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How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

reason.com

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Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#131

Post by usaar333 »

heliodor wrote: post #72
noonespecial wrote: post #5

Space is dangerous. We should stop pretending it can be made "safe". It just gives politicians something to wag their tongues at when something inevitably goes wrong. If you go to space you might not come back. That's why explorers rock and everyone else watches TV. The article also misses an important variable. How much is discovery worth? Once that's added to the plus column, all of the other costs seem insignifica…

I'd disagree there. Once upon a time, the sea was seen as dangerous. Everything can be made "safe" at some point.

The most dangerous occupation in America, by fatalities, is fisherman. Yah, it's safer than it was in the past, but I wouldn't call it "safe", when compared to sitting in front of your computer.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#132

Post by tedsuo »

Total aside, bug this article caused me to gawk once again at the technical progress in the US during the mid-20th:

State of the Art, 1945: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:F8F_Bearcat_%28flying%29.j...

State of the Art, 1965: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird.j...

State of the Art, 1971: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_CSM_lunar_orbit.jpg

After that, I think we hit a technological wall, you can almost see the asymptote after the mid 70's. Though I think Space X is poised to knock some things over again if they succeed in their "cheap but reliable" approach, which basically amounts to attacking the problem as if it were a commercial airline engine as opposed to a rocket engine, and subjecting it to those standards of rigor. But that's a different kind of progress.

More on topic, this article completely fails to support it's hyperbolic "costs thousands of lives" subtitle.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#133

Post by tobylane »

VMG wrote: post #62
jordanb wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA is a political organization, but that's why the manned space program exists. It long ago ceased to make sense from a cost/scientific-benefit perspective. Manned flight continues only on the argument that it excites the public and fuels interest in space. Bearing that in mind, the entire thing is showboating on TV, and it's pretty silly to angst if over this, that, or the other bit of it is compromised by politic…

It amazes me that on a tech site you are getting downvotes for this. Human space travel is a waste of money from a scientific standpoint. Why a libertarian magazine like reason.com supports human space travel at all is a mystery to me.

It made 14x as much for the US economy (including inspiring American children, excluding inspiring other children/nations). Can that sort of success ever be considered a waste over a long enough timeframe?

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#134

Post by gojomo »

VMG wrote: post #62
jordanb wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA is a political organization, but that's why the manned space program exists. It long ago ceased to make sense from a cost/scientific-benefit perspective. Manned flight continues only on the argument that it excites the public and fuels interest in space. Bearing that in mind, the entire thing is showboating on TV, and it's pretty silly to angst if over this, that, or the other bit of it is compromised by politic…

It amazes me that on a tech site you are getting downvotes for this. Human space travel is a waste of money from a scientific standpoint. Why a libertarian magazine like reason.com supports human space travel at all is a mystery to me.

Would it be a waste if we were making the coldly rational mission-oriented tradeoffs Zubrin proposes? Or only because treating it as a jobs program and national festival-of-empathy makes manned exploration insanely expensive?

I, personally, am looking forward to a Kickstarter from a credible private team to start work on a space elevator. And I'm only half-joking.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#135

Post by ansible »

_dps wrote: post #89
VMG wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me that on a tech site you are getting downvotes for this. Human space travel is a waste of money from a scientific standpoint. Why a libertarian magazine like reason.com supports human space travel at all is a mystery to me.

I would ask: a waste of money over what time-scale? I agree that the ROI over the next decade or two seems low. But at some point, if we plan to ever get humans to other planets, we're going to have to do the low ROI slog of figuring out the basics. I don't think we will reach a point where getting people to other planets will suddenly become low-hanging fruit. So I think the only real options are: 1) do some low ROI…

I think we're looking at option 3.

With advanced technology, we can modify humans to more easily survive in space. With sufficiently advanced technology, we can just upload them into robot bodies. That will make space missions as cheap as they are now, and without the risk. Because instead of sending up bags of meat that have to be protected from vacuum, radiation, freezing, boiling and dehydration, we can send up AIs or uploaded humans running on rad-hardened processors.

It goes back to the discussions about terra-forming. Is it better to adapt an entire planet (which is big, by the way) to human needs, or is it better to adapt humans to just live in that environment as-is?

Oh, and this sufficiently advanced technology gives you some other side benefits, including practical immortality, so that is worth pursuing by itself.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#136

Post by [deleted] »

drblast wrote: post #123
arctangent wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Human space travel is a waste of money from a scientific standpoint. It's hard to weigh up the relative merits of spending money on human space travel now over spending (perhaps less) money a few tens or hundred years from now to achieve the same effect. But if mankind doesn't eventually colonise other planets then we're almost certainly going to be wiped out by a big rock hitting our planet and killing every last…

What's the point? It's not going to occur in a reasonable amount of time, and if you say, "Well, eventually it will..." then eventually everything that exists will cease to exist anyway. Why not focus on things that are problems now?

[deleted]

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#138

Post by waterlesscloud »

kscaldef wrote: post #11
noonespecial wrote: post #5

Space is dangerous. We should stop pretending it can be made "safe". It just gives politicians something to wag their tongues at when something inevitably goes wrong. If you go to space you might not come back. That's why explorers rock and everyone else watches TV. The article also misses an important variable. How much is discovery worth? Once that's added to the plus column, all of the other costs seem insignifica…

It also misses things like: What's the cost of a million schoolchildren watching a space shuttle explode?

What you really mean is what's the cost of a million schoolchildren watching a nation give up after a space shuttle explodes.

The damage is in the response, not the event.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#139

Post by wbienek »

noonespecial wrote: post #5

Space is dangerous. We should stop pretending it can be made "safe". It just gives politicians something to wag their tongues at when something inevitably goes wrong. If you go to space you might not come back. That's why explorers rock and everyone else watches TV. The article also misses an important variable. How much is discovery worth? Once that's added to the plus column, all of the other costs seem insignifica…

People would line up to go to the moon. They aren't going to go. Get over it :)

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#140

Post by tedsuo »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #10

This article answered for me one of those things I'd always wondered but never took time to figure out: why no one has been back to the moon even though our technology has advanced exponentially in the last 40 years. An irrational emphasis on risk makes perfect sense. Still doesn't explain why no other country has done it, though. Well, except for the boring explanations about high costs and no immediate benefits bes…

see my other comment on this post, aerospace tech actually has not advanced exponentially, but asymptotically.
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