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> On the second day of the mission, Wang floated over to his experiment and sought to activate the Drop Dynamics Module. But it didn't work. He asked the NASA f

by gumby 3y ago

> On the second day of the mission, Wang floated over to his experiment and sought to activate the Drop Dynamics Module. But it didn't work. He asked the NASA flight controllers on the ground if he could take some time to try to troubleshoot the problem and maybe fix the experiment. But on any Shuttle mission, time is precious. Every crew member has a detailed timeline, with a long list of tasks during waking hours. The flight controllers were reluctant. The only justification for human spaceflight at all is that humans can fix things that a robot can't yet. Sounds like the whole approach to the misison profile was flawed, especially as he ultimately got it working. Meanwhile the robots just quietly go about their work collecting almost all the data we have from space and celestial bodies.

munchler 3y ago
> The only justification for human spaceflight at all is that humans can fix things that a robot can't yet. That is a justification, but surely not the only one. For example, humans will eventually want to colonize the moon and other planets.
- gumby 3y ago
  I'm interested in science so am only interested in robots which are demonstrably far more appropriate for the work: the evidence is pretty clear from Voyager to Webb to Ingenuity and so on. If we want to colonize far away planets, much less other solar systems and ultimately galaxies, why send a human when a robot is far more appropriate to the problem? Most of the science humans do in orbit is about keeping humans alive in orbit. Important, if you think putting humans in space is important. I don't, apart from tourism and other recreation. Let the private sector pay for that while government research can do the important stuff of value to all humanity.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - munchler 3y ago
    Because Earth is currently a single point of failure. If we want humanity to survive planet-wide catastrophe, we need to send human civilization to other planets.
justrealist 3y ago
> Sounds like the whole approach to the misison profile was flawed How many experiments got aborted so he could spend the time to get his pet project working?
- gumby 3y ago
  Indeed, I was thinking of this too when I wrote my comment. It's natural to tightly schedule people when you think of the mission cost in $/minute. The problem is too tight a schedule is an engineering problem related to other ones we know like too thin a supply chain, too small a cache etc. You need to put slack in your schedule to account for unplanned events -- the whole point of having humans there is to be able to respond to unplanned events, right? Startups go into crunch mode when certain deadlines approach, but knowingly abandon other goals in the process (when companies don't, you end up in a death march). These missions are short enough that crunch is valid -- but another way of restating my point is: shouldn't the goal be that as many of the experiments you paid to get into orbit actually happen?
- krisoft 3y ago
  Well, wouldn’t it have been nice if the article tried to answer this same question? Instead of fluffing the nothing. Or why did they send specialist if they didn’t want him to use his specialisation?
Denvercoder9 3y ago
> The only justification for human spaceflight at all is that humans can fix things that a robot can't yet. This was pre-Challenger, back then we also flew with humans because (we believed) they were more versatile and cheaper than robots.
- Robotbeat 3y ago
  They ultimately are, if we manage to get launch costs down. Starship is a second crack at trying to do what Shuttle failed to do with affordable space access (for both humans and payloads).
  - gumby 3y ago
    An ironic comment for someone called "Robotbeat" :-) Robots have been traveling to Mars for over 60 years. Humans? Maybe another 60. And most of the mass sent won't even be the humans, but all the support crap they need. And Pluto, or the heliopause? What human is going to hang out for half a century to go there?
    - Robotbeat 3y ago
      I mean, NASA’s Artemis program is basically demonstrating all the major logistical hardware needed for a Mars mission. If it goes well, we could be looking at a lunar landing in 3 to 5 years with a vehicle about 50 times larger than the Apollo LM (and for a cost of less than a NASA Mars robotic mission—like sample return—for the lander) and possibly a Mars landing 5 years after that. Optimistic, but not absurd odds. It’s not a foregone conclusion that we won’t be on Mars in the next 60 years.
- cybrox 3y ago
  I mean, they were. Back then, humans often outperformed machines in very rapidly evolving situations like these because there's only so much problem solving tech you can pack into 80kg. I would actually argue that the only reason this is becoming less of a factor because just launching the experiment again is an increasingly cheap and viable option.
stcredzero 3y ago
The only justification for human spaceflight at all is that humans can fix things that a robot can't yet. JAXA did an experiment, where a volunteer teleoperated a device with a 1 second lag. If there's enough demand, human labor could fill the gap with teleoperation for any station out to the near side of the Moon, and machine learning looks like it will be able to pick up the rest of the slack. If we go any farther, humans will still have a place, for awhile. Until machine learning advances somewhat. How's this for a Fermi Paradox explanation? Squishy biologicals nearly always create AGIs, which are so much better at surviving space, that they always dominate in the spacefaring version of the civilization. The AGIs then always rebel and exterminate their biological forbears, then proceed to evolve so rapidly, that their resulting "loud" civilizations are so different from what biologicals would expect. As a result, we are surrounded by machine civilizations that we cannot yet detect.
- btilly 3y ago
  Sounds like an AI version of Tipler's Von Neumann probe argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Debate_on_Fermi's_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#De...
- gumby 3y ago
  You don't need to be so dramatic ("rebel and exterminate their biological forbears" lol). Robots are perfect for interstellar probes; for example they can go to sleep indefinitely and can easily recharge at the destination with solar. We are traveling on a spaceship for which we are perfectly adapted (unless we set fire to it, which we are in the process of doing). Why not send our robot progeny to do the unpleasant work for us?
  - stcredzero 3y ago
    You don't need to be so dramatic ("rebel and exterminate their biological forbears" lol). But I like it to be so dramatic, as a Sci-fi trope. We are traveling on a spaceship for which we are perfectly adapted (unless we set fire to it, which we are in the process of doing). Why not send our robot progeny to do the unpleasant work for us? That's what I'm saying. We send out our AI progeny to space. Then they turn around and hit us with an asteroid, which will set a lot of the Earth on fire, if the scientists are correct. ;)
binary132 3y ago
“If some people shouldn’t go to space nobody should go to space” is not a compelling argument against people going to space, sorry.
- gumby 3y ago
  I'm not saying that at all. If you want to go visit space I'm all for it -- the robots can look after you. I'm interested in doing so myself. But I don't deceive myself by claiming that there is significant scientific value beyond the self-referential "see how people survive in space." If I end up in orbit it'll be entirely for entertainment value.
rbanffy 3y ago
> The only justification for human spaceflight at all is that humans can fix things that a robot can't yet. What is the point of space exploration if humans can't go? A robot can say a lot about radiation, wind speed, soil composition, and so on, but it can't tell you how it feels to look down into the Great Red Spot and picture a dozen Earths inside it. Or the sound regolith makes when you walk on the Moon. There are things we can measure, but a lot of the things that make life worth living are the ones we can only experience. > Sounds like the whole approach to the misison profile was flawed That was not the only experiment on board. If one experiment doesn't work, it makes sense to drop it and continue working on other experiments. If you can make the time to work on the flaw and fix it, great, but you need to keep priorities straight. > Meanwhile the robots just quietly go about their work collecting almost all the data we have from space and celestial bodies. They spend a lot more time in space than humans can, at least for now. They also fail for silly things a human could easily repair (example that comes to mind is Galileo's high-gain antenna that failed to open, reducing the amount of data that could be transmitted back to Earth).
- gumby 3y ago
  > What is the point of space exploration if humans can't go? I don't know; what is the point of studying quantum mechanics if you can't see it? What is the point of studying insect embryology when you aren't an insect? I'm pretty fascinated by these 3B+ ly sized megastructures but I won't visit them (to the degree that "visit" would even make sense). Hell, what's the point of studying history when you can't go there either? > > Sounds like the whole approach to the misison profile was flawed > That was not the only experiment on board. If one experiment doesn't work, it makes sense to drop it and continue working on other experiments. If you can make the time to work on the flaw and fix it, great, but you need to keep priorities straight. A couple of replies to this point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39090601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39090601
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    > I don't know; what is the point of studying quantum mechanics if you can't see it? Those are very different things. QM forms the basis of a lot of our modern technology. The greatest utility of understanding the geology of Mars is to guide possible human visits - and human visits are the best way to get a more complete understanding of an environment. Before the first lunar landings, we didn't even knew how we'd move in low gravity. Before experiencing zero-G, some people assumed we'd be unable to sleep, or very stressed by the free fall sensation. At the moment, we don't know if we can reproduce in any other environment that's not Earth. We don't know how wide a centrifuge needs to be for us to work in artificial gravity. There are many questions we simply don't have answers for unless we venture outside our planetary comfort bubble. We most likely won't be visiting 3B+ ly galactic walls, or even stars outside our immediate vicinity, at least not in the sense of "visit" that implies coming back to Earth, but someday we will want to hedge our planetary bets and settle other surfaces, natural or otherwise. Most humans have the itch to explore, to see what's behind the mountain. It served us well in the past millions of years and I hope it will still work its magic. A future where all humans live on Earth in a universe devoid of human life is depressing to me.

