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I wonder if it answers some of SmarterEveryDay's criticism[1]. Like the crazy number of launch required for this. [1] Talking about the Artemis program to the

I wonder if it answers some of SmarterEveryDay's criticism[1]. Like the crazy number of launch required for this. [1] Talking about the Artemis program to the American Astronautical Society https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJsPvmFixU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJsPvmFixU

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
I’m a fan of that channel. But he seemed to miss the point of Artemis. The criticisms were valid. But his KISS call on the framework seemed to ignore that the point isn’t getting to the Moon, it isn’t even getting to the Moon repeatedly; it’s developing a system for repeatedly getting to Mars.
- moffkalast 2y ago
  And keeping it simple will inevitably drive costs up due to the additional brute force required, making it all uneconomical in the first place. Apollo was simple. It also cost 25% of the US's yearly GDP in total.
  - avmich 2y ago
    > It also cost 25% of the US's yearly GDP in total. Well, peak ~4% of US budget, not GDP, in 1966. A lot, but not that much.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      25% of GDP is closer to what World War II cost in its peak year. Perhaps 30%. But it’s kinda hard to define, since it also grew GDP tremendously (in the US). It may have been a much higher percentage with 1945 costs measured against 1939 GDP, if that makes sense, but I’m not sure it’s appropriate to make that comparison.
    - moffkalast 2y ago
      > in total I think the average figure is 2.5% yearly for 10 years, so that would be as if it were 25% in one year for the entire programme.
      - avmich 2y ago
        But still not GDP, right? :)
- me_me_me 2y ago
  So you want to use system that needs 14 launches to get to the moon to get to mars? Let that sink in... Falcon a much simpler rocket has a reuse window of over a month. How long would it take to re-certify starship for a launch? You are going to need dozens of them launching everyday for months to prep one mission and hoping nothing will go bad. Those kind of missions are complex tasks and complicating things make them more complex and error prone exponentially
  - mlindner 2y ago
    Falcon has a reuse window of less than a month, 21 days in fact. And that's why you use multiple vehicles. Falcon also uses multiple vehicles which is how it achieves flights on average every 3 days so far this year. Also Falcon is inherently harder to reuse because of its fuel choice causing substantial soot buildup on the vehicle that needs to be cleaned away whenever inspections are done both inside the engines and on the vehicle itself. Its fairings also get dunked into sea water every time they're reused which needs to be cleaned off.
  - avmich 2y ago
    So, on that recent presentation Musk talked about around 250,000 tons to Mars in one launch window - every 2 years - which's gonna take ~1000 Starship flights to Mars. So if every flight to Mars needs 10, nah, 15 refueling flights, that means 15,000 Starship flights in 2 years, which is 20 flights a day. Which is way, way less than the commercial aviation is doing today. And btw Starship is way simpler, at least in many places, than Boeing 747. So what's the problem? Re-certify for flight? I can envision an automated procedure which would analyze the data obtained from the rocket in flight and after flight which makes a decision in a split second, just like some systems in cars routinely do. Hoping nothing will go bad? You can get much more risks on unmanned missions. You'll also get numbers on your side, when if something goes wrong you fix it, systematically, for future attempts. That's not exactly just hoping, right?
    - withinboredom 2y ago
      > on that recent presentation Musk talked about around 250,000 tons to Mars in one launch window Except there isn't any data to back that up. It took off empty this last time, and didn't have enough fuel to complete it's mission.
- Yizahi 2y ago
  I didn't yet watch the video, but my overall point is that Gateway and Moon HLS is not the thing which will help us get to Mars. Or least it is bad for innovation per dollar spent. The best place space station to construct for future Mars expedition should have been in the LEO and fully manned. Moon orbital station is a detour. Actually more of crutch for the Orion. And HLS will land in a different mode than future Mars lander. I do agree that we need to do small steps before big steps. But overall this "lets save money with reusing Shuttle stack" has backfired spectacularly. And delayed both small step and bigger step for decade(s).
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > best place space station to construct for future Mars expedition should have been in the LEO and fully manned. Moon orbital station is a detour There are real questions about LEO versus deep space habitation, specifically in respect of solar radiation. Gateway will help settle those questions. > this "lets save money with reusing Shuttle stack" has backfired spectacularly 100% agree. And I honestly don't see us using SLS and Orion to go to Mars. But Gateway will be proving real science and hardware. And SLS, Orion and even the Gateway are more easily deprecated from the Artemis framework than e.g. Starship. Could we have a better system? Sure. Is there a better path forward if we want boots on Mars in the 2030s? No.
