"The Future of Human Spaceflight"

Ian Parker wrote:

:On 11 Jan, 20:52, Fred J. McCall wrote:
:
: :Google is one of the more successfult companies.
: :
:
: Note that Google is run by ONE board of directors.
:
:Google does indeed have one board, but :-
:
:1) Anyone whatever their citizenship can join the Google board.
:

Oh? Try and act on that and see what it gets you.

:
:2) ESA likewise has a single board.
:

But what ESA has isn't really a 'board'.

:
: :
: : For example, it probably would have been a much better station if they
: : had ****canned the original design when the price kept going up and
: : the capabilities kept going down and had listened to Lowell Wood's
: : ideas.
: :
: :I googled him and his ideas. I think you are doing a certain amount of
: :special pleading here. How do you know that his ideas for (say) Mars
: :would not also go up and up in price.
: :
:
: I was referring specifically to his ideas about how to 'fix' the ISS
: program back before they bent the first piece of metal.
:
:I can't help stating the truism that history is what has hapenned
:rather tan what might have hapenned. It may well be that there is some
:genius that if he/she had been listened to would have produced a far
:better ISS far cheaper, but there is absolutely no proof of this. The
:ISS is the result of a series of decisions.
:

Ian gibbers on, saying nothing. Chatterbot.

:
:In fact the long and short of it is that the ISS lacks a role.
:Scientific experimentation is done with dedicated unmanned spacecraft.
:This has been found to be far and away the cheapest solution. I have
ointed out that a fragmented telescope in free space is a better bet
:than one on the Moon. I fear too that if, and it is a big if a Moojn
:base is established in 2020 it will be a similar white elephant.
:

You've pointed out all sorts of silly ****.

:
:Had a real genius been around when the ISS was though of he/she would,
:without question, have said that the thing to do was to develop
:repairable spacecraft and swarms and also concentrate on smart pebbles
:and ultrastability. OK this is again what if, but these are the
:technologies with a real medium term future.
:

And so now Ian claims that his gibbering is genius. He's obviously
flirting with Guthball territory.

:
:History has is fact passed the ISS by.
:

History had, in fact, passed it by before the first piece of metal was
bent, since it was descoped and made an international political
project.


--
"Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is
only stupid."
-- Heinrich Heine

"Ian Parker" wrote in message
...
On 12 Jan, 13:01, (Rand Simberg) wrote:

- Show quoted text -

On Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:17:22 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
Ian Parker made the phosphor on my monitor
glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

The scheme illustrated on my page probably is a little 'utopian',
since it envisages the construction of gigantic underground domes,
high enough that trees can grow in them to full height. At first,
the
domes would probably be a bit smaller, and housing might be dug
from
tunnels leading from the domes rather than in the form of
buildings
built inside the domes - where food is grown.

Only a Von Neumann machine can achieve this. Other people continue
to
pooh pooh the idea. I pooh pooh all grandiose ideas NOT involving VN
technology in one form or another.

Yes, we know you do--you don't have to tell us. It's one of the
primary things that makes you such a loon.

Well aol your ideas are too. The only future for manned spaceflight
that I can see is one of ever inceasing cost. Manned spaceflight is
simply conspicuous consumption which call be ill affored in a
recession.

OK Keynes DID advocate public works, but public works with a FUTURE,
like the Hoover Dam. Manned spaceflight has no future other than ever
increasing levels of unproductive expenditure.

That is the cold hard truth.

Another cold hard truth. America is in the state it is because it has
spent so much money unproductively. Not only on speceflight but on
Iraq. The Iraq money could have been used to produce loads of "green"
energy or in a myriad of productive ways. Asia is NOT spending on
either Iraq or Afghanistan and is outproducing the US in terms of
engineers. Their money by contrast is spent productively.

Another cold hard truth - Hamas is going to emerge bloodied but
unbowed. More extremism is going to follow. Khaled Mashaal is called
Khaled (xAlid) because he will always be there. Kill him and someone
else will take his place.

Yet another - The US has a balance of payments deficit on high tech
goods. All the evidence is that the rest of the World has not only
caught up but is acually surpassing the US. Detroit is where it is not
only because of the recession, but because it is producing cars no one
wants to buy any more. Japan has a very real technological lead.

To me the whole idea of manned spaceflight along the lines you seem to
what to suggest is absolutely insane. Any reasonable analysis says it
must be. People go the Moon. All their supplies have to be brought in
from Earth via Ares or some other rocket. If they then go on to Mars
all the material going to Mars will have to be transported up to LEO,
to the Moon? at great expense. An expedition will (let us say) weigh
2,000 tons at LEO. Some 50,000 tons of expendible boosters will be
needed to get it there. About 200 tons will arrive on Mars. During the
trip to Mars, on Mars and back, food, oxygen and other consumables
will be used up. Staying on Mars will use up yetr more consumables.
The whole thing does not add up. To produce a habitat would require
about a million tons of boost from the Earth's surface.

