OT(kinda): Space program/2001

[ulthar]

Prophet Tenebrae wrote:

> Just sending some people over there to suffer massive doses of
> radiation isn't really going to give you any real technical
> breakthroughs.

I think this is an extremely short sited comment.  The very act of TRYING to put a man on Mars, even if it is not accomplished within 100 years, will almost certainly advance our technological knowledge in ways we cannot even dream at this point.

We have people in space now for extended periods of time, so I doubt protecting against radiation is a big issue.  Mars is farther from the sun than Earth, so radiation density would decrease as the trip is made if a simple orbital transfer is done.

[ulthar]

Prophet Tenebrae wrote:

> Massive public expenditure good for the economy? I
> hold these truths to be less than self-evident.
>

Sorry, I went back and reread your post, and wanted to clarify something.  You obviously don't understand how 'public' research works in the US.

NASA is a large government agency that essentially provides the administration and organization roles, but much of the actual R&D work, as well as manufacturing, is done by PRIVATE contractors.  So yes, a public INVESTMENT (not expenditure) does in fact translate to good for the overall US economy.

Also, the economy benefits by improvements in manufacturing processes (the clean room stuff developed for satellite assembly was adapted to that needed to make small cpu's for cheap microcomputers, for example), new products, better engineered materials, etc, etc ,etc.

You cannot distill a cost to benefit ratio to simply "how much did it cost the budget this year" in a realistic analysis of a 20-50 year project.

[Eirik]

Okay, fair points on the value of the Space program and our ability to walk and chew gum at the same time.  I'll concede the point.

wyckednick, a history lesson:  The Soviet space program put a satellite up first, they put a man up first, they put a lasting space station up first.  They also beat us to a lot of other less spectacular milestones in the space race.  That we got to the moon first is a great testament to us, not because the Russians were "inept."

[wickednick]

Eirik if you do a little research on the Soviets space program, you will find that they were very inept.They may have put a satelite and a man up there first but they have had more fatalitys and failures with there space program than we ever did.The reason they decided to put a space station up, was largely due to their inability to get the rocket that was supposed to take them to the moon off the launch pad.
You also have to realise that we did everything they did in a far shorter amount of time.Shortly after they sent up their satelite, we sent up one of are own,shortly after they put a man in space we also put a man in space.The reason we got to the moon first was the countinous failures in their own space proggram.

[Eirik]

wyked, they beat us in several races and no excuse making can change that.  It wasn't like Sputnik was orbited and suddenly we decided to do it to and did so a few months later.  We were working just as long - if not longer - than them to get a satellite and a man up there, and they did it first.  And I wouldn't call hitting a snag in space travel "ineptness."  There were tons of people on each side who had a genius you or I couldn't even begin to comprehend.  Their failures weren't because the scientists were inept, it was because they were treading on totally new ground and pioneering technologies and methods with no practical basis.  Bottom line: the Soviet space program is a source of great national pride in Russia, and deservedly so.

Frankly, I think the fact that their scientists did what they did in a political environment so harsh on creativity, innovation, and free thinking makes them all the more amazing.  Give the devil his due.

[raj]

ulthar wrote:


> We have people in space now for extended periods of time, so I
> doubt protecting against radiation is a big issue.  Mars is
> farther from the sun than Earth, so radiation density would
> decrease as the trip is made if a simple orbital transfer is
> done.

Just one quibble, it isn't necessarily solar radiation that we need to be concerned about (though there is that too), but things like cosmic rays which originate outside of the solar system.  Shielding against that (and things such as solar flares) is a big problem, when you want to lift all that mass off the earth and get it moving; think lots of lead.

Ben Bova wrote a pretty good novel on this, called Mars.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/055356241X/ref=sib_dp_pt/002-1195231-9337618#reader-link

[trekgeezer]

Read the Mars series by  Kim Stanley Robinson, it has a lot of good science plus a lot of political intrigue.

[ulthar]

raj wrote:

> ulthar wrote:
>
>
> Just one quibble, it isn't necessarily solar radiation that we
> need to be concerned about (though there is that too), but
> things like cosmic rays which originate outside of the solar
> system.  Shielding against that (and things such as solar
> flares) is a big problem, when you want to lift all that mass
> off the earth and get it moving; think lots of lead.
>

Most of the radiation does indeed come from the sun.  Radiation density decays as the inverse square of the distance from it's source; since the sun is by  far the closest source to us, it is our biggest 'worry.'

Cosmic rays are more technically called gamma rays, which are a by-product of the sun's fusion reaction.  True, there is background radiation from other parts of the galaxy, but that is generally small compared to what we receive from the sun.

[jmc]

I think it would be better to continue the shuttle program than to focus on landing people on the moon again or putting someone on Mars.  A lot of good has come from the shuttle program over the years.

[JohnL]

>The successful landing and reception of pictures from Mars Rover has sparked
>imaginations again, but I fear it won't last. As soon as the pictures start looking
>like all the others (ie, no signs of life), the 'public' will get bored. I think they
>already are. I mean, it has taken a week for the thing to crawl out of it's own crater.

One thing I always wondered about; Why is it that for a few thousand dollars, the car companies can build a truck that will travel over rough terrain, through mud and water etc, at speeds up to 50+ MPH, all with relatively little maintenance required. NASA spends several million dollars to build something 1/10 the size, that travels at about 10 feet per hour, gets stuck on anything bigger than a golf ball and will fail if it gets bumped with about the same force as someone kicking it.

Now I know that building something to work in an airless enviroment, or on another planet is a little more complex than building your average SUV, but it seems to me that they should be able to come up with something a little sturdier than what they have now. I mean, it only has like a 90 day life or so. Why can't they use solar panels to recharge the batteries and keep the thing working for the next year or so?

[ulthar]

JohnL wrote:

> Why can't they use solar panels to recharge the batteries and
> keep the thing working for the next year or so?

You really cannot power much on solar panels; electronics are one thing, but actuators and motors use a lot of current.  Here on Earth, they need to be quite large to generate much useful power (100's of watts), and the radiation density on Mars is even less.

On the other hand, we are still receiving data from Voyager (I read about this a week or so ago), and that spacecraft has less the solar system completely.  It is amazing some of the data it is transmitting.

I wonder how much of the slowness is data collection?  I read that the soil mechanics where Spirit deployed is different from anything encountered here on Earth (or at least anything understood).  I wonder if they go slow to get lots of pictures, and lots of readings with the various spectrometers that are on board.

[wickednick]

JohnL wrote:
 
> One thing I always wondered about; Why is it that for a few
> thousand dollars, the car companies can build a truck that will
> travel over rough terrain, through mud and water etc, at speeds
> up to 50+ MPH, all with relatively little maintenance required.
> NASA spends several million dollars to build something 1/10 the
> size, that travels at about 10 feet per hour, gets stuck on
> anything bigger than a golf ball and will fail if it gets
> bumped with about the same force as someone kicking it.
>
There are a couple answers to your question.
1. A car is built very solid, much more solid than the rovers we send. The reason are space craft and the rovers that acompany them are so fragile is because of weight consederations.Sure Nasa could build a two ton land vehicle to roam around on mars, but it would be far harder to launch the vehicle into space and more expensive.
2.You have to understand that mars is millions of miles aways.At the speed of light a radio signal coming from mars to earth, or from earth to mars takes about 10 minutes.When the rover is moving about on mars, all the information on what it is seeing and doing is delayed, so that if there is a problem with the rover, by the time we know what happened it often to late.
Thats why it moves so slow.If there is a problem with were it is going we can catch it faster and stop it from running into a rock or a big hole.
The rover is also not very smart.It can do some very simple atempts to avoid a object and keep its self on the wheels, but its largly up us to determine were it is to go.

[Eirik]

You know, in the 6th grade we had a project to build a "space lander" that would be dropped from a second story window onto concrete with an egg in it.  If your egg didn't break, you would get a good grade.  My project had a small central compartment for the egg and was surrounded by inflated balloons.  My egg did not break, but the teacher only gave me a B, stating that it was much to unwieldy and cumbersome and would likely not work in reality.  Twenty years later, my unwieldy, cumbersome idea that would not likely work in reality landed a rover on freaking Mars!  F%&$ YOU, MR. ANTANORE!!

[Grumpy Guy]

Prophet Tenebrae wrote:

> I have to say that honestly some of the things said in this
> thread probably show why more than a few of us are extremely
> worried about the US being a democratic republic and the most
> powerful nation in the world.
>
> Give Iraq and Afghanistan back? George Bush one of the best
> presidents? Massive public expenditure good for the economy? I
> hold these truths to be less than self-evident.
>
> While we could put a man on Mars - really, unless you're going
> to try and establish a proper colony there, what's the point?
> Just sending some people over there to suffer massive doses of
> radiation isn't really going to give you any real technical
> breakthroughs.

You know, I was just reading through this thread, and I wasn't going to comment until I got to the end, I really wasn't.  But I can't pass this up.  I just can't.

We are currently an occupying force in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Weather you like it or not, or weather you like the decisions that were made that got us here or not, that's the current circumstance.  In this case, I mean "we" as in the coalition forces that took up the war on Iraq/Terrorism, not just America.

What do you want us to do, then?  Hold on to the countries?  Envelope them into our "empire"?  (A section has been edited from this post due to the fact that it was very, very rude.)   It's not really America's style, though.  We tend to ask for only enough land to bury our dead.  Hell, with modern means of transport, we most likely won't even ask for that anymore.

So, the nations will be "given back" to their people.  At least, if America has any say in the matter they will.  

As far as there being no point in expanding the space program - wait, I need to re-quote you here, since I can't even believe you said it...

"While we could put a man on Mars - really, unless you're going
> to try and establish a proper colony there, what's the point?
> Just sending some people over there to suffer massive doses of
> radiation isn't really going to give you any real technical
> breakthroughs."

Yeah.  Wow.  Okay, everything from Tang to modern athletic shoes to artificial hearts came out of the space program.  It's just plain (and I AM sorry for saying this) ignorant to think that the process of taking a man to Mars and back won't spawn enormous technological innovations.

And, finally - Bush may not go down as one of our greatest presidents.  I got may own doubts about that.  But as far as massive expenditures - NASA represents - even after the budget increase - less than 1% of the United States national budget.  I guess that's still a lot of money - but it's definately not enough, comparatively speaking, for me to put up with your snide remarks without comment.  "I hold these truths..."  How very clever.  How very droll.

[Grumpy Guy]

Eirik said:
>Twenty years later, my unwieldy, cumbersome idea that would not likely work in >reality landed a rover on freaking Mars! F%&$ YOU, MR. ANTANORE!!

That's funny.  I mean it - that's bloody hilarious.