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Out of curiosity, why do you see this as a worthwhile endeavor? My personal perspective is that the resources are better used for other purposes, but it's possible that I just haven't encountered some compelling reason yet.
Go take a look at how much this costs compared to the rest of the federal budget. I think you'll be surprised by how little money NASA gets. Now, the military...
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> in the same way that you'll probably survive one round of Russian roulette Is that with or without spinning the chamber between rounds? The odds are worse if you spin each time. They get worse as the game goes on if you don't spin.
> The odds are worse if you spin each time. How do they get worse if you spin? It’s still 1/6 odds of dying,iid events.
Talk about space stuff here, not the statistical nature of Russian roulette.
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> when executed in a non-profit form For-profits are of no benefit to society? Are SpaceX rockets a loser for society?
Specific innovations tend to be protected via IP when they are developed privately and, as a result, “butterfly effect” developments in a completely different field from cross-pollination are less likely to occur later down the line.
P.S. I oppose patents.
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We are nowhere near the capability to launch robots to the moon that can autonomously build or assemble a moon base for any useful definition of moon base. > We are sending humans to (or around) the moon now, but it may just turn out to be a wasted effort, done solely for the opulence My 4 year old is extremely excited to watch the launch tonight because it’s manned. I’d say a few billion is worth it if all it does i…
And neither are we anywhere near the capability to lunch construction workers to the moon which can build or assemble an equivalent moon base with their human labor. So this answer does not satisfy me one bit. > inspire a new generation of astronauts, engineers, and scientists This is a good point. And I would like it to be true. However when you have to lie about (or exaggerate) the scientific value of the mission,…
We have the capability to do that. We don’t have the will to do it, but we have the technology. We don’t even have autonomous robots that are capable of building a moon base on earth.
> Your 4 year old could be equally inspired by the amazing photos James Webb has given us, and unlike Artemis, James Webb is providing us with unique data which is inspiring all sorts of new science.
He’s not though. People gather around as a family and watch manned space missions. It’s exciting in a way that a telescope or a probe isn’t.
The best of humanity is remarkably capable as compared to the best physical machines / robots. There's a great paper called the "dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency." https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article-abstract/53/2/2.22... // https://lasp.colorado.edu/mop/files/2019/08/RobotMyth.pdf
> “the expert evidence we have heard strongly suggests that the use of autonomous robots alone will very significantly limit what can be learned about our nearest potentially habitable planet” (Close et al. (2005; paragraph 70).
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> Putting it more bluntly, Steve Squyres, the Principal Investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, has written:
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> “[t]he unfortunate truth is that most things our rovers can do in a perfect sol [i.e. a martian day] a human explorer could do in less than a minute” (Squyres, 2005, pp. 234-5).
But making a machine that can beat a 110ms reaction time human with 2SD+ IQ – and the ability to override the ground controllers with human curiosity – for exploration is much harder. Healthy, smart humans have high dexterity, are extremely capable of switching roles fast, are surprisingly efficient, and force us to return back home.
So in terms of total science return, one Apollo mission did more for lunar science and discovery than 53 years of robots on the surface and in orbit.
It is a bit chilling to watch these astronaut profiles having just read yesterday about the heat shield issues observed on the prior mission, and that this will be the first time we can test the heat shield in the actual pressures and temperatures that it will have to endure. Godspeed crew of Artemis II.
It'll probably turn out fine (in the same way that you'll probably survive one round of Russian roulette.) I am quite nervous about this though.
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There is a LOC (Loss of Crew) number that is typically calculated for these missions. I'm curious what that is? Early Apollo missions were on the order of 4%.
Before the Apollo launch, von Braun was asked what the reliability of the rocket was. He asked 6 of his lieutenants if it was ready to fly. Each replied "nein". Von Braun reported that it had six nines of reliability.
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I think in general space exploration is a great use of taxpayer money, but the artemis program doesn't seem great from either a "science per dollar" or "novel accomplishment per dollar" standpoint. If the goal was just to flex on the rest of the world I would've much rather we focused on going somewhere new or returning to the moon in a more sustainable way
"returning to the moon in a more sustainable way" Isn't this the point of this mission? If your point is "it shouldn't take this much money", then I agree. But also point to almost everything else.
IMO the program is not optimized for cost or sustainability, it's optimized for creating jobs in various congressional districts. Of course that provides a certain amount of political sustainability to the so-called Senate Launch System.
I just don't see a future where NASA can afford multiple SLS launches per year to maintain a continuous Lunar presence
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Is that a real fact?
(I misremembered it slightly, so sue me) From "Apollo The Race to the Moon" pg 102: The joke that made the rounds of NASA was that the Saturn V had a reliability rating of .9999. In the story, a group from headquarters goes down to Marshall and asks Wernher von Braun how reliable the Saturn is going to be. Von Braun turns to four of his lieutenants and asks, "Is there any reason why it won't work?" to which they answ…
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Truly. I'm not sure why anyone needs to be on the rocket at all, let alone our best and brightest.
Because human beings are remarkably capable, especially the best and the brightest. There's a great paper called the "dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency." https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article-abstract/53/2/2.22... // https://lasp.colorado.edu/mop/files/2019/08/RobotMyth.pdf Yes, a robot car that drives on its own will be a better driver than most humans who text and drive, or have 400ms reaction times. Bu…