Jacob Navia is right. The technology is not there. Not there for
plants in a vacuum, not there for plants in a prwessurized
environment.

All you seem to want is money to carry out your pet schemes, which I
will predict will come to nothing.

- Ian Parker

I think I see a grain of truth in here, but most of the preceding thread
looks to me like a useless exercise at intellectualization. It goes
nowhere; it fails even to carry some core point such as mine at the top
of this thread that today's current exercise in "exploring" space could
be replaced by a hard choice to *build settlements* in space. And that
that urgently needs to be done.

In simplest terms, "space flight" and "space settlement" are two related
but very different things to do. "Space flight" is the brief period in
which you lift off and get there; "space settlement" is the very
longterm business of our human species getting off Terra into the solar
system, after which it has a hope to exist and grow for millennia to
come. As vs, if it doesn't, expectable astronomical violence or local
religious and ideological foolishness, using technologies now available,
will put an end to all this local Terran trouble.

There's a really good plan for a human future in space, written in 1893
by Frederick Jackson Turner. I see no evidence in the above thread that
anyone here ever read it. They should. It does need some translation
to bring in present and expectable future resources Turner could not
have known of, but the basic outline is there, it's well based in recent
American history, and I think that with appropriate updating its
usefulness *far* exceeds the vague and bluesky stuff I see around such
as "man must explore...."

"The Future of Human Spaceflight" is too limited in its conception. It
barely manages to recognize the present. Those of us who can think
about such matters, need to be working at "The Future of Human Culture
in Space" and of our species.

Titeotwawki -- mha [sci.space.policy 2009 Jan 12]

On 12 Jan, 15:38, "Martha Adams" wrote:


I think I see a grain of truth in here, but most of the preceding thread
looks to me like a useless exercise at intellectualization. *It goes
nowhere; it fails even to carry some core point such as mine at the top
of this thread that today's current exercise in "exploring" space could
be replaced by a hard choice to *build settlements* in space. *And that
that urgently needs to be done.

If you are going to build a settlement in space you need to make that
settement self sufficient. It seems to me that not only is the
technology to do this not there, but any attempt to get there is
"looney". To me the only "sane" thing to do is to call it a day.

It would seem too that LISA is never going to work. If a fragmented
telescope is not feasible neither is LISA. I personally believe that
building one on the Moon is going to prove to be even more
problematic. If all the masterials have to be transported from Earth
(the only "sane" solution, would it not be far better to simply have
it in space anyway.

I have perhaps been ratrher to scathing on America, but not wholly
without justification. I think America very much represents a
bureaucracy that is in a rut and does not know how to get out. Will
Obama get them out? Doubt it.

In simplest terms, "space flight" and "space settlement" are two related
but very different things to do. *"Space flight" is the brief period in
which you lift off and get there; "space settlement" is the very
longterm business of our human species getting off Terra into the solar
system, after which it has a hope to exist and grow for millennia to
come. *As vs, if it doesn't, expectable astronomical violence or local
religious and ideological foolishness, using technologies now available,
will put an end to all this local Terran trouble.

There's a really good plan for a human future in space, written in 1893
by Frederick Jackson Turner. *I see no evidence in the above thread that
anyone here ever read it. *They should. *It does need some translation
to bring in present and expectable future resources Turner could not
have known of, but the basic outline is there, it's well based in recent
American history, and I think that with appropriate updating its
usefulness *far* exceeds the vague and bluesky stuff I see around such
as "man must explore...."

I think we must explore, but not at any cost. What I am particularly
reacting to is the unwillingness to consider new ideas. I don't know
whether classification is a factor. All I can say is that without new
ideas the whole idea is doomed. If you needed Ares to reach California
it would not have been settled, it is as simple as that. No one has
seriously suggested crossing America with ballistic missiles. There is
a different order of magnitude in cost.

Classification is an issue. I don't know for example whether
fragmented mirrors have ever been suggested or not. I feel they must
have been. My criticism of America was made with this reasson in mind.

1) New thinking is needed, ottherwise any advance in space will become
exponentially more expensive. A trip to Mars was possible after Apollo
but would have had an exponential price tag.

2) If ideas are locked up under classification, and a disinformation
campaign initiated whenever someone else comes up with the same idea
America is doomed to futility. If there is to be human spaceflight
with new thinking America will not be the country to do it. I think
this is very clear.