panick21_ 2y ago
His critisim was that it wasnt clear how many launches it was, not that its many. And having many launches if you actually get a lot out of it isn't really a problem. His whole approch seem to be 'this more complex then apollo' and therefore bad. He spent a lot of time going after SpaceX but spent almost non going after the real problem with the moon program. The incredible expensive lagecy technology forced by congrsss that is dragging the whole programs potential down. So I think in totalility message is really just reinforcing the Johnson center ultra conservative 'money is irrelevant' approch to engineering.
cameronh90 2y ago
I'm reluctant to criticise Destin as he is infinitely more knowledgeable about this than I am BUT that video did not convince me. I see Artemis as an attempt to industrialise the process of getting humans and large volumes of materials to the Moon, ultimately as a stepping stone to Mars. This isn't a proof of concept self-contained "mission" like Apollo was. It felt a bit like saying the global aviation system is overengineered compared to the Wright Flyer. I don't see why it really matters if it needs 15, 20 or even 50 reusable vessels for orbital refuelling as long as that process is repeatable and safe. That said, it's been a few months since I watched that video so I may not have done a good job here of remembering what my criticisms even were.
- consumer451 2y ago
  The 15 launches is a big deal, because it requires either a dozen or so Starship Tanker full stacks, or very-rapid reuse to be fully solved. But it's probably solvable, and otherwise SpaceX can "just" build a dozen Tankers, and reuse them slowly. It's solvable, but personally, I'm not all that optimistic on the timeline though. The shocking thing for me from that video was learning how useless the Lunar Gateway is most of the time due to its near-rectilinear halo orbit. This leads it to be only within range for rescuing those on the moon, for a couple days a week. Why does Gateway have this type of orbit? Because the Senate Launch System doesn't have the delta-v to get the capsule to circularized low-lunar orbit. We designed a moon rocket, which can't get to the moon.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > leads it to be only within range for rescuing those on the moon, for a couple days a week I genuinely never heard about the Gateway being there for rescue until Destin's talk. (Not saying he invented it. Just that it wasn't what it was advertised for.) Compared to just landing a spare Earth ascent vehicle, it seems like a stupid way to solve for our lack of low-gravity trauma medicine experience. > Why does Gateway have this type of orbit? Because the Senate Launch System doesn't have the delta-v to get the capsule to circularized low-lunar orbit NRHO also minimises communication black-outs with Earth. With the Gateway in orbit, other craft in circular orbit can maintain continuous contact with the Earth.
bryanlarsen 2y ago
SmarterEveryDay's proposal is both more expensive and less capable than using 14 Starship refueling flights. 14 flights seems insane, but since the system is fully reusable, the only consumables are <$2M of fuel each flight. Compared against the $4.3B cost of each SLS flight... Criticize the parts of the system that are both expensive and prevent us from taking advantage of Starship's ability to land 100 tons on the moon. SLS.
- me_me_me 2y ago
  > but since the system is fully reusable, the only consumables are <$2M of fuel each flight. > prevent us from taking advantage of Starship's ability to land 100 tons on the moon. the system is unable to get to the orbit, its not tested. Its all high-hopes and conjectures as it is now. All of those plans are opinions, that's the problem. Its like planning your infrastructure around hyperloop, but it doesnt exists. So all of the plans are founded on vaporware. That is highly problematic thinking.
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    I would hope nobody bases their existing infra on vaporware, but planning a future endeavor around future tech is risky but not stupid. These are not actually critical missions - they are essentially technology demonstrations with some science whitewashing. And tech demos always adopt or assume new tech.
  - chasd00 2y ago
    I don’t think it’s problematic. You don’t build a system then figure out how to use it. You make a goal and that figure out what it takes to meet it and build accordingly.
  - fabian2k 2y ago
    Starship does seem to make very reasonable progress, the last test flight was pretty successful. And NASA has much more visibility into the actual progress of SpaceX here than we outsiders have. I don't think you can compare Hyperloop and Starship, Hyperloop is just a wild bullshit idea, Starship is a far more realistic project and there are some real resources behind its development. I would view the claims about the cost of reuse with a huge question mark though. SpaceX has been much better than previous efforts in making reuse feasible, but I think only looking at the fuel is likely to be hugely misleading in terms of actual costs.
tekla 2y ago
