6 ms·

Why we need a space program

39 points by mrsebastian 15y ago

samlevine 15y ago
We have a space program. NASA isn't going away. It puts probes on/around planets and asteroids and advances science (but not SCIENCE! which is what people tend to get miffed about). If need be we could even start using our own rockets to get humans into space, it's just more cost effective to pay the Russians to do so. Of course, throwing more money at NASA is actually a pretty good idea, even if the sexier things people want to do are unlikely to get off the ground in the near term (say 50 years or so). But a reusable shuttle was never cost effective for manned spaceflight at the scale that we did it at.
Shenglong 15y ago
I believe it was the National Research Council Canada's director who said this (I could be mistaken, correct if necessary): "no amount of research into the oil lamp could have invented the light bulb"
- juiceandjuice 15y ago
  I've never heard this before, but it is a good quote. One of the problems that people don't understand about funding research for new science is that... it's new science. People don't always know exactly what will happen or come of it. It could be an expensive lesson on how not to do things, or it could be an exercise of the mundane, but even the spectacular failures can bring about paradigm shifting change. More importantly, people come to believe that there is often only one goal of any mission and often dismiss the collateral benefits from attempting to solve a really hard problem, especially because they are often hard to truly quantify.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
TravisLS 15y ago
I've been trying to find this quotation from Neil Degrasse Tyson but haven't been successful. It's one of my favorite perspectives on NASA's budget (and specifically the the importance of lavish, public, manned missions). Paraphrased: Investing only $19 billion dollars a year is a no-brainer, considering the return is a generation of American kids interested in math and science.
- zeteo 15y ago
  >Investing only $19 billion dollars a year is a no-brainer, considering the return is a generation of American kids interested in math and science. This attitude has brought NASA to the lack of relevance we see today. Astronauts spending hours on video chat with middle-schoolers and the use of precious payload to put ant colonies into orbit are not serious ways to advance a space program. When NASA was about exploring and colonizing the final frontier, kids would join in and dream along. When the space program became about forcing science and technology in an artificial way down the same kids' throats, they tuned out. So few youngsters with an interest in space / SF exist today.
  - Jach 15y ago
    Yeah, I think the goal of sparking science interest (and other things) would be better suited with mandated reruns of Star Trek: TNG in classrooms. The thing with the ants is I only heard they were doing it, I never heard what they found out, and they never made it sound any fun. In Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! he talks about his own ant experiments in an enlightening way, with a useful application of getting them away from his food without using poisons. We need more of that.
  - pplante 15y ago
    I wonder if there is any sort of correlation between the dumbing down of science and people's interest in learning more about some complicated topic. Are we killing some of the allure for people who want to know more about a subject because maybe at some level they are driven to be an expert in something no one else they know is? </oddthought>
- mchusma 15y ago
Gravityloss 15y ago
We need advancement towards spacefaring. We don't need space programs. There is need for government basic research, infrastructure and science programs. There is need for healthy commercial ventures, reasonable scale and agile development with quick cycles and multiple concurrent paths. Spaceflight could well be more routine, reliable and affordarble if there never was an Apollo or Shuttle.
- tjmc 15y ago
  Exactly. One problem that they need to solve before leaving the gravity well again is creating sustainable biospheres - capable of recycling all CO2, waste and water, producing food and, most importantly, keeping the people inside happy, healthy and sane. To my knowledge this has never[1] been achieved, and we need to work out how to do it before setting up any kind of "off world colony". 1. Biosphere 2 was a high profile, but ultimately unsuccessful example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Ronkdar 15y ago
> just look back at the discovery of North America and foundation of the greatest, vastest, richest, and most powerful nation the world has ever seen. As an American, I find this sentence somewhat embarrassing. > There would’ve been no Cold War, no Hollywood, and no tea bags. And nothing of value would be lost. It bothers me how he thinks that education funding would have to suffer for science. Why not just defense?
voteaccount1 15y ago
We have one, it's called Air Force Space Command Center. Their budget was increased by 700 million in 2011 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/usa-airforce-space-idUSN1523811720110216 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/usa-airforce-space...)
protomyth 15y ago
I don't doubt the value of a space program, but I seriously doubt having NASA be the steward of such a program from this point on. I cannot help but think what would have happened if the Air Force's program had been funded and advanced past the X-15 stage. The forcing of Air Force concerns on the shuttle and NASA's own obsession with winning a race to the moon instead of establishing a permanent presence in space have done in our space program. At this point, I just hope that multiple avenues are tried and regulatory agencies are made to get out of the way of private flight.
watchandwait 15y ago
The best way to fund science is to cut taxes on capital and to cut tax rates on the wealthy.
- Game_Ender 15y ago
  Do the wealthy fund long term scientific research projects?
  - jjmaxwell4 15y ago
    Bill Gates sure does with his Global Health Program.
jjmaxwell4 15y ago
NASA, like most government institutions, is wasteful and inefficient. The private sector can develop cheaper, safer, more efficient rockets, in a fraction of the time. Elon Musk, among others, has laid out ambitious goals; much more ambitious then the previous goals of NASA. This is not the end of space exploration; on the contrary - things are going to start advancing at a much faster pace.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Exactly. I buy that we need a space program, but as far as I am concerned a government space program has had its chance.
- uvdiv 15y ago
  It's sobering to think, nothing the entire private space industry put together has proposed comes close to what NASA was sitting on in the 1960's, with nuclear pulse propulsion. Now it's unthinkable. But with a slightly different historical path, we could today be launching thousands of tons at a time into orbit, on a trail of small atomic bombs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsi...