"The Future of Human Spaceflight" is too limited in its conception. *It
barely manages to recognize the present. *Those of us who can think
about such matters, need to be working at "The Future of Human Culture
in Space" and of our species.

The future of human culture is I believe in a united world. It is to
do with space, yes. If we think about culture we cannot ignore other
things. We cannot, for example, ignore the Middle East and the
resentments that have been and are still being built up.

I hope that space is explored as a united world. This may be too
utopian, although if we go into space with national rivalries it will
endanger rather than protect humanity.


- Ian Parker

On Jan 12, 6:29*am, Ian Parker wrote:

Another cold hard truth - Hamas is going to emerge bloodied but
unbowed. More extremism is going to follow. Khaled Mashaal is called
Khaled (xAlid) because he will always be there. Kill him and someone
else will take his place.

You're probably right. But that is not a necessary truth. It is
possible to kill every last member of Hamas.

It should have been done, though, without killing so many Gazan
civilians if one does not want new terrorist groups to rise up.

I can think of two ways destroying Hamas could have been achieved with
less bloodshed.

1) Israel allows Egypt to open the border to Gaza to evacuate the
civilians of Gaza temporarily during the offensive against Hamas; or

2) Since there is mistrust concerning whether Israel is targeting
Hamas as spcifically as possible, why not have a multinational force,
made up of troops from the U.S., Britain, France, and the other
European countries, be what enters Gaza with the purpose of hunting
down and destroying Hamas utterly (the way al-Qaeda and the Taliban
are to be destroyed utterly)?

Apparently, political considerations prevent these two alternatives
from being taken. Given that, those who create these obstacles are in
no position to criticize Israel.

John Savard

On 12 Jan, 22:38, Quadibloc wrote:
On Jan 12, 6:29*am, Ian Parker wrote:

Another cold hard truth - Hamas is going to emerge bloodied but
unbowed. More extremism is going to follow. Khaled Mashaal is called
Khaled (xAlid) because he will always be there. Kill him and someone
else will take his place.

You're probably right. But that is not a necessary truth. It is
possible to kill every last member of Hamas.

It should have been done, though, without killing so many Gazan
civilians if one does not want new terrorist groups to rise up.

Given the fact that you are where you are, there is some truth in what
you say. "Cast lead" is a logical culmination of steadt escalation on
BOTH sides.

I can think of two ways destroying Hamas could have been achieved with
less bloodshed.

1) Israel allows Egypt to open the border to Gaza to evacuate the
civilians of Gaza temporarily during the offensive against Hamas; or

2) Since there is mistrust concerning whether Israel is targeting
Hamas as spcifically as possible, why not have a multinational force,
made up of troops from the U.S., Britain, France, and the other
European countries, be what enters Gaza with the purpose of hunting
down and destroying Hamas utterly (the way al-Qaeda and the Taliban
are to be destroyed utterly)?

Al-Qaeda has not been destroyed utterly. It has sufferered a defeat in
Iraq (where if it was not for the US military they would never havre
been anyway). It is still present in the moutains of the NW frontier.
The parallel is not quite true anyway. Al-Qaida sufferes from one very
real deficiency. It is puritanical, it is "la la land" (la = no). It
does not have an appeal to Arabs. No alcohol, no belly dancing, no
fun.

Hamas and Hezbullah have the appeal of liberation movements. The
British had to talk to Markarios and Kenyata in the end.

Why are the Palestinans expected to live differently from the people
in any other country. Gaza was strangled during the "cease fire". The
Israelis are STILL holding on to vast swathes of territory in the West
Bank in the shape of settlements.

Apparently, political considerations prevent these two alternatives
from being taken. Given that, those who create these obstacles are in
no position to criticize Israel.

There are political consideration on both sides. If I remember
correctly Ms Livni failed to become Prime Minister because the
Religious Party wanted an undertaking that Jerusalem would never be a
part of negotiations. I am a great believer in "first past the post"
elections. The Israeli system of proportional representation gives far
too much power to minority parties. Do not image that Hamas/Hezbullah
are unaware of this. The "resignation" of Trippi Livni was just one
stepping stone on the road to war.

When I was in Damascus there was never any nonsense about the
positions of buttons in lifts on Fridays. Yet this is just one of the
demands that the Orthodox are making.

In any case this is only one of the "hard truths". The majority of
"hard truth" is about manned spaceflight. Everyone admits that the ISS
is going nowhere. Anything beyond LEO is prhibitavely expensive and
will remain so.

Yet another hard truth. There are probably people out there with even
better ideas than those I have put forward. I do not believe that one
will ever get anything constructive out of this group. I think its
goose is well and truly cooked.

With no really good ideas on the horizon I do not believe Mr. Obama
has any real option but to call a halt on the whole thing. The only
justification, and it is a tenuous justification at that, for manned
spaceflight is that the ISS is an important part of international
relations.


- Ian Parker

"Quadibloc" wrote in message
...
On Jan 9, 9:05 pm, "jonathan" wrote:

There's a huge logical flaw with the assumption humanity is destined to
colinize space. If humanity were truly civilized and intelligent, we'd
understand nature enough to be able to find a sustainable equilibruim
with our environment. So, if we were 'civilized' we wouldn't ...need...
to colonize.



After all, in over 200 years of history, the U.S. had only *one* civil
war; look how many wars they had in Europe in that time! Don't blame
Americans for the fact that Communists and terrorists are uncivilized!

John Savard


I think the point that democracy defines being civilized is correct.
Our steadily improving and stable democracy is the source
of our prosperity and ability to afford such things. But the
larger picture also indicates the more prosperous or 'civilized'
a nation is, the lower the rate of population growth, even
to the point of shrinking populations. This trend would suggest
that as democracy and prosperity spread, as the world becomes
more civilized, the population growth problem will take care
of itself.

I think it's pretty clear that if humanity gets it's house in order
then colonies would become a luxury, not a necessity for
survival.

Another trend is with our instinctive curiosity about 'outer space'.
The less we know, the more we wish to go see, and find out.
So over time, as our knowledge and wisdom concerning
our surrounding increase, our 'need' to explore will
diminish proportionally.

For instance with Mars, by the time we could put people
there, the various rovers will have told us pretty much
all we really wanted to know in the first place.

On Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:39:29 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
Ian Parker made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:


Hamas and Hezbullah have the appeal of liberation movements.

Hamas is not a "liberation movement." It is a genocidal movement.

Yet another hard truth. There are probably people out there with even
better ideas than those I have put forward.

It would be frightening to contemplate that there are people with
worse ones.

On Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:50:50 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
Quadibloc made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

After all, in over 200 years of history, the U.S. had only *one* civil
war; look how many wars they had in Europe in that time!

Only if you ignore Shay's Rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Texas
revolution...

The War Between the States was our most spectacular one, but it wasn't
the only one.

"Martha Adams" wrote in message
...

"space settlement" is the very long-term business of our human species
getting
off Terra into the solar system, after which it has a hope to exist and grow
for millennia to come.

Reality says something else, population growth rates diminish
quickly as a nation becomes more prosperous or stable.
As democracy and freedom continues to spread, the need
to colonize to perpetuate the species becomes completely
unnecessary. Your opinions seem to spring from a mish-mash
of sci-fi imagery, such as runaway populations and some
inevitable apocalypse.


As vs, if it doesn't, expectable astronomical violence


This also is another nonsensical argument. For instance, which
is easier or more likely to become reality? An ability to deflect
or destroy incoming astronomical threats, or quickly moving
SIX BILLION PEOPLE to another planet?

If we move our population somewhere else ahead of time, how
are we to know we didn't move ...into..the path a future collision?
Defense is the only logical, practical or moral choice.
Moral in the sense that colonies will always be for the
select few, not the general population. Colonies can't
support billions of people. They never will, not in ten
lifetimes.

Ten lifetimes is too far to plan for, only dream about.


or local religious and ideological foolishness, using technologies now
available, will put an end to all this local Terran trouble.


That's the silliest thing you've said, we'd take all our troubles with us
and you know it. Only unless we fix those 'troubles' first, can
we hope to successfully colonize anything. Having done that
colonies become an extravagance, let the big corporations
pay for them. Only profit driven motives can build such things
anyway.


Jonathan

s

On 13 Jan, 14:04, (Rand Simberg) wrote:
On Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:39:29 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
Ian Parker made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Hamas and Hezbullah have the appeal of liberation movements.

Hamas is not a "liberation movement." *It is a genocidal movement.

this is what Israei propaganda is saying. Neither Hamas nor Hezbullah
has ever proposed attacking western targets in general. Wht the great
big US of A cannot keeps its paws off I will never know.

Hamas agrees in principle to peace within the 1967 borders. They must
clearly form a part of the peace process. They were after all
DEMOCRATICALLY elected. Or, do you agree with elections only when they
produce the result you want. As in Latin America .......

Yet another hard truth. There are probably people out there with even
better ideas than those I have put forward.

It would be frightening to contemplate that there are people with
worse ones.

There are. You are one of them. Listen - nobody is going to buy maned
spaceflight beyond LEO at the price tag proposed. Forget it.


- Ian Parker