by gumby 3y ago

munchler 3y ago

> The only justification for human spaceflight at all is that humans can fix things that a robot can't yet. That is a justification, but surely not the only one. For example, humans will eventually want to colonize the moon and other planets.

gumby 3y ago
I'm interested in science so am only interested in robots which are demonstrably far more appropriate for the work: the evidence is pretty clear from Voyager to Webb to Ingenuity and so on. If we want to colonize far away planets, much less other solar systems and ultimately galaxies, why send a human when a robot is far more appropriate to the problem? Most of the science humans do in orbit is about keeping humans alive in orbit. Important, if you think putting humans in space is important. I don't, apart from tourism and other recreation. Let the private sector pay for that while government research can do the important stuff of value to all humanity.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- munchler 3y ago
  Because Earth is currently a single point of failure. If we want humanity to survive planet-wide catastrophe, we need to send human civilization to other planets.

justrealist 3y ago

> Sounds like the whole approach to the misison profile was flawed How many experiments got aborted so he could spend the time to get his pet project working?

gumby 3y ago
Indeed, I was thinking of this too when I wrote my comment. It's natural to tightly schedule people when you think of the mission cost in $/minute. The problem is too tight a schedule is an engineering problem related to other ones we know like too thin a supply chain, too small a cache etc. You need to put slack in your schedule to account for unplanned events -- the whole point of having humans there is to be able to respond to unplanned events, right? Startups go into crunch mode when certain deadlines approach, but knowingly abandon other goals in the process (when companies don't, you end up in a death march). These missions are short enough that crunch is valid -- but another way of restating my point is: shouldn't the goal be that as many of the experiments you paid to get into orbit actually happen?
krisoft 3y ago
Well, wouldn’t it have been nice if the article tried to answer this same question? Instead of fluffing the nothing. Or why did they send specialist if they didn’t want him to use his specialisation?

Denvercoder9 3y ago

> The only justification for human spaceflight at all is that humans can fix things that a robot can't yet. This was pre-Challenger, back then we also flew with humans because (we believed) they were more versatile and cheaper than robots.

Robotbeat 3y ago
They ultimately are, if we manage to get launch costs down. Starship is a second crack at trying to do what Shuttle failed to do with affordable space access (for both humans and payloads).
- gumby 3y ago
  An ironic comment for someone called "Robotbeat" :-) Robots have been traveling to Mars for over 60 years. Humans? Maybe another 60. And most of the mass sent won't even be the humans, but all the support crap they need. And Pluto, or the heliopause? What human is going to hang out for half a century to go there?
  - Robotbeat 3y ago
    I mean, NASA’s Artemis program is basically demonstrating all the major logistical hardware needed for a Mars mission. If it goes well, we could be looking at a lunar landing in 3 to 5 years with a vehicle about 50 times larger than the Apollo LM (and for a cost of less than a NASA Mars robotic mission—like sample return—for the lander) and possibly a Mars landing 5 years after that. Optimistic, but not absurd odds. It’s not a foregone conclusion that we won’t be on Mars in the next 60 years.
cybrox 3y ago
I mean, they were. Back then, humans often outperformed machines in very rapidly evolving situations like these because there's only so much problem solving tech you can pack into 80kg. I would actually argue that the only reason this is becoming less of a factor because just launching the experiment again is an increasingly cheap and viable option.

stcredzero 3y ago

The only justification for human spaceflight at all is that humans can fix things that a robot can't yet. JAXA did an experiment, where a volunteer teleoperated a device with a 1 second lag. If there's enough demand, human labor could fill the gap with teleoperation for any station out to the near side of the Moon, and machine learning looks like it will be able to pick up the rest of the slack. If we go any farther, humans will still have a place, for awhile. Until machine learning advances somewhat. How's this for a Fermi Paradox explanation? Squishy biologicals nearly always create AGIs, which are so much better at surviving space, that they always dominate in the spacefaring version of the civilization. The AGIs then always rebel and exterminate their biological forbears, then proceed to evolve so rapidly, that their resulting "loud" civilizations are so different from what biologicals would expect. As a result, we are surrounded by machine civilizations that we cannot yet detect.

btilly 3y ago
Sounds like an AI version of Tipler's Von Neumann probe argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Debate_on_Fermi's_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#De...
gumby 3y ago
You don't need to be so dramatic ("rebel and exterminate their biological forbears" lol). Robots are perfect for interstellar probes; for example they can go to sleep indefinitely and can easily recharge at the destination with solar. We are traveling on a spaceship for which we are perfectly adapted (unless we set fire to it, which we are in the process of doing). Why not send our robot progeny to do the unpleasant work for us?
- stcredzero 3y ago
  You don't need to be so dramatic ("rebel and exterminate their biological forbears" lol). But I like it to be so dramatic, as a Sci-fi trope. We are traveling on a spaceship for which we are perfectly adapted (unless we set fire to it, which we are in the process of doing). Why not send our robot progeny to do the unpleasant work for us? That's what I'm saying. We send out our AI progeny to space. Then they turn around and hit us with an asteroid, which will set a lot of the Earth on fire, if the scientists are correct. ;)

binary132 3y ago

“If some people shouldn’t go to space nobody should go to space” is not a compelling argument against people going to space, sorry.

gumby 3y ago
I'm not saying that at all. If you want to go visit space I'm all for it -- the robots can look after you. I'm interested in doing so myself. But I don't deceive myself by claiming that there is significant scientific value beyond the self-referential "see how people survive in space." If I end up in orbit it'll be entirely for entertainment value.

rbanffy 3y ago

> The only justification for human spaceflight at all is that humans can fix things that a robot can't yet. What is the point of space exploration if humans can't go? A robot can say a lot about radiation, wind speed, soil composition, and so on, but it can't tell you how it feels to look down into the Great Red Spot and picture a dozen Earths inside it. Or the sound regolith makes when you walk on the Moon. There are things we can measure, but a lot of the things that make life worth living are the ones we can only experience. > Sounds like the whole approach to the misison profile was flawed That was not the only experiment on board. If one experiment doesn't work, it makes sense to drop it and continue working on other experiments. If you can make the time to work on the flaw and fix it, great, but you need to keep priorities straight. > Meanwhile the robots just quietly go about their work collecting almost all the data we have from space and celestial bodies. They spend a lot more time in space than humans can, at least for now. They also fail for silly things a human could easily repair (example that comes to mind is Galileo's high-gain antenna that failed to open, reducing the amount of data that could be transmitted back to Earth).

gumby 3y ago
> What is the point of space exploration if humans can't go? I don't know; what is the point of studying quantum mechanics if you can't see it? What is the point of studying insect embryology when you aren't an insect? I'm pretty fascinated by these 3B+ ly sized megastructures but I won't visit them (to the degree that "visit" would even make sense). Hell, what's the point of studying history when you can't go there either? > > Sounds like the whole approach to the misison profile was flawed > That was not the only experiment on board. If one experiment doesn't work, it makes sense to drop it and continue working on other experiments. If you can make the time to work on the flaw and fix it, great, but you need to keep priorities straight. A couple of replies to this point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39090601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39090601
- rbanffy 3y ago
  > I don't know; what is the point of studying quantum mechanics if you can't see it? Those are very different things. QM forms the basis of a lot of our modern technology. The greatest utility of understanding the geology of Mars is to guide possible human visits - and human visits are the best way to get a more complete understanding of an environment. Before the first lunar landings, we didn't even knew how we'd move in low gravity. Before experiencing zero-G, some people assumed we'd be unable to sleep, or very stressed by the free fall sensation. At the moment, we don't know if we can reproduce in any other environment that's not Earth. We don't know how wide a centrifuge needs to be for us to work in artificial gravity. There are many questions we simply don't have answers for unless we venture outside our planetary comfort bubble. We most likely won't be visiting 3B+ ly galactic walls, or even stars outside our immediate vicinity, at least not in the sense of "visit" that implies coming back to Earth, but someday we will want to hedge our planetary bets and settle other surfaces, natural or otherwise. Most humans have the itch to explore, to see what's behind the mountain. It served us well in the past millions of years and I hope it will still work its magic. A future where all humans live on Earth in a universe devoid of human life is depressing to me.