Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article 1162d02a-4485-40a3-8c31-c44f8a12b6bc@
29g2000prb.googlegroups.com, says...

Yes, considering how amazingly solvent the American government is at
the moment, there's no doubt they'll be stepping up space exploration
as soon as the Republicans get in.

Sarcasm noted and agreed with.

NASA needs to figure out how to do more with less. The current
direction of building the biggest shuttle derived HLV they can get
Congress and the Administration to pay for is a recipe for long term
disaster as its fixed costs will be quite large.

Here in the real world, NASA is attempting to comply with the
directive(s) laid on it by Congress - it isn't 'attempting' to get
Congress and the Administration to do anything.

It will be the shuttle program all over again in terms of high cost
and low flight rate.

True - but misleading. The shuttle's low flight rate was primarily
caused by the amount of time and effort required to turn it around.
The upcoming HLV's low flight rate will be primarily a factor of sheer
lack of need for it due to Congresses's unwilling to fund a steady
stream of large payloads.

D.
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Pat Flannery wrote:

On 1/20/2011 10:50 PM, Derek Lyons wrote:
The problem is
the atmosphere is too thick for the evaporative cooling system used on
orbit, but too think for conductive cooling (air over coils) like is
used on Earth. Nor has anyone actually looked seriously at what it
would take to ensure the joints wouldn't be significantly worn by
Martian dust.

Considering that Martian dust would have had its sharp edges dulled by
tens of millions of years of having been blown around in the yearly dust
storms, it should represent no abrasive threat whatsoever.

It doesn't have to be particularly abrasive to cause problems Pat -
there's a reason why we try to exclude it from terrestrial machinery
of any delicacy.

D.
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"Norm D. Plumber" wrote:

(Derek Lyons) wrote:

Howard Brazee wrote:

On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:16:17 -0800 (PST), Ilya2 wrote:

Yes, it is "hogwash" in the sense that Apollo 13 did not stop the
program or even came close to stopping it, but the answer to your
question -- because it was Cold War. Demonstrating US technological
superiority over USSR was a specific, identifiable goal. No such goal
exists today.

Actually such a goal *does* exist today - for countries such as China
and India.

Except their goal is "proving we are a Real Spacefaring Nation by
doing what Real Spacefaring Nations have done in the past".

Difficult to say what China's goal is with respect to a space program.

Not really if you actually observe their space program and compare and
contrast it with other programs.

They already have the bulk of the planet's rare-earth deposits, maybe
they want to be sure things stay that way in case there are
significant rare-earth deposits on the moon. Maybe they just need
something that will keep their population too busy to revolt.

Since they don't have the bulk of rare earth deposits... and since
it's extremely unlikely that the glacial pace of the their program(s)
will keep anyone too busy to revolt...

Given that theirs is the most robust economy around just now, it doesn't
seem like there would be much point in their spending effort on
"becoming legitimate".

Maybe not to you, but you've already demomnstrated acute and epic fail
at understanding what's going on.

D.
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"Matt Wiser" wrote:

Why do you think NASA's doing technology development? If Franklin Chang-Diaz
is right, and VASMIR works, travel time to Mars gets cut down to weeks
instead of months.

IIRC The problem isn't getting VASIMIR to work - the problem is
powering it, as no existing power source has sufficient output to
reach the performance levels bandied about by Chang-Diaz.

D.
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On 1/21/11 2:18 PM, Derek Lyons wrote:
"Matt wrote:

Why do you think NASA's doing technology development? If Franklin Chang-Diaz
is right, and VASMIR works, travel time to Mars gets cut down to weeks
instead of months.

IIRC The problem isn't getting VASIMIR to work - the problem is
powering it, as no existing power source has sufficient output to
reach the performance levels bandied about by Chang-Diaz.

IIRC, while you could get it to "work" with just about any power
source, to make it perform in the Super Cool Spacedrive way described
you need Mr. Fusion.


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DouhetSukd wrote:
At the risk of repeating myself, how much do we have to show for the
+/- $100B spent to date on the ISS? Any significant science you can
quote? Comparable in magnitude to the outlay?

How much science has the LHC produced? Any significant science you can
quote? Comparable in magnitude to the outlay?

(Hint: Until recently the ISS was under construction - and only the
hopelessly ignorant or extremely biased ask why a facility under
construction hasn't produced anything.)

How much could we have achieved spending that kinda dough on dumb-ass,
retarded, incapable robots?

Since 'science' isn't something you can put a precise price tag,
arguing 'how much would have been obtained' is much like arguing 'how
high is up'.

D.
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http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

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On Jan 21, 2:34*pm, (Derek Lyons) wrote:
DouhetSukd wrote:
At the risk of repeating myself, how much do we have to show for the
+/- $100B spent to date on the ISS? *Any significant science you can
quote? *Comparable in magnitude to the outlay?

How much science has the LHC produced? Any significant science you can
quote? *Comparable in magnitude to the outlay?

(Hint: *Until recently the ISS was under construction - and only the
hopelessly ignorant or extremely biased ask why a facility under
construction hasn't produced anything.)

How much could we have achieved spending that kinda dough on dumb-ass,
retarded, incapable robots?

Since 'science' isn't something you can put a precise price tag,
arguing 'how much would have been obtained' is much like arguing 'how
high is up'.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Well WHERES THE SCIENCE BREAK THRUs since ISS is basically complete?
NASA admitted recently ISS is for operations not science......

pure sad since it was sold as being since since the freedom station
days

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" wrote:

Don't HAVE to be slow, comparatively speaking. There's nothing
inherently harder about building a nuke plant than building a coal
plant.

When nuclear plants stop being far more complex than coal plants and
stop requiring extremely specialized machinery, etc... etc... That
will be true. But it's not true now and never has been.

And you can make many smaller nukes for local areas -- Toshiba has one
design that's meant for a moderate-sized town and lasts 20-30 years.

Toshiba has a design based on untested theories extrapolated from
wildly different operating reactors. Until they're prototyped and
validated, they aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

D.
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"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" wrote:

On 1/21/11 8:29 AM, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 21/01/2011 11:54 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:

I was under the impression that any reasonable fusion reaction (i.e. not
using difficult-to-obtain isotopes of something) would produce enough
neutrons to make PLENTY of the structure radioactive.

That's not much, in the scheme of things.

Not significantly better than a fission reactor, though, and fission we
know how to make NOW.

Yes, *much* significantly better than a fission reactor. There's no
radioactive fuel rods.

D.
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Fred J. McCall wrote:

Ed Stasiak wrote:

What's important is not the science, (which most won't care about
anyway) it's the exciting, epic story of space travel that drives the
imagination.

As funny as that sounds, it's actually at least somewhat the truth. My
generation grew up during Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. A lot of us
became scientists and engineers. Manned exploration ended and now
we're trying to find some way to overcome a shortage of engineers and
scientists as my generation retires.

If there's such a shortage - why aren't pay and benefits rising
sharply as the demand rises and the supply drops?

Better than half the engineers I know stopped being engineers years
ago when their positions were cut.

D.
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Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL