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What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

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Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#31

Post by protomyth »

jamesbritt wrote: post #22
jerf wrote: post #7

Yes, when you pour money down the money hole, you do tend to get a few things in return. My real question, which we'll see answered hopefully over the next few years, isn't "Were the capabilities we got with the shuttle cool ?" but "Was the shuttle a cost-effective way to obtain those capabilities?" And it's really hard to look at the Shuttle program and say yes . In general, we really need to get over whining about…

And it's really hard to look at the Shuttle program and say yes. How effective/efficient would a tax-payer supported version of Xerox PARC or the Golden Age Bell Labs be? Something more pleasant than DARPA, for example.

What is your problem with DARPA?

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#33

Post by digikata »

nate_meurer wrote: post #10
gaius wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going outside was a bad idea and dangerous from the start. Bring on the pizza delivery and cable TV! See, that ain't no way to run a civilization. Without taking (calculated) risks, we're nothing.

Except those risks must be evaluated against the reward. In this present day and age, what exactly do we gain from using humans instead of robots in space that justifies their expense?

The reward of human exploration is impossible to quantify. You may as well ask what is the risk reward for basic research, philosophy, religion, or art.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#34

Post by TheCondor »

nate_meurer wrote: post #30
garyrichardson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit! This just happened: http://appropriations.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?Doc... $4.5 billion for NASA Science programs, which is $431 million below last year’s level. The bill also terminates funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management.

Yep, especially shitty since the project is so far along. It needs to be said that JWST isn't primarily over-budget because of technical problems, but because they didn't do realistic cost and time estimates in the first place. Overall, the project has suffered very few technical surprises.

So what does this mean? We just shit can it?

Or it sits on a shelf for a couple years or what? If we want to save money, shouldn't we kill something before we start it?

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#36

Post by mturmon »

garyrichardson wrote: post #24
ck2 wrote: post #2

I'm more horrified they canceled the James Webb telescope (or are just about to).

Holy shit! This just happened: http://appropriations.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?Doc... $4.5 billion for NASA Science programs, which is $431 million below last year’s level. The bill also terminates funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management.

Thanks for that link.

People should know that there's a lot of turmoil in the astrophysics community about JWST. In current plans, JWST overruns have resulted in elimination or long-term postponement of all other NASA astrophysics missions in the next decade. Even non-flight-project research is being cut significantly.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#37

Post by mturmon »

jules wrote: post #15
nate_meurer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except those risks must be evaluated against the reward. In this present day and age, what exactly do we gain from using humans instead of robots in space that justifies their expense?

The fact that humans can do so many things that robots cannot yet do. Look at it the other way: what is the most robust and fault tolerant adaptive machine with the best motor skills, the best perception system, and quick decision making system that we have available? There are some tasks that robots are better at, but as a general purpose machine humans are still the best. A robot tumbles over or gets stuck behind a…

Humans are not "robust adaptive machines" in a space environment -- airless, zero-g, cosmic radiation.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#38

Post by nate_meurer »

digikata wrote: post #33
nate_meurer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except those risks must be evaluated against the reward. In this present day and age, what exactly do we gain from using humans instead of robots in space that justifies their expense?

The reward of human exploration is impossible to quantify. You may as well ask what is the risk reward for basic research, philosophy, religion, or art.

I agree, except for the fact that in the field of space exploration humans can now be largely substituted by machines, and will be more so as our machines advance.

Philosophy and art do indeed require lots of human intervention. Thankfully, they are cheap, as is much of the basic science research that we should be prioritizing ahead of, say, super sexy space stations.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#39

Post by LaGrange »

nate_meurer wrote: post #10
gaius wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going outside was a bad idea and dangerous from the start. Bring on the pizza delivery and cable TV! See, that ain't no way to run a civilization. Without taking (calculated) risks, we're nothing.

Except those risks must be evaluated against the reward. In this present day and age, what exactly do we gain from using humans instead of robots in space that justifies their expense?

The gain is, actually, putting humans in the space. It's an arbitrary objective that you (or me) may not share, but it seems to be the primary objective. Other gains usually don't outweigh the costs, but are useful at marketing the idea to bot people. They lower the perceived-by-bot-people loss, to the point where the loss may be accepted as the cost for winning the human-people.

As far as I am concerned, I want human uploads in space. Durr.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#40

Post by zeemonkee »

bdunbar wrote: post #16
chrismealy wrote: post #5

7. Dead astronauts. The space shuttle was a bad idea and dangerous from the start. Bring on the robots!

The idea of Shuttle was good. The execution was flawed.

The shuttle reminds me of one of those awful software development projects which start with clear, simple goals, until all the "stakeholders" start wanting their pet feature and need to be appeased because they will bring more money to the table, and you end up with a bloated, over-engineered mess.
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