When is manned spaceflight preferred?
jone...@emporia.edu
when one might need manned spaceflight? What
tasks can't robots do?
Herman Rubin
There are lots of them.
For example, suppose we want to find out if an asteroid
can be mined for a mineral, or can be made habitable.
A robot can find out, possibly very slowly, that the
mineral is there, but cannot consider the problems of
excavation, refining, etc. Nor can it decide on the
spot which alternative methods to use for constructing
temporary or permanent living quarters. Nor could
they investigate whether people could live in the
Moon or in asteroids, which may well be the proper
place for some of mankind to live in the future.
Robots cannot even do a good job of surveying Mars.
Robots cannot think, and if one needs a half hour round
time to communicate, it is necessary to be very careful
near the edge of a cliff or a slope. So robots moving
at one mile per day explore little.
It is true we can often use robots more cheaply than
humans, but all of our machines are sub-imbeciles, no
matter what their speed. Judgment is often needed.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Jeff Findley
news:ft5nop$2r...@odds.stat.purdue.edu...
> Robots cannot even do a good job of surveying Mars.
> Robots cannot think, and if one needs a half hour round
> time to communicate, it is necessary to be very careful
> near the edge of a cliff or a slope. So robots moving
> at one mile per day explore little.
The two Mars rovers are often touted as a pair of cheap, unmanned, missions
able to cover more terrain than a lander. While true, they do move very
slowly. Over the years, they have covered distances that are still very
small when compared to what the Apollo astronauts did in the (obviously
manned) lunar rover.
It's also interesting to note that with a man on the spot, equipment like
the lunar rover can be made a lot "dumber" than an unmanned piece of
equipment. The man in the suit can be the control system, communications
system, and even the maintenance system for the equipment. I believe I
recall one of the rovers getting an improvised fender, installed by an
astronaut on the spot. That's more than a bit difficult to do remotely.
Here's a reference (I love Google):
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_17/surface_opp/
The above shows a nice "traverse map" showing how far the Apollo 17
astronauts were able to travel with the lunar rover as well as a close up
picture showing the "repaired" fender.
The other thing to note about manned missions is that you typically plan on
bringing the astronauts back at the end of the mission, so adding "sample
return" to the mission is far easier than trying to design it into an
unmanned mission. An unmanned sample return mission would be a very good
mission to fly to Mars, but this mission always seems to be just beyond the
limits (technical and cost) of what an unmanned mission can do using today's
launch vehicles.
Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein
.
BradGuth
In a biologically toxic, physically extreme and often gamma plus X-ray
saturated environment, unless you're talking about a one-way human
style expedition as having no budgetary or time limitations of getting
that expendable astronaut onto such remote locations, whereas instead
rad-hard and robust robotics are not likely 1% the cost, as well as in
most instances representing the one and only viable option.
In other words, 10 robots for 10% the cost of one astronaut seems far
better, of much faster deployments and by far cheaper per required
science feedback.
. - Brad Guth
BradGuth
Most any terrestrial science technology can be safely deployed upon
the likes of Mars. However, of far better worth than even peeing on a
hot rock, is to send a robotic rigid airship to cruise efficiently
around Venus, well below them acidic clouds.
You folks do realize it's not nearly as humanly or rather ET
insurmountable as we've been told, and most certainly not
technologically insurmountable for robotics. Would you like to see
for yourselves?
. - Brad Guth
Alejandro Zuzek
(snip)
> the lunar rover can be made a lot "dumber" than an unmanned piece of
> equipment. The man in the suit can be the control system, communications
> system, and even the maintenance system for the equipment. I believe I
> recall one of the rovers getting an improvised fender, installed by an
> astronaut on the spot. That's more than a bit difficult to do remotely.
Careful there. Fixing the LRV fender is not a good example of an advantage of manned missions. That fender wouldn't need fixing if an astronaut hadn't broken it in the first place. Your point is still valid. A person can fix equipment on the spot and the equivalent capability is next to impossible for unmanned missions givent the current technology.
Martha Adams
How about *above* the acid clouds? Seems to me, Venus might be a good
place for a city buoyant like a blimp, floating above the clouds. I
don't know the atmosphere pressure gradient there, but from sf writing
I've seen, I've an impression a near-Terra atmosphere pressure exists
there above the clouds, making the floating city feasible. Like in Star
Wars.
A large conical reflector, and a lot of tech, would make a sub-Mercury
orbital station possible. Might be named Vulcan, of course.
Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Sun 2013 Jun 02]
Martha Adams
I think the money argument is true as far as it goes, but that it
doesn't go far enough. Spend money / save money: send out machines.
Where my problem with this is, *for why?*
Which makes this argument a root of my belief the most practical use for
space, is *for people*. If you look from that point of view,
exploration comes into focus and you can see where it's going. For
people. But for reason I do not see, nearly everyone thinking about
space seems to come up to some variation on "Man was meant to explore"
and never notices how us humans live in a human environment and when we
grow and expand somehow, human environment is the first part of what's
new. Thus "space exploration" needs to come to "people Out There" asap,
and that's not an intellectual exercise.
As I try to picture it, the big picture, this universe is a dangerous
place, not our friend at all; and if we stay around for a while depends
entirely upon ourselves and luck. The style nowadays seems to leave all
that up to luck: a real bad strategy. So I'd like to see today's
robotics explorers set into a perspective where what we're up to, is to
get *ourselves* out to Luna, to Mars, to the asteroids, and etc. Then
when astronomical or social catastrophe strikes here on Terra, we don't
have all our historical and racial eggs in this one target, I mean, Terra.
Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Fri 2013 Jun 07]
Brad Guth
> On 5/7/2008 2:03 PM,BradGuthwrote:
fly for as long and as low as you'd like?
Above them icy cold upper most clouds of Venus would be quite
interesting (other than too much solar and cosmic radiation for most
of us), and at least on the sunny side there'd never be any shortage
of clean renewable energy derived from the solar shade of a million PV
panels.
Brad Guth
Without knowledge of what another planet or moon has to offer, such as via close encounter inspections by our robotics, we have no business going there in person.
Applied technology should also vastly increase the range and scope of what sorts of off-world places are Goldilocks suitable, just like right here on Earth where applied physics and our best technology gives us access to extreme environments that would otherwise be instantly lethal to Goldilocks (except Tardigrades, diatoms and a few other microbes might actually survive and even somewhat adapt to such terrestrial extremes).
Even exploiting our physically dark and naked moon should have been accomplished by now, with TBMs excavating their way into its paramagnetic basalt crust, providing a nearly ideal underground habitat that could accommodate most every living thing on Terra, should the need arise, and thereby at least some of our eggs having another shot at surviving in spite of humans manage to do to Earth or how greatly damaged by an asteroid impact it gets.
What planet(s) or moon(s) should be focused upon next?
How about Venus?
Brad Guth
Atmospheric pressure is not a biological problem that's insurmountable, and those surface temperatures can be technically managed up to 811 K within existing technology.
Brad Guth
A terraformed interior of our moon could put a lot of our eggs in a very failsafe kind of place.
Brad Guth
A composite rigid airship could operate safely and efficiently well below those acidic clouds (say 15 km), landing as often as needed. A shuttle craft gets you to/from Venus L2.
Why not utilize the best available technology in order to exploit a nearby planet like Venus?