Why we need a space program(extremetech.com)
extremetech.com
Why we need a space program
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/89502-why-we-need-a-space-program
11 comments
I believe it was the National Research Council Canada's director who said this (I could be mistaken, correct if necessary):
"no amount of research into the oil lamp could have invented the light bulb"
"no amount of research into the oil lamp could have invented the light bulb"
I've never heard this before, but it is a good quote.
One of the problems that people don't understand about funding research for new science is that... it's new science. People don't always know exactly what will happen or come of it. It could be an expensive lesson on how not to do things, or it could be an exercise of the mundane, but even the spectacular failures can bring about paradigm shifting change.
More importantly, people come to believe that there is often only one goal of any mission and often dismiss the collateral benefits from attempting to solve a really hard problem, especially because they are often hard to truly quantify.
One of the problems that people don't understand about funding research for new science is that... it's new science. People don't always know exactly what will happen or come of it. It could be an expensive lesson on how not to do things, or it could be an exercise of the mundane, but even the spectacular failures can bring about paradigm shifting change.
More importantly, people come to believe that there is often only one goal of any mission and often dismiss the collateral benefits from attempting to solve a really hard problem, especially because they are often hard to truly quantify.
I've been trying to find this quotation from Neil Degrasse Tyson but haven't been successful. It's one of my favorite perspectives on NASA's budget (and specifically the the importance of lavish, public, manned missions).
Paraphrased: Investing only $19 billion dollars a year is a no-brainer, considering the return is a generation of American kids interested in math and science.
Paraphrased: Investing only $19 billion dollars a year is a no-brainer, considering the return is a generation of American kids interested in math and science.
>Investing only $19 billion dollars a year is a no-brainer, considering the return is a generation of American kids interested in math and science.
This attitude has brought NASA to the lack of relevance we see today. Astronauts spending hours on video chat with middle-schoolers and the use of precious payload to put ant colonies into orbit are not serious ways to advance a space program. When NASA was about exploring and colonizing the final frontier, kids would join in and dream along. When the space program became about forcing science and technology in an artificial way down the same kids' throats, they tuned out. So few youngsters with an interest in space / SF exist today.
This attitude has brought NASA to the lack of relevance we see today. Astronauts spending hours on video chat with middle-schoolers and the use of precious payload to put ant colonies into orbit are not serious ways to advance a space program. When NASA was about exploring and colonizing the final frontier, kids would join in and dream along. When the space program became about forcing science and technology in an artificial way down the same kids' throats, they tuned out. So few youngsters with an interest in space / SF exist today.
Yeah, I think the goal of sparking science interest (and other things) would be better suited with mandated reruns of Star Trek: TNG in classrooms.
The thing with the ants is I only heard they were doing it, I never heard what they found out, and they never made it sound any fun. In Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! he talks about his own ant experiments in an enlightening way, with a useful application of getting them away from his food without using poisons. We need more of that.
The thing with the ants is I only heard they were doing it, I never heard what they found out, and they never made it sound any fun. In Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! he talks about his own ant experiments in an enlightening way, with a useful application of getting them away from his food without using poisons. We need more of that.
I wonder if there is any sort of correlation between the dumbing down of science and people's interest in learning more about some complicated topic. Are we killing some of the allure for people who want to know more about a subject because maybe at some level they are driven to be an expert in something no one else they know is?
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Investing $19B a year is also a no-brainer if its other peoples money. If its that important, for profit and non-profits will fill any gap (probably producing the same or better results for less money).
...and 40 years later, like they are finally starting to now, while piggybacking off of 40 years of experience and science gained by NASA and all affiliated parties along the way.
Can't you use that logic to argue against any government spending?
Not "any", but "most".
Government is still a good choice for military, police, and funding building roads.
Letting government to spend money in most of other directions is a waste.
Space exploration is just one of many such wasteful examples.
Letting government to spend money in most of other directions is a waste.
Space exploration is just one of many such wasteful examples.
> Space exploration is just one of many such wasteful examples.
Only if you place low value on the scientific returns. Science research is one thing the private sector does poorly, and it's something NASA does a lot of.
The other main area is human spaceflight which you could say is wasteful, but NASA did a lot of the high cost low return R&D for human spaceflight. Now private companies can go into the effort with timescales that can keep investors happy.
Only if you place low value on the scientific returns. Science research is one thing the private sector does poorly, and it's something NASA does a lot of.
The other main area is human spaceflight which you could say is wasteful, but NASA did a lot of the high cost low return R&D for human spaceflight. Now private companies can go into the effort with timescales that can keep investors happy.
Science research is one thing the private sector does poorly, and it's something NASA does a lot of.
Yes, but... NASA does very little space science compared to non-scientific human space travel. Their budget for launching humans into space (Apollo, STS, ISS, Constellation) -- for shits and giggles, basically -- is orders of magnitude greater than their budget for actual science. Icy Moons, James Webb, LISA -- real science, real discovery -- tends to get budget-axed to make more room for politically-savvy STS, ISS, Flags on Mars.
Icy Moons -- first substantial progress in space probes in decades, long-delayed trial of nuclear electric propulsion -- not important enough. (Wikipedia says it was cancelled because of "shift in priorities" towards manned missions.) Order-of-magnitude greater I_sp than chemical rockets. Massive (1.5 tons payload), high-powered (200 kWe available) science juggernaut -- exploring Jupiter's moons, one by one. New frontiers in experiment capability: scanning mysterious moons with high-powered radars, spectrometers. Total budget less than the cost of cleaning up astronaut shit on ISS.
James Webb -- Hubble's successor is killed. Hubble has no successor! This is a national shame. A hundred times more powerful, the greatest space telescope of all time, so perceptive it has to be positioned in sun-earth L2 to get away from earthshine.
LISA -- undiscovered gravity radiation? Resolving relativistic emissions of distant black holes, making new tests of Einsteinean general relativity? Sounds like nerd stuff, who cares.
In theory, it is nice that we have a government agency funding pure exploration of the cosmos (any funding, at all). In practice, NASA is a case study of how badly putting science funding in the hands of a political bureaucracy can go wrong. Very few Americans, sadly, actually understand or care about the comparatively bland-looking experiments which are science, which advance human understanding, compared to TV-friendly astronaut acrobatics tripe. So science gets marginalized; the political nature of NASA favors useless shit.
I say euthanize NASA, it has no life left.
Yes, but... NASA does very little space science compared to non-scientific human space travel. Their budget for launching humans into space (Apollo, STS, ISS, Constellation) -- for shits and giggles, basically -- is orders of magnitude greater than their budget for actual science. Icy Moons, James Webb, LISA -- real science, real discovery -- tends to get budget-axed to make more room for politically-savvy STS, ISS, Flags on Mars.
Icy Moons -- first substantial progress in space probes in decades, long-delayed trial of nuclear electric propulsion -- not important enough. (Wikipedia says it was cancelled because of "shift in priorities" towards manned missions.) Order-of-magnitude greater I_sp than chemical rockets. Massive (1.5 tons payload), high-powered (200 kWe available) science juggernaut -- exploring Jupiter's moons, one by one. New frontiers in experiment capability: scanning mysterious moons with high-powered radars, spectrometers. Total budget less than the cost of cleaning up astronaut shit on ISS.
James Webb -- Hubble's successor is killed. Hubble has no successor! This is a national shame. A hundred times more powerful, the greatest space telescope of all time, so perceptive it has to be positioned in sun-earth L2 to get away from earthshine.
LISA -- undiscovered gravity radiation? Resolving relativistic emissions of distant black holes, making new tests of Einsteinean general relativity? Sounds like nerd stuff, who cares.
In theory, it is nice that we have a government agency funding pure exploration of the cosmos (any funding, at all). In practice, NASA is a case study of how badly putting science funding in the hands of a political bureaucracy can go wrong. Very few Americans, sadly, actually understand or care about the comparatively bland-looking experiments which are science, which advance human understanding, compared to TV-friendly astronaut acrobatics tripe. So science gets marginalized; the political nature of NASA favors useless shit.
I say euthanize NASA, it has no life left.
I appreciate that you know some details about some space missions, but unfortunately your understanding of advances in science instruments, measurements, and research at NASA is utterly wrong. Just completely wrong.
In fact, for the most part, science missions at NASA are now, and have been, guided by reports of the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Science. They produce "Decadal Surveys" which basically are ranked lists of mission proposals.
There's one for Earth Science, in particular, that has been very closely tracked by NASA mission proposals (see http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/decadal-surveys/). Every potential mission team scrutinizes this list and tries to position their work to be responsive to these science goals. For the list of mission concepts, see http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11820&page=8...
The menu of missions is rather amazing in its scope, novelty, and potential to advance the understanding of Earth systems like pollution, aerosols, solid earth hazards, land use, vegetation, weather, etc.
In fact, for the most part, science missions at NASA are now, and have been, guided by reports of the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Science. They produce "Decadal Surveys" which basically are ranked lists of mission proposals.
There's one for Earth Science, in particular, that has been very closely tracked by NASA mission proposals (see http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/decadal-surveys/). Every potential mission team scrutinizes this list and tries to position their work to be responsive to these science goals. For the list of mission concepts, see http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11820&page=8...
The menu of missions is rather amazing in its scope, novelty, and potential to advance the understanding of Earth systems like pollution, aerosols, solid earth hazards, land use, vegetation, weather, etc.
I'm sure I'm ignorant about NASA research, but I don't understand your criticism. NASA projects are very much directed by politicians: i.e. the James Webb cancellation was caused by Congress, not NAS policy.
"US lawmakers vote to kill Hubble successor"
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gLvaDP1Tm...
I don't argue that NASA doesn't do useful science, but that their useful science is crowded out by big-budget, 12-figure manned space missions, and that its political nature (it is a government agency) is the reason for this.
"US lawmakers vote to kill Hubble successor"
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gLvaDP1Tm...
I don't argue that NASA doesn't do useful science, but that their useful science is crowded out by big-budget, 12-figure manned space missions, and that its political nature (it is a government agency) is the reason for this.
I respect your inquiring tone.
What I'm trying to say is that you're focusing on a couple of high-profile examples, and the politics don't have the all-encompassing effect that you think they do.
(I love politics, and I'm very interested in the interplay between missions and politics, but your estimate of the interaction is way, way overblown.)
There are some "poster children" for the influence of politics in NASA. JWST is one, Hubble was another, so is/was the manned program (Constellation and its predecessors), and also some elements of the Mars program.
It's appropriate that politics influence some of this. It's citizens who fund this work, and their representatives, for better and worse, vote on funding. The portions of NASA that are most visible externally (same as the list in the previous paragraph) are the most subject to politics.
[[ Note on JWST: it was not cancelled, as you seem to think. The House voted against it. But all its support is in the Senate (Sen. Barbara M.'s district includes GSFC and STScI, which run JWST) and there's no way it will be cancelled. NASA watchers know this. But JWST is being sent a message, because it is way over-budget. And that is the politician's business. ]]
The political process described above is very distasteful to nerds.
But that's not all there is, and my references to the Earth program above were intended to illustrate that. That roadmap I linked to has about 12-20 missions planned out to 2020 that will have a huge impact, and there's very little political influence there. It's nerd's wet dream, a bunch of scientists at the National Academies contemplating what measurements will best advance the efficacy of various earth system models.
Modeling accuracy does not interest the citizenry, except when they want to know a hurricane's path or the amount of seismic deformation of an earthquake or what the water levels in reservoirs will be next year or what forests are healthy or ...
So the question comes down to proportion. I don't know the most recent figures, but various "science" stuff is certainly more than 1/3, probably almost 1/2, of the NASA budget. One can argue about the boundary cases.
What I'm trying to say is that you're focusing on a couple of high-profile examples, and the politics don't have the all-encompassing effect that you think they do.
(I love politics, and I'm very interested in the interplay between missions and politics, but your estimate of the interaction is way, way overblown.)
There are some "poster children" for the influence of politics in NASA. JWST is one, Hubble was another, so is/was the manned program (Constellation and its predecessors), and also some elements of the Mars program.
It's appropriate that politics influence some of this. It's citizens who fund this work, and their representatives, for better and worse, vote on funding. The portions of NASA that are most visible externally (same as the list in the previous paragraph) are the most subject to politics.
[[ Note on JWST: it was not cancelled, as you seem to think. The House voted against it. But all its support is in the Senate (Sen. Barbara M.'s district includes GSFC and STScI, which run JWST) and there's no way it will be cancelled. NASA watchers know this. But JWST is being sent a message, because it is way over-budget. And that is the politician's business. ]]
The political process described above is very distasteful to nerds.
But that's not all there is, and my references to the Earth program above were intended to illustrate that. That roadmap I linked to has about 12-20 missions planned out to 2020 that will have a huge impact, and there's very little political influence there. It's nerd's wet dream, a bunch of scientists at the National Academies contemplating what measurements will best advance the efficacy of various earth system models.
Modeling accuracy does not interest the citizenry, except when they want to know a hurricane's path or the amount of seismic deformation of an earthquake or what the water levels in reservoirs will be next year or what forests are healthy or ...
So the question comes down to proportion. I don't know the most recent figures, but various "science" stuff is certainly more than 1/3, probably almost 1/2, of the NASA budget. One can argue about the boundary cases.
I do not value scientific research in directions that are not important to me.
If I don't need spaceflight in the next 100 years, there is no point spending valuable resources on researching human spaceflight. 100 years from now such research would be significantly less expensive and more meaningful.
I'd rather see valuable resources spend on what's important. For example on better rating system on HN.
Government is not capable of doing things like that.
If I don't need spaceflight in the next 100 years, there is no point spending valuable resources on researching human spaceflight. 100 years from now such research would be significantly less expensive and more meaningful.
I'd rather see valuable resources spend on what's important. For example on better rating system on HN.
Government is not capable of doing things like that.
Sometimes it's hard to tell what ends up being important. Would you have valued scientific research into space travel in the 50's? Especially if there wasn't a cold-war powered space race? Because I sure enjoy GPS and other satellite-backed technologies.
That argument is too powerful. What if we spent the money we're dumping into a rather ineffective space program on $RESEARCH_X instead? Who knows what aspect of $RESEARCH_X will be important?
You haven't proved money should be spent on the space program, you've proved money should be spent on X for all X. Though this does bear a certain resemblance to our budgetary priorities of late.
You haven't proved money should be spent on the space program, you've proved money should be spent on X for all X. Though this does bear a certain resemblance to our budgetary priorities of late.
This is exactly the problem - why should the government decide what is useful research? When you let the government do anything, it instantly becomes political. Nowadays professors have to constantly jockey for research dollars.
I say that private markets/individuals do a pretty good job deciding what technologies are worth long term investment dollars/charitable donations. Let them figure out what research programs they should be funding.
I say that private markets/individuals do a pretty good job deciding what technologies are worth long term investment dollars/charitable donations. Let them figure out what research programs they should be funding.
It would be much cheaper to develop space missiles 20 years later. Especially if saved resources would have been invested by private sector into more useful technologies such as chemistry, computers, machinery etc.
I don't doubt the value of a space program, but I seriously doubt having NASA be the steward of such a program from this point on. I cannot help but think what would have happened if the Air Force's program had been funded and advanced past the X-15 stage. The forcing of Air Force concerns on the shuttle and NASA's own obsession with winning a race to the moon instead of establishing a permanent presence in space have done in our space program.
At this point, I just hope that multiple avenues are tried and regulatory agencies are made to get out of the way of private flight.
At this point, I just hope that multiple avenues are tried and regulatory agencies are made to get out of the way of private flight.
We need advancement towards spacefaring. We don't need space programs.
There is need for government basic research, infrastructure and science programs. There is need for healthy commercial ventures, reasonable scale and agile development with quick cycles and multiple concurrent paths.
Spaceflight could well be more routine, reliable and affordarble if there never was an Apollo or Shuttle.
There is need for government basic research, infrastructure and science programs. There is need for healthy commercial ventures, reasonable scale and agile development with quick cycles and multiple concurrent paths.
Spaceflight could well be more routine, reliable and affordarble if there never was an Apollo or Shuttle.
Exactly. One problem that they need to solve before leaving the gravity well again is creating sustainable biospheres - capable of recycling all CO2, waste and water, producing food and, most importantly, keeping the people inside happy, healthy and sane. To my knowledge this has never[1] been achieved, and we need to work out how to do it before setting up any kind of "off world colony".
1. Biosphere 2 was a high profile, but ultimately unsuccessful example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2
1. Biosphere 2 was a high profile, but ultimately unsuccessful example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2
NASA, like most government institutions, is wasteful and inefficient. The private sector can develop cheaper, safer, more efficient rockets, in a fraction of the time. Elon Musk, among others, has laid out ambitious goals; much more ambitious then the previous goals of NASA.
This is not the end of space exploration; on the contrary - things are going to start advancing at a much faster pace.
This is not the end of space exploration; on the contrary - things are going to start advancing at a much faster pace.
It's sobering to think, nothing the entire private space industry put together has proposed comes close to what NASA was sitting on in the 1960's, with nuclear pulse propulsion. Now it's unthinkable. But with a slightly different historical path, we could today be launching thousands of tons at a time into orbit, on a trail of small atomic bombs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsi...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsi...
Exactly. I buy that we need a space program, but as far as I am concerned a government space program has had its chance.
We have one, it's called Air Force Space Command Center.
Their budget was increased by 700 million in 2011 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/usa-airforce-space...)
Their budget was increased by 700 million in 2011 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/usa-airforce-space...)
The best way to fund science is to cut taxes on capital and to cut tax rates on the wealthy.
Do the wealthy fund long term scientific research projects?
Bill Gates sure does with his Global Health Program.
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> just look back at the discovery of North America and foundation of the greatest, vastest, richest, and most powerful nation the world has ever seen.
As an American, I find this sentence somewhat embarrassing.
> There would’ve been no Cold War, no Hollywood, and no tea bags.
And nothing of value would be lost.
It bothers me how he thinks that education funding would have to suffer for science. Why not just defense?
As an American, I find this sentence somewhat embarrassing.
> There would’ve been no Cold War, no Hollywood, and no tea bags.
And nothing of value would be lost.
It bothers me how he thinks that education funding would have to suffer for science. Why not just defense?
Of course, throwing more money at NASA is actually a pretty good idea, even if the sexier things people want to do are unlikely to get off the ground in the near term (say 50 years or so). But a reusable shuttle was never cost effective for manned spaceflight at the scale that we did it at.