Why does anyone give a damn about what this person says? Not at expert, not a professional working in the field, just some rando. It's like asking, who, Miss Universe what her opinion on the US Space Program is.
- dotnet00 2y ago
  To an extent I concur that people are giving his opinion a weirdly large amount of attention relative to its value. They're all worn out arguments in rocketry circles, very reminiscent of all the dumb claims Blue Origin made when they lost the first HLS contract, only to settle on a very similar architecture for the second one. However, IIRC he has an aerospace masters, is currently pursuing a PhD and used to work on testing missiles, so he's not a complete rando.
  - avmich 2y ago
    When a child remarks about an emperor's clothes, that child doesn't need to be a tailor.
    - dotnet00 2y ago
      By 'giving his opinion a weirdly large amount of attention relative to its value' I'm not saying that his opinion has little value due to his lack of specific space credentials (else my opinion wouldn't matter either lol). I'm saying his opinion has little value because the issues he's pointing to have been discussed to death already by other rocketry enthusiasts and anyone interested would've found those discussions easily. Sure, the debates aren't fully settled yet, but they're certainly comprehensive enough to make it obvious that the criticisms are kind of weak, such that even if Starship isn't the one to establish all the necessary tech for meeting Artemis' stated goals, it's by far the most promising attempt to do it, as the others weren't even trying.
      - avmich 2y ago
        My comment was more of an agreement, I do think that good points can come from various sides, not only "certified by the upper levels of government". Starship is in testing, which was chosen to be done with test flights. Those test flights are of course something very different than assumed regular launches later on, after the system would be complete in design, development and testing. Right now Starship isn't even planned to immediately come back to Mechazilla. Starship is obviously incomplete now, but that doesn't mean it can't be completed and successfully used. Comparing to that the existing plans and results with NASA's Artemis parts are more bleak. Expensive, slow, underperforming - and even dangerous. Smarter Every Day's video points to gaping problems, and he's even explaining why he chose to talk about it - there and then. It shouldn't matter much that he's an engineer - though he couldn't perhaps to talk about it without enough understanding. In his case, it was more important to articulate important points aloud.
bnralt 2y ago
I’m not sure why we wouldn’t focus on technology, which seems to be the only actually useful part of this mission. I know that some people really like sticking people on objects in space for fun, but at this point it seems like a strange and expensive hobby. Supposedly it’s supposed to get us closer to living in space. Leaving aside whether or not that’s the appropriate goal for the moment, and not, say, 400 years from now, it’s unclear that any of the missions over the past 60 years have actually brought us closer to that. We’ve seen countries that could send people into space in the 60’s lag behind, while others that couldn’t come anywhere close are jumping forward. All signs point to the manned missions themselves not conferring a lot of lasting value.
- avmich 2y ago
  I want to remind here that, according to some professional space roboticists, humans in space can run certain missions cheaper than automata. Maybe it's somewhat outdated point of view - it's about 10 years old. But, if you think in general, you might still agree that for complexities above certain point robots could become very, very expensive. Also, we shouldn't forget that human flights became vastly cheaper than they used to be.
  - bnralt 2y ago
    The problem is that “certain missions” are often make work, even for robots in space. Hence why there’s a lot of talk about “doing science” and “doing missions”, very little about what the actual goal is. Or you get certain claims like helium-3 mining that sound good if you’re not paying attention, but then make no sense when you look at the details. A lot of the manned space stuff - even a lot of the unmanned space stuff - is someone deciding that we need to use a hammer to make something, and therefore making nails part of every plan they have. Even if the job is inflating a balloon.
    - avmich 2y ago
      I was probably too terse. Those missions are above some level of complexity. Robots - even today's ones - scale rather poorly with the complexity required, while for humans a lot of what's needed comes "for free". So, if you need a large expedition to the Moon, which explores places and various aspects, human crews can possibly return results faster and cheaper than similar results could be returned by space robots. > A lot of the manned space stuff - even a lot of the unmanned space stuff - is someone deciding that we need to use a hammer to make something, and therefore making nails part of every plan they have. Used to be more, now it's less and less, with decisions being less centralized. In USSR space science initially was discussed on the level of national academy, the highest existing. Now a small group of students can invent a mission to study a particular aspect and get to results.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

