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There is no foundation for this argument to stand on. Besides the fact that sending humans vs sending robots isn't a zero sum game, we're also sending robots o

There is no foundation for this argument to stand on. Besides the fact that sending humans vs sending robots isn't a zero sum game, we're also sending robots out with decreasing frequency as well. "We should be happy to just send robots" would be great if we were actually sending robots. Here's hoping China and India pick up the mantle when Oppy and Curiosity finally shut down, I guess. The reality is also that we don't learn much science with practical benefits for the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars we spend on these probes. Of course, we also get wildly poor returns on investment for the hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars we spend (in the US) on defense and health care. What we've decided is that it's worth it to spend a small amount of our money on the exploration of our universe, that discovery can be its own reward (and if there's a small chance in practical payoffs down the line, even better). We don't need to see what the surface of Pluto looks like, but I'm pretty excited to find out about it. Dismiss that as PR, but apply it equally. This argument functions similarly to the one demanding we solve all the problems on earth before we start spending money on space. It assumes a way of allocating funds that doesn't match reality and demands unrealistic requirements not imposed on the favored approach.

rgbrenner 12y ago
> the fact that sending humans vs sending robots isn't a zero sum game only if we pretend there's infinite money available. if sending a single human being to mars/moon is so expensive that NASA isn't capable of doing anything else.. then it is a zero-sum game. > The reality is also that we don't learn much science with practical benefits for the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars we spend on these probes. It's unfair to compare one probe against sending a human. The moon landing cost $150 billion. Is a human more valuable than 100 or 500 of these probes?
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  >only if we pretend there's infinite money available. If we cut out bank bailouts (wasted money) and 95% of the defence/wars budget (wasted money) we could increase the NASA budget probably at least 100x. The money's there, it's just being squandered.
  - SilasX 12y ago
    And if those savings were spent on probes instead of human space travel, the scientific output would still be 100x as much per dollar invested. Having extra resources doesn't eliminate opportunity costs. Edit: found an xkcd for it: http://xkcd.com/871/ http://xkcd.com/871/
lukifer 12y ago
> Besides the fact that sending humans vs sending robots isn't a zero sum game This is a good point. I'm certainly not advocating against humans going to space; I just think sending robots is a vastly better long-term ROI. And whether it's a hundred years away or ten thousand, someday a form of intelligent life will exist on this planet that is much better equipped (if not actively designed) to seek its destiny in the stars.
- waps 12y ago
  Human bodies : * require a constant supply of oxygen. Which is available effectively nowhere except deep inside gravity wells. * require a constant supply of water. Which is available effectively nowhere. H may be everywhere, but O is nowhere convenient. * require G-forces to be between 0.8 and 1.2 for long term survival. Can tolerate very brief exposure up to about 4G. This means the vast majority of planets are effectively uninhabitable just for that reason. And harshly limits the maneuvers possible to get there. * require a sun-like source of radiative energy with a certain minimum intensity (one of the reasons people can't survive on Mars without additional UV exposure) * require the presence, in small quantities, of half the elements with an atomic number up to 26, and several found further on. H, C, N, O, Na, Mg, Al, S, Cl, K, Ca, Fe, and I. Some of these are not very common, and they may be very hard to find. Not finding them first means it becomes impossible to have kids, increased occurrence of things like cancer, and a few years later it becomes lethal. * require gravity. Which is massively inconvenient for operating ... well, anything really * require radiation shielding against solar radiation for long term survival that requires about a hundred kilometers of atmosphere or several inches of metal (if you're to survive long term, for short excursions less isolation can be acceptable, also in Low Earth Orbit (like ISS) you're still partially shielded by the earth) * require radiation shielding for charged particles that is provided by the earth's magnetic field, but requires metal barriers in outside of those fields * require the sun's plasma barrier around the solar system to weaken interstellar background radiation to the point that the earth's atmosphere/reasonable thickness metal can actually stop it. * require to be inside the galaxy, again to weaken certain types of radiation * require a minimum distance to any supernova explosion of around 50 light years to survive (or yet more shielding) * require to be in groups of at least 50 for long term survival (or we won't have enough gene variation and die off over time), even though short excursions can use a limited number of people. This is the low end of the estimates. * require to be in groups of 2-3 people at least even for short term excursions or there will be severe psychological consequences * require the presence of large masses of bacteria to fulfill certain bodily functions the human body can't actually do itself (best - but not only - example being digestion) * require the presence of bacteria outside of the body to create compounds that we can't make ourselves. Some of these cannot be stored for any length of time, you need to take bacterial colonies or, better yet, plants + bacterial colonies with you and let them grow. This isn't a complete list by any means. Human bodies will never go very far from Earth.
a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
What would you suggest as a manned mission that isn't merely an expensive stunt? As I understand it an Apollo style mission to Mars or Mercury is presently more like an early death sentence to cancer due to radiation exposure. As best I understand the situation we really need to pull off a five year Biosphere 2 style mission here on earth in a hermetically sealed chamber deep underground. That is the current next step. But nobody has really tried.
- avmich 12y ago
  Going to Mars, you have the following options right now. You can shield the spacecraft from radiation with passive mass. That's relatively expensive option, but hardly technologically infeasible. The question is only the price of each kilogram on LEO, and that goes down steadily. You can use spacecraft magnetic field. An interesting area with a bunch of research to do. You can speed up the way to Mars, say, from 6-8 months today to 3 months, having to spend extra fuel at launch and at arrival. For that, you can e.g. revive Nerva-style engines. A combination of these (and possibly other) methods brings Mars closer even for today's safety standards.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  "If you recruited the Mars crew out of smokers and sent them to Mars without their tobacco you would be reducing their chance of getting cancer." - Dr. Robert Zubrin

rgbrenner 12y ago

> the fact that sending humans vs sending robots isn't a zero sum game only if we pretend there's infinite money available. if sending a single human being to mars/moon is so expensive that NASA isn't capable of doing anything else.. then it is a zero-sum game. > The reality is also that we don't learn much science with practical benefits for the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars we spend on these probes. It's unfair to compare one probe against sending a human. The moon landing cost $150 billion. Is a human more valuable than 100 or 500 of these probes?

crdoconnor 12y ago
>only if we pretend there's infinite money available. If we cut out bank bailouts (wasted money) and 95% of the defence/wars budget (wasted money) we could increase the NASA budget probably at least 100x. The money's there, it's just being squandered.
- SilasX 12y ago
  And if those savings were spent on probes instead of human space travel, the scientific output would still be 100x as much per dollar invested. Having extra resources doesn't eliminate opportunity costs. Edit: found an xkcd for it: http://xkcd.com/871/ http://xkcd.com/871/

lukifer 12y ago

> Besides the fact that sending humans vs sending robots isn't a zero sum game This is a good point. I'm certainly not advocating against humans going to space; I just think sending robots is a vastly better long-term ROI. And whether it's a hundred years away or ten thousand, someday a form of intelligent life will exist on this planet that is much better equipped (if not actively designed) to seek its destiny in the stars.

waps 12y ago
Human bodies : * require a constant supply of oxygen. Which is available effectively nowhere except deep inside gravity wells. * require a constant supply of water. Which is available effectively nowhere. H may be everywhere, but O is nowhere convenient. * require G-forces to be between 0.8 and 1.2 for long term survival. Can tolerate very brief exposure up to about 4G. This means the vast majority of planets are effectively uninhabitable just for that reason. And harshly limits the maneuvers possible to get there. * require a sun-like source of radiative energy with a certain minimum intensity (one of the reasons people can't survive on Mars without additional UV exposure) * require the presence, in small quantities, of half the elements with an atomic number up to 26, and several found further on. H, C, N, O, Na, Mg, Al, S, Cl, K, Ca, Fe, and I. Some of these are not very common, and they may be very hard to find. Not finding them first means it becomes impossible to have kids, increased occurrence of things like cancer, and a few years later it becomes lethal. * require gravity. Which is massively inconvenient for operating ... well, anything really * require radiation shielding against solar radiation for long term survival that requires about a hundred kilometers of atmosphere or several inches of metal (if you're to survive long term, for short excursions less isolation can be acceptable, also in Low Earth Orbit (like ISS) you're still partially shielded by the earth) * require radiation shielding for charged particles that is provided by the earth's magnetic field, but requires metal barriers in outside of those fields * require the sun's plasma barrier around the solar system to weaken interstellar background radiation to the point that the earth's atmosphere/reasonable thickness metal can actually stop it. * require to be inside the galaxy, again to weaken certain types of radiation * require a minimum distance to any supernova explosion of around 50 light years to survive (or yet more shielding) * require to be in groups of at least 50 for long term survival (or we won't have enough gene variation and die off over time), even though short excursions can use a limited number of people. This is the low end of the estimates. * require to be in groups of 2-3 people at least even for short term excursions or there will be severe psychological consequences * require the presence of large masses of bacteria to fulfill certain bodily functions the human body can't actually do itself (best - but not only - example being digestion) * require the presence of bacteria outside of the body to create compounds that we can't make ourselves. Some of these cannot be stored for any length of time, you need to take bacterial colonies or, better yet, plants + bacterial colonies with you and let them grow. This isn't a complete list by any means. Human bodies will never go very far from Earth.

a8da6b0c91d 12y ago

What would you suggest as a manned mission that isn't merely an expensive stunt? As I understand it an Apollo style mission to Mars or Mercury is presently more like an early death sentence to cancer due to radiation exposure. As best I understand the situation we really need to pull off a five year Biosphere 2 style mission here on earth in a hermetically sealed chamber deep underground. That is the current next step. But nobody has really tried.

avmich 12y ago
Going to Mars, you have the following options right now. You can shield the spacecraft from radiation with passive mass. That's relatively expensive option, but hardly technologically infeasible. The question is only the price of each kilogram on LEO, and that goes down steadily. You can use spacecraft magnetic field. An interesting area with a bunch of research to do. You can speed up the way to Mars, say, from 6-8 months today to 3 months, having to spend extra fuel at launch and at arrival. For that, you can e.g. revive Nerva-style engines. A combination of these (and possibly other) methods brings Mars closer even for today's safety standards.
seanflyon 12y ago
"If you recruited the Mars crew out of smokers and sent them to Mars without their tobacco you would be reducing their chance of getting cancer." - Dr. Robert Zubrin