Wgabrie said, "I disagree with you on that. We have spent enough time on robotics and probes." Maybe this was a simple wording issue that comes from posting comments on a board. I'm not sure.
One can always try to fix failures by hosing them down with our tax dollars. Look at SLS, James Webb, and programs outside of space exploration. Of course, James Webb is working brilliantly now, but with the huge bucket of dollars spent on it, nobody can argue that there were no other equally important options for space exploration.
I doubt that anybody would say that, other than those that want to cut it altogether. Seems your simply object to spending any money on space exploration. Manned or otherwise.
No, I've VERY interested in scientific exploration of our solar system and beyond - involving space based sensors of electromagnetic radiation, including light and including projects in orbit and on the surface of various moons and asteroids. One opportunity that is fading out is landing on an object such as Oumuamua, giving information on how our solar system compares to what else is going on in our galaxy. My point is that sending humans into space is HUGELY expensive, involves very few targets (like Moon and Mars at most), is almost totally focused on trying to keep humans alive (not on science), and doesn't result in scientific exploration. We may reach a time where we have found science missions that require humans, have found solutions to the issues of humans in space (like no gravity, constant serious radiation, etc.), have found and tested superior propulsion to replace the use of chemical rockets in space, etc. SLS is stupendously expensive old technology that so far has not worked even once. It's not a bridge to the future. It's a congressional boondoggle, foisted on NASA by law. Also, we're past the point where NASA should be directly involved in building rockets. We now have private corporations that are better at that than is NASA. This view is probably in the minority, but I don't see sound arguments for human space travel at this time, especially when so much progress in science can be had for FAR fewer tax dollars.
I'm more than willing to discuss the value of all methods of exploration, especially when the costs to tax payers are so fabulously high.
So was Apollo 4 a "PR Scam" also? Along with Apollo 5, and 6? In case you were not aware, those were all unmanned flights, from November 1967 through April 1968. The first manned mission was not until Apollo 7. And of course we did not actually land on the moon until 1969 with Apollo 11. And that was not even the first. Gemini 1 and 2 in 1964 and 1965, also both unmanned launches. I suppose those were PR scams also. As were the 7 unmanned Agena launches as part of the Gemini mission. As were the 7 unmanned launches of the Mercury program. 8 if you consider the MA-5 launch of a chimp to be "unmanned". In fact, the only program where we did not have multiple test launches of an unmanned craft prior to using the real thing was the Space Shuttle program. But ironically, while the US had 135 manned launches of the Space Shuttle that were all manned, the single launch of the Soviet Buran in 1988 was unmanned.
I had (they are all dead now) friends who worked Apollo, one of my mentors was the man who helped design the Saturn V main engine and later the Space Shuttle flight control system. Those programs were real programs tackling real challenges and pushing the envelope of all kinds of scientific and engineering fields. Artemis is not in that category, and the recent PR blitz on Artemis is just that - PR and hype.
Saturn was an amazing program with startlingly great results - not doubt about that. That accomplishment is historic. The catch I see is that SLS is not showing the kind of advancement that private enterprise has demonstrated. In my opinion, from the start NASA built rockets because nobody else could contemplate doing that, and rockets are required for a lot of NASA's mission of space exploration. With NASA's help in private enterprise for rocketry, I think we're moving past that.
There will never be a time when we can send humans to the locations that robots can go. Robots will ALWAYS be ahead of humans in that, as the requirements for robots will ALAWAYS be a fraction of whatever human space travel costs. And, it will always be stupendously expensive to support humans in space. Today, we are making significant cuts to science in order to support humans flying around in space.
Since government spends more money than it has and creates what it doesn't have, we people have to put up with inflation and economic problems. This is one of the many things we can stop doing to prevent government overspending. Aside from satellites for communications and other purposes, space provides no payback. It is just spending for the fun of it.
Well, I do believe we need to keep figuring out how this universe works. The ISS has been of economic value to industry. In fact, there are corporations that want to add proprietary modules or maybe even buy pieces of the ISS should that station lose NASA interest. China now has a razzle dazzle new space station that is an easy competitor which they plan to use for making progress in various sciences - biology, materials, etc. Asteroids are an ever present risk. The mission to bump an asteroid to calibrate how much we can change its trajectory is a useful part of defense - a highly successful mission. I'm not a fan of sending humans to the moon or Mars. Those missions end up costing gigantic dollars and providing no science benefit for having humans present. After all, the space environment is unbelievably deadly to human life. People can be in the ISS, because it is still within our magnetosphere and within easy reach of care and feeding. And, our ability to do robotic exploration is growing rapidly. We now have a helicopter on Mars, for example. Plus, the Artemis mission is stupendously irresponsible in blowing through money like there is no tomorrow. This is congress. NASA is required by LAW to build the SLS rocket, and the primary goal has been to spread the work to enough congressional districts to ensure that it can't just be killed. How about this one? Each SLS rocket is dumped, never to be reused, so they each have to be built from scratch. The following SLS rockets will be ever larger. This was planned, but the gantry (the tower holding the rocket as it prepares to launch) isn't large enough to hold these new SLS versions. The new gantry is projected to cost a BILLION DOLLARS!! Each launch of an SLS throws away $580 Million dollars worth of rocket engines. On the other hand, SpaceX reuses its rockets - some of which have launched 15 times and is thus FAR cheaper in its trips for care and feeding of the ISS, delivering communication satellites, and other useful equipment.
Why? We can't control it or use it. It may be interesting (I think it is) but an impoverished government has no business doing it. I don't see the economic value. I see companies wanting a ride to help defray the cost of research. It has never happened and never been done. There things that happen every day that need fixing. Well that's start. You are beginning to see the problem. Yes this is congress, the largest impediment to the American way of life. Normal governmental incompetence Sorry, I don't approve of anyone doing it. It would be fine for SpaceX to do except that what it does is still paid by government.
The computer you are using right now, the network you are using to access this forum, all because we studied how the universe works and being able to control and use that small part of it. Nuclear Power - Control and Use of the universe because we studied it. Electricity - Control and Use of the universe because we studied it. Modern Medicine - Control and Use of the universe because we studied it. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Just because YOU can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. We just did it, so it has happened and been done.
Major asteroid collisions are in the category of things that can be devastating to humanity and will happen, but only rarely - that is, hugely expensive, but low probability in any specific year. That still warrants attention when we have technology that can give some protection to Earth. The dinosaurs couldn't do that. I think your concerns above make sense, but aren't the only way of looking at it. There are a LOT of satellites providing us with communication, weather, national security, GPS, and other important services. Corporations have seen economic value in the ISS. As for exploration, the budget for that is really small once you cut out manned space flight outside of Earth orbit. One of the most significant problems in physics today is that our understanding of quantum mechanics and general relativity don't match. Each forms what has proven to be essentially perfect models for how physics works, one for the very small, like particles, and one for the larger, like what we experience around us. That is a gigantic hole. That problem can be attacked in part with the help of our space based telescopes, such as jwst. I don't believe one can write off the value of fixing our physics as being worthless. Yes, I don't see the value of moonmen in an age when we we have rapidly improving robotics, including a helicopter on Mars, allowing examination of places humans won't be able to go. Even if one believes in exploration of Mars, I don't see it as justifying humans being there. And, it seems pretty well proven that it's long since time that NASA should get out of the rocket business. They only got into that business because no private company could do it. Now, there are several companies that can do it. Free from trying to be the transportation provider, NASA can focus more on its mainline purposes in science related to Earth and space.
I don't argue the value of scientific exploration or trying to fix our model of physics. I like physics. I studied it in college. I simply don't want our government devaluing the currency to pay for it. Let someone do it who can afford it or let the government "save up for it" from revenue by not overspending.
The work required to investigate our physics models could not possibly be paid for by a corporation. It's hugely expensive not directly profitable. The same is true for the accelerators that study particle physics. In that case, our government chose not to invest in that, so it is being done in Europe. China is building what they call a "Higgs Factory" - a particle collider twice the size of CERN in Europe. Just to beat that horse a little more, when we have trouble with basic science advancement, spending our money on moonmen seems especially wrong headed. Our government does not have any mechanism for "saving up" for a project. States don't really have that, either. There are cases where states have tried to maintain a "rainy day" fund. But, maintaining such a fund is usually a hard sell.
I appreciate your enthusiasm for government funded research but I will never support it until government lives within its means.
Is there anything of ANY kind that our government does that you would support? I ask, because the expenditure on science by our government is certainly a small category, yet it DOES give us serious returns - gps, internet, medicine/practices/diagnostic equipment of all kinds, information used by agriculture, air travel, roads/bridges, public transit, purity standards for food/water, computers/cell phones, etc., etc. We overlook a lot of what we get, because progress in science usually reaches the public as productizations created by corporations.
Of course, it should defend the nation, deal and treat with other nations, maintain a stable currency and resolve interstate disputes. I'm all for it, just not with borrowed or created money. I have said this before. I repeat it here.
I don't know what that last paragraph means. Absolutely ANY expenditure by our federal government can be claimed to be borrowed money. It's not a meaningful differentiation.