39 points by mrsebastian 15y ago

We have a space program. NASA isn't going away. It puts probes on/around planets and asteroids and advances science (but not SCIENCE! which is what people tend to get miffed about). If need be we could even start using our own rockets to get humans into space, it's just more cost effective to pay the Russians to do so. Of course, throwing more money at NASA is actually a pretty good idea, even if the sexier things people want to do are unlikely to get off the ground in the near term (say 50 years or so). But a reusable shuttle was never cost effective for manned spaceflight at the scale that we did it at.

Shenglong 15y ago

I believe it was the National Research Council Canada's director who said this (I could be mistaken, correct if necessary): "no amount of research into the oil lamp could have invented the light bulb"

juiceandjuice 15y ago
I've never heard this before, but it is a good quote. One of the problems that people don't understand about funding research for new science is that... it's new science. People don't always know exactly what will happen or come of it. It could be an expensive lesson on how not to do things, or it could be an exercise of the mundane, but even the spectacular failures can bring about paradigm shifting change. More importantly, people come to believe that there is often only one goal of any mission and often dismiss the collateral benefits from attempting to solve a really hard problem, especially because they are often hard to truly quantify.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

TravisLS 15y ago

I've been trying to find this quotation from Neil Degrasse Tyson but haven't been successful. It's one of my favorite perspectives on NASA's budget (and specifically the the importance of lavish, public, manned missions). Paraphrased: Investing only $19 billion dollars a year is a no-brainer, considering the return is a generation of American kids interested in math and science.

zeteo 15y ago
>Investing only $19 billion dollars a year is a no-brainer, considering the return is a generation of American kids interested in math and science. This attitude has brought NASA to the lack of relevance we see today. Astronauts spending hours on video chat with middle-schoolers and the use of precious payload to put ant colonies into orbit are not serious ways to advance a space program. When NASA was about exploring and colonizing the final frontier, kids would join in and dream along. When the space program became about forcing science and technology in an artificial way down the same kids' throats, they tuned out. So few youngsters with an interest in space / SF exist today.
- Jach 15y ago
  Yeah, I think the goal of sparking science interest (and other things) would be better suited with mandated reruns of Star Trek: TNG in classrooms. The thing with the ants is I only heard they were doing it, I never heard what they found out, and they never made it sound any fun. In Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! he talks about his own ant experiments in an enlightening way, with a useful application of getting them away from his food without using poisons. We need more of that.
- pplante 15y ago
  I wonder if there is any sort of correlation between the dumbing down of science and people's interest in learning more about some complicated topic. Are we killing some of the allure for people who want to know more about a subject because maybe at some level they are driven to be an expert in something no one else they know is? </oddthought>
mchusma 15y ago

Gravityloss 15y ago

We need advancement towards spacefaring. We don't need space programs. There is need for government basic research, infrastructure and science programs. There is need for healthy commercial ventures, reasonable scale and agile development with quick cycles and multiple concurrent paths. Spaceflight could well be more routine, reliable and affordarble if there never was an Apollo or Shuttle.

tjmc 15y ago
Exactly. One problem that they need to solve before leaving the gravity well again is creating sustainable biospheres - capable of recycling all CO2, waste and water, producing food and, most importantly, keeping the people inside happy, healthy and sane. To my knowledge this has never[1] been achieved, and we need to work out how to do it before setting up any kind of "off world colony". 1. Biosphere 2 was a high profile, but ultimately unsuccessful example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Ronkdar 15y ago

> just look back at the discovery of North America and foundation of the greatest, vastest, richest, and most powerful nation the world has ever seen. As an American, I find this sentence somewhat embarrassing. > There would’ve been no Cold War, no Hollywood, and no tea bags. And nothing of value would be lost. It bothers me how he thinks that education funding would have to suffer for science. Why not just defense?

voteaccount1 15y ago

We have one, it's called Air Force Space Command Center. Their budget was increased by 700 million in 2011 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/usa-airforce-space-idUSN1523811720110216 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/usa-airforce-space...)

protomyth 15y ago

I don't doubt the value of a space program, but I seriously doubt having NASA be the steward of such a program from this point on. I cannot help but think what would have happened if the Air Force's program had been funded and advanced past the X-15 stage. The forcing of Air Force concerns on the shuttle and NASA's own obsession with winning a race to the moon instead of establishing a permanent presence in space have done in our space program. At this point, I just hope that multiple avenues are tried and regulatory agencies are made to get out of the way of private flight.

watchandwait 15y ago

The best way to fund science is to cut taxes on capital and to cut tax rates on the wealthy.

Game_Ender 15y ago
Do the wealthy fund long term scientific research projects?
- jjmaxwell4 15y ago
  Bill Gates sure does with his Global Health Program.

jjmaxwell4 15y ago

NASA, like most government institutions, is wasteful and inefficient. The private sector can develop cheaper, safer, more efficient rockets, in a fraction of the time. Elon Musk, among others, has laid out ambitious goals; much more ambitious then the previous goals of NASA. This is not the end of space exploration; on the contrary - things are going to start advancing at a much faster pace.

burgerbrain 15y ago
Exactly. I buy that we need a space program, but as far as I am concerned a government space program has had its chance.
uvdiv 15y ago
It's sobering to think, nothing the entire private space industry put together has proposed comes close to what NASA was sitting on in the 1960's, with nuclear pulse propulsion. Now it's unthinkable. But with a slightly different historical path, we could today be launching thousands of tons at a time into orbit, on a trail of small atomic bombs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsi...