailing the ocean blue for curiosity's sake. He was
looking for a quick cheap trade route.

Rand Simberg wrote:

On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:42:44 +0100, in a place far, far away, jacob
navia made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

This is normal. People just do not realize how different the vast
space ocean is from all other oceans that we crossed in the past.

Of course they do. Certainly people in this newsgroup do.

Many people think it is essentially the same. Science fiction stories
told them that it is the same, the moon landings told them it is the
same.

They told us no such thing.

Please provide a single example of someone who "thinks it is the
same," or abandon your latest foolish straw man.

Dwayne Day : Cowboys and Horseys to the Moon!

Rand Simberg wrote:

Please provide a single example of someone who "thinks it is the
same," or abandon your latest foolish straw man.

Mr McCall for instance.

Exploration was always done "in person" before robotics existed.
Mr McCall fails to grasp what is the difference now, and naively
proposes sending people to explore, as if those people were going
to some far away continent, not unlike earth.

For instance

quote
:
:The ISS needs a constant supply of
:materials from earth to keep it running. All that is impossible
:in a Mars trip.
:

So you take it with you from the start. All that requires is
planning.
end quote

The difficulties of hoarding 2-3 years worth of supplies
for several people and the return trip fuel
somewhere in Mars, when all mankind has been able to do to date
is to land a few KILOGRAMS there, is completely beyond his
grasp.

Just put some people in a rocket and there you go.

He wasn't even *aware* of the problem of landing on Mars for
a really heavy spaceship loaded with a life-support system for 4 people.

Nobody knows how to do that except Mr McCall of course, that just fires
the rockets and lands...

As we have always seen in TV shows and science fiction books.

--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32

On Jan 20, 7:17 pm, Paulf Foley wrote:
Einar wrote:
Hmm, I think humans need to get out there in the long run. However,
the emphasis ought to be on cost effective robotic crafts in the
nearterm. There is no reason for humans themselves to go beyond the
Earth/Moon system, for the next few decates.

Basigly, we need technological improvements as well as improved
reliability. As a result, I´m an advocate of going back to the Moon,
as it´s nearby and also because it´s hostile enough being there for
technological fixes applied there being applicaple once we begin to
emerge into deepspace from the Earth/Moon system.

In the meantime actual manned travel ought to be brief, and only done
when actually useful to do so. Eventually, going to Mars will be
useful...

Problem with going back to the moon is we've been there, done that. I
see little political future for actually carrying out this mission,
paying the staggering cost in a time of budget deficit, a looming social
security crisis, and serious health care funding problems. The best
possible outcome of Back to the Moon is repeating a past success, and
there is the real possibility of tragic and humiliating failure. And
there's not even the incentive anymore of a space race against the
godless Commies.

Returning to the moon is supposedly a stepping stone to Mars. If a
mission to Mars doesn't make sense, then there is no reason for the moon
mission.

Sure, there's bound to be technological improvements over the next
decades. Most likely in electronics, communications, computers, AI,
remote sensing. All stuff that underscores the logic of robotic
missions. I doubt people will evolve much in the coming decades. And
given the trouble we still have getting people into even low earth
orbit, I doubt rocketry will advance much in the coming decades either.

I doubt that any kind of manned space exporation can be called
"useful". This is another misleading aspect of the Christopher Columbus
analogy. He wasn't sailing the ocean blue for curiosity's sake. He was
looking for a quick cheap trade route.

In short I don´t agree with you. We were there once, but what I´m
talking about is prencense, not a brief public relations exerzise. In
addition, Mars is just a destination among many.

What I´m talking about is to prepare humanity for space. For that the
Moon is ideal, because it´s nearby and it´s hostile enough for lessons
there to have a meaning.

In addition, while the cold war is well past, other nations are
gearing up to do Moon missions of theyr own. If USA isn´t going, that
doesn´t mean human kind isn´t going. Mind you, I wont mind terribly if
USA chooses to stay home when the others choose to go. But, on
ballance I´d prefer the USians to be there as well.

That´s the big change really. That´s what will give USA the impetus to
go, i.e. they´ll not want to be left behind.

Anyhow, the expence isn´t going to be so huge that social security or
the economy, or the other thing you mentioned, is going to be
substantially affected one way or another.

Einar

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 01:20:33 +0100, in a place far, far away, jacob
navia made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:

Please provide a single example of someone who "thinks it is the
same," or abandon your latest foolish straw man.

Mr McCall for instance.

Exploration was always done "in person" before robotics existed.
Mr McCall fails to grasp what is the difference now, and naively
proposes sending people to explore, as if those people were going
to some far away continent, not unlike earth.

That doesn't constitute thinking that "it's the same" in all aspects.

Sorry, try again. Though I expect no better results from a second
try.