Please, can we now put a reasonable nuclear reactor in space, power a VASIMIR engine (or something equally adequate), and do it with humans instead of robots? We already proved we can do it with machines and who will make first contact with alien life in becoming a really important question. We are not a race of robots.
People wonder why the general public lost interest with space exploration, but we need to look no further than all the excitement every six-wheeler is experiencing right now, as they watch their six-wheeled brothers, the daring explorers of Mars.
I am an engineer. I can comprehend and I do have the ultimate respect for the genius that allows us to land and operate robots on Mars, but that's the same genius that allowed us to land people on the Moon and, sadly, this is something we don't do anymore because it's too expensive. And we refuse to spend money on that while, at the same time, we fight unnecessary wars against the dictators we financed in the past. There is water ice on the Moon, probably a lot of it. There are minerals, abundant energy, just enough gravity to make industrial processes easy and a high grade vacuum that's the dream of every metallurgist. With these resources, we can become a true spacefaring civilization fit to meet our neighbors from the other islands floating around our sun.
In short, as soon as large hairless mammals are involved in the mission, 99% of the mission's resources are suddenly consumed with keeping said large hairless mammals fed, watered, breathing, amused, etc. So basically, there's nothing left to do anything of much value, especially on any kind of reasonable budget.
Cost is the main reason robots have gone all over the Solar System and beyond, and the farthest any humans go these days is to LEO to hang out at the ISS.
"We already proved we can do it with machines and who will make first contact with alien life in becoming a really important question. We are not a race of robots."
It is entirely possible that our first contact with intelligent life will be with that life's robots. Just saying.
Robots are a cost-effective way to explore space. You can send them on missions that don't have to be hyper-controlled for the preservation of life. You can send them on one-way missions, vastly extending the distance that a mission can cover. With manned missions, by contrast, the loss of even one life is an unacceptable casualty. Ergo, you need to overengineer the craft, and also load it up with all manner of food, living space, life support, waste management facilities, sufficient fuel for a return voyage, etc. -- all of which add lots of mass to the craft, which adds enormous fuel costs, etc.
I agree that we should return to manned space exploration as soon as possible. That said, I don't find space exploration to be a zero-sum game between manned and unmanned missions. We should be using a diversified approach -- one that focuses on manned colonization, coupled with robotic deep-space exploration and surveying.
About the "too expensive" argument. That is one of the worst misconceptions the general public ever had. I'm a peace-loving person but every time I hear somebody complain about giving funds to scientists I want to punch them in the face. The UK spent more money on the banks in one year than they did on science since Jesus (at least that's what I heard on some BBC show lately - however it's all way out of proportion).
If we spent just a comparably tiny bit more on science, I believe the advances would be absolutely huge. Science drives technology, which in turn drives the economy. It's a win-win for everybody and yet we keep putting our money into things that have proven not to work reliably in the past without a second thought.
(On a sidenote: I do tend to get quite angry when speaking about banks these days, please excuse that ;))
Do you think that the great explorers of the past would have risked their lives if they could have avoided it? Danger is a big part of the adventure of exploration, but no one wants to die unless it's absolutely necessary. If Colombus could have sent a robot, he would have.
The bottom line is that Bags of Mostly Water don't belong in space. Our only hope for colonizing the solar system is to do most of the heavy lifting with robots. And if I were one of those colonists, I would sleep easier under the martian moons knowing that I had an army of space robots to help me with any problems that arise.
Humans find ways to explore the universe while keeping themselves alive. Let's embrace it
With all due respect this is like saying we shouldn't use rockets to go into space but instead try to jump higher. Humans using their big monkey brains to make technological advancements is the core of space exploration. We should be inspired by the people designing and operating the technology. Probably more so than the (mostly) non-scientists and non-engineers who flew rockets to the Moon for example.
I can't disagree more. What I'm interested in, and I think what scientists are interested in, is to explore, to understand, to discover. Robots are a manifestation of humans: it's a tool for us. A tool that is better than risking life of astronauts or spending a lot of money just to have that cow boy feeling of "I was there with my foots".
As much as I want to commiserate with you about sending humans into space - I have to remind myself that this is an escapist's fantasy. I am also an engineer, and a realist.
We just happen to be tied to a water-filled, fertile, and atmospherically suitable planet - the only one of this kind we can reach with our current technology. Looking to the stars is an easy way to ignore problems of over-consumption, over-population and climate change. If we don't figure out how to live on this planet, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes elsewhere.
Let's pull our gaze back down to Earth: our capital is better spent addressing Earthly problems vice sending us out on an inter-planetary expedition.
I couldn't agree more, however, if humans are too expensive, I still don't mind the robots getting there first. The moon landing was an outcome of the cold war. I find it hard happening again. Sending humans all the way to Saturn - it is very far away - is a dangerous task with too much at stake.
I would love for all wars to end, for all the military budget to go to NASA instead, and for us to become a truly inter-planetary civilization, but that's just not a realistic wish, at least not for the next decades.
But robots. Robots we can do now. Curiosity landing on Mars next week. It can do truly amazing things, scientifically more than a team of humans could.
In case anyone's counting, this makes it the 5th planetary body in the solar system with a high likelihood of having an ocean (Earth, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, and now Titan).
Add to that a parcel of additional moons and other other bodies that show indications of having sub-surface oceans (Triton, Enceladus, Pluto, Rhea, Titania, Eris, Sedna, Orcus, and Oberon).
It's not really an "ocean" in the way we think of such things. In the outer solar system, ice is a rock in the same way granite is a rock. What Titan has isn't so much an ocean as an interior layer of molten ice --- just as our planet has an interior layer of molten rock.
What's the difference between "molten ice" and water? Is it still crystalline? Is it just the pressure is different, or is there actual physical differences?
Reading this article gave me a glimpse into the richness of extra-terrestrial biosphere processes. Even if Fermi's right and we never find life, there's a lot of stuff left to observe, study, and learn about, like the methane cycle on Titan.
I do wonder, if NASA said they found oil on another planet or moon what the reaction would be. After all it would be a sign of past life on that planet, though I feel that alot would see it as a opertunity to claim more oil.
I just hope the first aliens we encounter are not plant based or they will take one look at us and our use of there dead relatives and it will not go well. Food for thought.
Unless it was economic to extract the oil and return it to earth (which it would not be) the discovery would be mostly of a scientific nature. However, finding hydrocarbons on the moon would be a good thing insofar it would provide a ready energy source for any future moon-based operations.
The reason oil is so popular is because it is so useful. Anything useful is in high demand. There's no need to get hysterical about it.
[+] [-] rbanffy|13 years ago|reply
People wonder why the general public lost interest with space exploration, but we need to look no further than all the excitement every six-wheeler is experiencing right now, as they watch their six-wheeled brothers, the daring explorers of Mars.
I am an engineer. I can comprehend and I do have the ultimate respect for the genius that allows us to land and operate robots on Mars, but that's the same genius that allowed us to land people on the Moon and, sadly, this is something we don't do anymore because it's too expensive. And we refuse to spend money on that while, at the same time, we fight unnecessary wars against the dictators we financed in the past. There is water ice on the Moon, probably a lot of it. There are minerals, abundant energy, just enough gravity to make industrial processes easy and a high grade vacuum that's the dream of every metallurgist. With these resources, we can become a true spacefaring civilization fit to meet our neighbors from the other islands floating around our sun.
We shouldn't do with robots the work of humans.
[+] [-] mikepurvis|13 years ago|reply
In short, as soon as large hairless mammals are involved in the mission, 99% of the mission's resources are suddenly consumed with keeping said large hairless mammals fed, watered, breathing, amused, etc. So basically, there's nothing left to do anything of much value, especially on any kind of reasonable budget.
Cost is the main reason robots have gone all over the Solar System and beyond, and the farthest any humans go these days is to LEO to hang out at the ISS.
[+] [-] jonnathanson|13 years ago|reply
It is entirely possible that our first contact with intelligent life will be with that life's robots. Just saying.
Robots are a cost-effective way to explore space. You can send them on missions that don't have to be hyper-controlled for the preservation of life. You can send them on one-way missions, vastly extending the distance that a mission can cover. With manned missions, by contrast, the loss of even one life is an unacceptable casualty. Ergo, you need to overengineer the craft, and also load it up with all manner of food, living space, life support, waste management facilities, sufficient fuel for a return voyage, etc. -- all of which add lots of mass to the craft, which adds enormous fuel costs, etc.
I agree that we should return to manned space exploration as soon as possible. That said, I don't find space exploration to be a zero-sum game between manned and unmanned missions. We should be using a diversified approach -- one that focuses on manned colonization, coupled with robotic deep-space exploration and surveying.
[+] [-] tsahyt|13 years ago|reply
If we spent just a comparably tiny bit more on science, I believe the advances would be absolutely huge. Science drives technology, which in turn drives the economy. It's a win-win for everybody and yet we keep putting our money into things that have proven not to work reliably in the past without a second thought.
(On a sidenote: I do tend to get quite angry when speaking about banks these days, please excuse that ;))
[+] [-] hooande|13 years ago|reply
The bottom line is that Bags of Mostly Water don't belong in space. Our only hope for colonizing the solar system is to do most of the heavy lifting with robots. And if I were one of those colonists, I would sleep easier under the martian moons knowing that I had an army of space robots to help me with any problems that arise.
Humans find ways to explore the universe while keeping themselves alive. Let's embrace it
[+] [-] jsz0|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antirez|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tscrib|13 years ago|reply
We just happen to be tied to a water-filled, fertile, and atmospherically suitable planet - the only one of this kind we can reach with our current technology. Looking to the stars is an easy way to ignore problems of over-consumption, over-population and climate change. If we don't figure out how to live on this planet, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes elsewhere.
Let's pull our gaze back down to Earth: our capital is better spent addressing Earthly problems vice sending us out on an inter-planetary expedition.
[+] [-] sktrdie|13 years ago|reply
I would love for all wars to end, for all the military budget to go to NASA instead, and for us to become a truly inter-planetary civilization, but that's just not a realistic wish, at least not for the next decades.
But robots. Robots we can do now. Curiosity landing on Mars next week. It can do truly amazing things, scientifically more than a team of humans could.
[+] [-] rblion|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|13 years ago|reply
Add to that a parcel of additional moons and other other bodies that show indications of having sub-surface oceans (Triton, Enceladus, Pluto, Rhea, Titania, Eris, Sedna, Orcus, and Oberon).
[+] [-] quotemstr|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcbrown|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_point#Other_triple_point...
It might have an exotic form of ice, of course.
[+] [-] recampbell|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bfe|13 years ago|reply
...and for accompanying news article in Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6089/1629
[+] [-] startupfounder|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlexanderZ|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akkartik|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zenst|13 years ago|reply
I just hope the first aliens we encounter are not plant based or they will take one look at us and our use of there dead relatives and it will not go well. Food for thought.
[+] [-] brc|13 years ago|reply
The reason oil is so popular is because it is so useful. Anything useful is in high demand. There's no need to get hysterical about it.