I’m a fan of that channel. But he seemed to miss the point of Artemis. The criticisms were valid. But his KISS call on the framework seemed to ignore that the point isn’t getting to the Moon, it isn’t even getting to the Moon repeatedly; it’s developing a system for repeatedly getting to Mars.

moffkalast 2y ago
And keeping it simple will inevitably drive costs up due to the additional brute force required, making it all uneconomical in the first place. Apollo was simple. It also cost 25% of the US's yearly GDP in total.
- avmich 2y ago
  > It also cost 25% of the US's yearly GDP in total. Well, peak ~4% of US budget, not GDP, in 1966. A lot, but not that much.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    25% of GDP is closer to what World War II cost in its peak year. Perhaps 30%. But it’s kinda hard to define, since it also grew GDP tremendously (in the US). It may have been a much higher percentage with 1945 costs measured against 1939 GDP, if that makes sense, but I’m not sure it’s appropriate to make that comparison.
  - moffkalast 2y ago
    > in total I think the average figure is 2.5% yearly for 10 years, so that would be as if it were 25% in one year for the entire programme.
    - avmich 2y ago
      But still not GDP, right? :)
me_me_me 2y ago
So you want to use system that needs 14 launches to get to the moon to get to mars? Let that sink in... Falcon a much simpler rocket has a reuse window of over a month. How long would it take to re-certify starship for a launch? You are going to need dozens of them launching everyday for months to prep one mission and hoping nothing will go bad. Those kind of missions are complex tasks and complicating things make them more complex and error prone exponentially
- mlindner 2y ago
  Falcon has a reuse window of less than a month, 21 days in fact. And that's why you use multiple vehicles. Falcon also uses multiple vehicles which is how it achieves flights on average every 3 days so far this year. Also Falcon is inherently harder to reuse because of its fuel choice causing substantial soot buildup on the vehicle that needs to be cleaned away whenever inspections are done both inside the engines and on the vehicle itself. Its fairings also get dunked into sea water every time they're reused which needs to be cleaned off.
- avmich 2y ago
  So, on that recent presentation Musk talked about around 250,000 tons to Mars in one launch window - every 2 years - which's gonna take ~1000 Starship flights to Mars. So if every flight to Mars needs 10, nah, 15 refueling flights, that means 15,000 Starship flights in 2 years, which is 20 flights a day. Which is way, way less than the commercial aviation is doing today. And btw Starship is way simpler, at least in many places, than Boeing 747. So what's the problem? Re-certify for flight? I can envision an automated procedure which would analyze the data obtained from the rocket in flight and after flight which makes a decision in a split second, just like some systems in cars routinely do. Hoping nothing will go bad? You can get much more risks on unmanned missions. You'll also get numbers on your side, when if something goes wrong you fix it, systematically, for future attempts. That's not exactly just hoping, right?
  - withinboredom 2y ago
    > on that recent presentation Musk talked about around 250,000 tons to Mars in one launch window Except there isn't any data to back that up. It took off empty this last time, and didn't have enough fuel to complete it's mission.
Yizahi 2y ago
I didn't yet watch the video, but my overall point is that Gateway and Moon HLS is not the thing which will help us get to Mars. Or least it is bad for innovation per dollar spent. The best place space station to construct for future Mars expedition should have been in the LEO and fully manned. Moon orbital station is a detour. Actually more of crutch for the Orion. And HLS will land in a different mode than future Mars lander. I do agree that we need to do small steps before big steps. But overall this "lets save money with reusing Shuttle stack" has backfired spectacularly. And delayed both small step and bigger step for decade(s).
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > best place space station to construct for future Mars expedition should have been in the LEO and fully manned. Moon orbital station is a detour There are real questions about LEO versus deep space habitation, specifically in respect of solar radiation. Gateway will help settle those questions. > this "lets save money with reusing Shuttle stack" has backfired spectacularly 100% agree. And I honestly don't see us using SLS and Orion to go to Mars. But Gateway will be proving real science and hardware. And SLS, Orion and even the Gateway are more easily deprecated from the Artemis framework than e.g. Starship. Could we have a better system? Sure. Is there a better path forward if we want boots on Mars in the 2030s? No.

panick21_ 2y ago

His critisim was that it wasnt clear how many launches it was, not that its many. And having many launches if you actually get a lot out of it isn't really a problem. His whole approch seem to be 'this more complex then apollo' and therefore bad. He spent a lot of time going after SpaceX but spent almost non going after the real problem with the moon program. The incredible expensive lagecy technology forced by congrsss that is dragging the whole programs potential down. So I think in totalility message is really just reinforcing the Johnson center ultra conservative 'money is irrelevant' approch to engineering.

cameronh90 2y ago

I'm reluctant to criticise Destin as he is infinitely more knowledgeable about this than I am BUT that video did not convince me. I see Artemis as an attempt to industrialise the process of getting humans and large volumes of materials to the Moon, ultimately as a stepping stone to Mars. This isn't a proof of concept self-contained "mission" like Apollo was. It felt a bit like saying the global aviation system is overengineered compared to the Wright Flyer. I don't see why it really matters if it needs 15, 20 or even 50 reusable vessels for orbital refuelling as long as that process is repeatable and safe. That said, it's been a few months since I watched that video so I may not have done a good job here of remembering what my criticisms even were.

consumer451 2y ago
The 15 launches is a big deal, because it requires either a dozen or so Starship Tanker full stacks, or very-rapid reuse to be fully solved. But it's probably solvable, and otherwise SpaceX can "just" build a dozen Tankers, and reuse them slowly. It's solvable, but personally, I'm not all that optimistic on the timeline though. The shocking thing for me from that video was learning how useless the Lunar Gateway is most of the time due to its near-rectilinear halo orbit. This leads it to be only within range for rescuing those on the moon, for a couple days a week. Why does Gateway have this type of orbit? Because the Senate Launch System doesn't have the delta-v to get the capsule to circularized low-lunar orbit. We designed a moon rocket, which can't get to the moon.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > leads it to be only within range for rescuing those on the moon, for a couple days a week I genuinely never heard about the Gateway being there for rescue until Destin's talk. (Not saying he invented it. Just that it wasn't what it was advertised for.) Compared to just landing a spare Earth ascent vehicle, it seems like a stupid way to solve for our lack of low-gravity trauma medicine experience. > Why does Gateway have this type of orbit? Because the Senate Launch System doesn't have the delta-v to get the capsule to circularized low-lunar orbit NRHO also minimises communication black-outs with Earth. With the Gateway in orbit, other craft in circular orbit can maintain continuous contact with the Earth.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

SmarterEveryDay's proposal is both more expensive and less capable than using 14 Starship refueling flights. 14 flights seems insane, but since the system is fully reusable, the only consumables are <$2M of fuel each flight. Compared against the $4.3B cost of each SLS flight... Criticize the parts of the system that are both expensive and prevent us from taking advantage of Starship's ability to land 100 tons on the moon. SLS.

me_me_me 2y ago
> but since the system is fully reusable, the only consumables are <$2M of fuel each flight. > prevent us from taking advantage of Starship's ability to land 100 tons on the moon. the system is unable to get to the orbit, its not tested. Its all high-hopes and conjectures as it is now. All of those plans are opinions, that's the problem. Its like planning your infrastructure around hyperloop, but it doesnt exists. So all of the plans are founded on vaporware. That is highly problematic thinking.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  I would hope nobody bases their existing infra on vaporware, but planning a future endeavor around future tech is risky but not stupid. These are not actually critical missions - they are essentially technology demonstrations with some science whitewashing. And tech demos always adopt or assume new tech.
- chasd00 2y ago
  I don’t think it’s problematic. You don’t build a system then figure out how to use it. You make a goal and that figure out what it takes to meet it and build accordingly.
- fabian2k 2y ago
  Starship does seem to make very reasonable progress, the last test flight was pretty successful. And NASA has much more visibility into the actual progress of SpaceX here than we outsiders have. I don't think you can compare Hyperloop and Starship, Hyperloop is just a wild bullshit idea, Starship is a far more realistic project and there are some real resources behind its development. I would view the claims about the cost of reuse with a huge question mark though. SpaceX has been much better than previous efforts in making reuse feasible, but I think only looking at the fuel is likely to be hugely misleading in terms of actual costs.

tekla 2y ago

Why does anyone give a damn about what this person says? Not at expert, not a professional working in the field, just some rando. It's like asking, who, Miss Universe what her opinion on the US Space Program is.

dotnet00 2y ago
To an extent I concur that people are giving his opinion a weirdly large amount of attention relative to its value. They're all worn out arguments in rocketry circles, very reminiscent of all the dumb claims Blue Origin made when they lost the first HLS contract, only to settle on a very similar architecture for the second one. However, IIRC he has an aerospace masters, is currently pursuing a PhD and used to work on testing missiles, so he's not a complete rando.
- avmich 2y ago
  When a child remarks about an emperor's clothes, that child doesn't need to be a tailor.
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    By 'giving his opinion a weirdly large amount of attention relative to its value' I'm not saying that his opinion has little value due to his lack of specific space credentials (else my opinion wouldn't matter either lol). I'm saying his opinion has little value because the issues he's pointing to have been discussed to death already by other rocketry enthusiasts and anyone interested would've found those discussions easily. Sure, the debates aren't fully settled yet, but they're certainly comprehensive enough to make it obvious that the criticisms are kind of weak, such that even if Starship isn't the one to establish all the necessary tech for meeting Artemis' stated goals, it's by far the most promising attempt to do it, as the others weren't even trying.
    - avmich 2y ago
      My comment was more of an agreement, I do think that good points can come from various sides, not only "certified by the upper levels of government". Starship is in testing, which was chosen to be done with test flights. Those test flights are of course something very different than assumed regular launches later on, after the system would be complete in design, development and testing. Right now Starship isn't even planned to immediately come back to Mechazilla. Starship is obviously incomplete now, but that doesn't mean it can't be completed and successfully used. Comparing to that the existing plans and results with NASA's Artemis parts are more bleak. Expensive, slow, underperforming - and even dangerous. Smarter Every Day's video points to gaping problems, and he's even explaining why he chose to talk about it - there and then. It shouldn't matter much that he's an engineer - though he couldn't perhaps to talk about it without enough understanding. In his case, it was more important to articulate important points aloud.

bnralt 2y ago

I’m not sure why we wouldn’t focus on technology, which seems to be the only actually useful part of this mission. I know that some people really like sticking people on objects in space for fun, but at this point it seems like a strange and expensive hobby. Supposedly it’s supposed to get us closer to living in space. Leaving aside whether or not that’s the appropriate goal for the moment, and not, say, 400 years from now, it’s unclear that any of the missions over the past 60 years have actually brought us closer to that. We’ve seen countries that could send people into space in the 60’s lag behind, while others that couldn’t come anywhere close are jumping forward. All signs point to the manned missions themselves not conferring a lot of lasting value.

avmich 2y ago
I want to remind here that, according to some professional space roboticists, humans in space can run certain missions cheaper than automata. Maybe it's somewhat outdated point of view - it's about 10 years old. But, if you think in general, you might still agree that for complexities above certain point robots could become very, very expensive. Also, we shouldn't forget that human flights became vastly cheaper than they used to be.
- bnralt 2y ago
  The problem is that “certain missions” are often make work, even for robots in space. Hence why there’s a lot of talk about “doing science” and “doing missions”, very little about what the actual goal is. Or you get certain claims like helium-3 mining that sound good if you’re not paying attention, but then make no sense when you look at the details. A lot of the manned space stuff - even a lot of the unmanned space stuff - is someone deciding that we need to use a hammer to make something, and therefore making nails part of every plan they have. Even if the job is inflating a balloon.
  - avmich 2y ago
    I was probably too terse. Those missions are above some level of complexity. Robots - even today's ones - scale rather poorly with the complexity required, while for humans a lot of what's needed comes "for free". So, if you need a large expedition to the Moon, which explores places and various aspects, human crews can possibly return results faster and cheaper than similar results could be returned by space robots. > A lot of the manned space stuff - even a lot of the unmanned space stuff - is someone deciding that we need to use a hammer to make something, and therefore making nails part of every plan they have. Used to be more, now it's less and less, with decisions being less centralized. In USSR space science initially was discussed on the level of national academy, the highest existing. Now a small group of students can invent a mission to study a particular aspect and get to results.