Comments on: But First We Must Send Robots

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:38:14 +0000

Tim thought no one agreed with him, but I do!

Actually had the same thought not too long ago, and wrote about it here:
http://interdome.blogspot.com/2010/04/wikipedia...

At the end of a long ramble about weird stuff that was just totally nuts, I thought that maybe the retreat of human space-flight would lead a new renaissance in space exploration.

To cling to human-space flight is kind of bourgeois, in my opinion. Reminds of the days of the great white male explorers, conquering dark continents while the Sherpas carry their specimen jars. Yeah, sending a human into space is okay. But maintaining a flimsy space-outpost just to do zero-gravity experiments is like buying an RV without wheels. Sure, you could eventually travel the continent, but in the meantime you're an eye-sore in the low-earth orbit of your neighborhood. But hey, it's an aluminum roof over your head, right?

The really interesting science possibilities (to me) are out in exo-places where humans are not going to go in a hundred years, let alone by 2020. And computers & communications are advancing faster than propulsion and life-support systems. Seems like a obvious strategy decision to me.

Load up that space-shotgun with double-barrels of double-aught solar-powered smart-phone satellite shot, and start banging that sucka off.

By: simonbostock

simonbostock — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:17:47 +0000

The most exciting part about sending people is the marketing opportunity. There was a whole generation of kids who wanted to be astronauts and now there aren't.

What I'd like to see is a global reality TV show along the lines of Astronaut Idol where a bunch of people from every nation compete to go to space. All the advertising and merchandise goes towards building some kind of permanent settlement. I'm talking about a maximally cynical effort to enthuse the entire planet about leaving.

In the meantime, by all means send out stacks of robots so we can learn how to strip mine asteroids/meteors/pseudo-planets. But the aim's always got to be people leaving the planet. Some on a permanent basis.

I could, if pushed, come up with some good reasons for this. But I'd be kidding myself. I just feel this is the right thing to do. I imagine this is how religion feels.

By: Christopher Mims

Christopher Mims — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:11:12 +0000

Everyone in this comment thread is a complete fucking idiot. I'm sorry, it had to be said.

If we want to explore the solar system, the last thing we will do is send unreliable, vulnerable, heavy, expensive, myopic flesh and blood, whose only relevant senses are sight in a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum. We have wasted ungodly amounts of money finding out how plants, crystals and fruit flies grow in zero gravity (about the only sort of experiments going on on the ISS these days) – meanwhile, all the knowledge of value has come from robots sent to other planets and robots orbiting our own planet (i.e. satellites, planetary probes, orbital telescopes, etc.)

If robots are good enough for the skies of Afghanistan, then they are ten times as suited to the hostile environment of outer space.

Seriously, the longer we dick around with launching over-developed primates in steel coffins into near earth orbit, the longer it will take to accomplish something real in space, whatever it is.

Call me when space tourism is cheap or a trip on the space elevator only takes a week. Until then (i.e., until 1000 years from now) we need to get down to business. That means automation. You people need to stop reading space opera and pick up some actual hard SF sometime – the kind that's about physics, not fucking green aliens on the 3rd moon of Vagtropia.

By: rob

rob — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:02:01 +0000

Tim, have you read Spin? In a round-about way, it's kind of the tale of what happens when we follow your advice, but extrapolated far into the future (and past).

(And, since you asked, I think the robots are a fine idea.)

By: Tim Maly

Tim Maly — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:47:33 +0000

I don't think that tells the story at all. The first robot got to the moon after the first people. And it was Russian! Old news. Not many people can name the 4th person to walk on the moon either. People do know Cassini, Spirit, Opportunity. These are robots whose exploits are followed all over the world. We know Hubble too. Can most people name the first person to live on the ISS?

Landing on the Moon didn't actually open up any frontiers. 50 years later, no one lives there. It was an awesome (in the original sense of the word) achievement, it gripped the world and then it passed into the myths of history.

What I'm talking about it a sustained quotidian exposure to other worlds. Hands-on exploration and discovery. This is the tinkerers approach to space. Make it accessible. Make it something you can play with. Make it seem achievable, and let the kids go wild.

By: steve davidson

steve davidson — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:30:33 +0000

I disagree on an emotional level. Sitting and watching the moon landing/walk - or perhaps even more so, the rescue of Apollo 13 - have/had a far stronger emotional response for me than have any of the robotic missions (though I have enjoyed many of those as well - front row seats for Viking).
There's no substitute for knowing that PEOPLE have been out there. Manned missions embody the risk and give us something difficult to strive for.
Another commentator stated that this is an issue of political will. I agree, we could be doing both (and more so of both), but folks are more interested in "inner space" these days. We've lost the "pioneering spirit" and the willingness to risk lives to develop new frontiers.
How many folks can name the first human to walk on the Moon? Most. How many can name the first robot on the Moon? Few. That tells the whole story right there.

By: Geoffrey A. Landis

Geoffrey A. Landis — Tue, 18 May 2010 14:21:40 +0000

You are posing a false choice. NASA is about one half of one percent of the federal budget, and the space station is something like one tenth of that. We could easily do both, if we wanted to. It’s a political question, not a lack of money.
Also, I should point out that we HAVE been flying all those robotic missions you mentioned– yes, the equivalent of hundreds of Voyagers: Cassini and Huygens to Saturn, Galileo to Jupiter, a dozen missons to Mars, missions to Mercury and Pluto and asteroids and comets. We can do both, and we ARE doing both.

By: August

August — Mon, 17 May 2010 23:22:38 +0000

Very Ender's Game of you. I find the idea of people up there (beyond our orbit, at any rate) more exciting than robots, but the more I learn about both the financial and technical limitations, the more I come to believe that robots are the superior space exploration option. (Charlie Stross has an excellent blog post on the subject: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/200... )

By: Scott N

Scott N — Mon, 17 May 2010 17:49:39 +0000

I can appreciate your idea of putting more robots up but at the same time I think we need to be more realistic. While building the ISS may have cost a lot I believe it was a necessary step to foster more orbital research and development. It is also a great platform for nations to work together on such research. And looking from a material standpoint, it's still there! Everything we built for the ISS is still (mostly) in operation. Whereas, if we just launched robots, we would send them out and that would be it. We still, so far, have no way to retrieve them.

Now, lets say we do have plenty of them up there... do we really want to have kids control them? Yes, it would be a good learning experience, but they are still expensive "toys" for kids to be playing with in the classroom. And lets not forget Albert Einstien's theorys about relativity. There is quite a lag in control time limited by the speed of light. It takes 180 seconds or so for a signal to get from earth to mars. Is it really going to be that exciting for a kid to control a robot that takes more than minute to process their commands?

Like I said, I appreciate your idea, but I think a little more thought needs to go into it before we just lunch 300 voyagers.