71–80 of 186 posts
"It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and
realize that one's safety factor was determined by the
lowest bidder on a government contract." --Alan ShepardSpace 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I reject the notion that we should coddle our children. The teacher is there for a reason. To provide context to what the child is being exposed to. And that can make all the difference. Yes, you can die. Yes, it is dangerous. Yes, these brave men risked their lives and they lost. And if they had to do it all over again, they would risk their lives again. Because if it wasn't for men like them, we would still be sitt…
>brave men risked their lives >men like them It wasn't just men: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Resnik http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_McAuliffe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalpana_Chawla http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Clark Language has power, and using "men" in this context makes invisible the contributions and bravery of these women and others like them. Sorry to seem PC, but it's important to get…
This is about 25 years too late, but good. The problem here is that NASA is a political agency, not a scientific one. Each year, elected politicians sit down and decide how much they're going to get. This means the number one rule is don't make us look bad. You can't waste too much money, you can't go making a bunch of controversial statements, and good grief, whatever you do don't have astronauts getting exploded on…
I think it's the same situation. Our military is geared up to fight yesterday's war; the "wars" we're involved in now could be solved more cost-effectively by literally paying our enemies not to fight. The next real war, if it happens, will be fought almost entirely with semi- and fully-autonomous machines. All of the lessons we've learned will be pointless. Similarly, NASA is geared up for yesterday's space race. We…
Thereby creating a nation of people dependent on our aid, who, when we cease sending aid due to budget constraints, will likely decide to start a war anyway. coughNorth Koreacough
Not saying that line of reasoning is totally invalid, but it's definitely not so clear-cut that you can use it in an analogy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> as a percentage of the Federal budget it was over 5x today's level. This is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the absolute budget, adjusted for inflation. In addition, given the greatly improved technology, we should be able to get to the moon for far cheaper. In fact, all the R&D has already been done . It should be a cake walk on half the budget.
The question is... Why? If going to the moon is 75% less than it was in the Apollo days, that is cool, but what do we accomplish by going there?
This is about 25 years too late, but good. The problem here is that NASA is a political agency, not a scientific one. Each year, elected politicians sit down and decide how much they're going to get. This means the number one rule is don't make us look bad. You can't waste too much money, you can't go making a bunch of controversial statements, and good grief, whatever you do don't have astronauts getting exploded on…
I think it's the same situation. Our military is geared up to fight yesterday's war; the "wars" we're involved in now could be solved more cost-effectively by literally paying our enemies not to fight. The next real war, if it happens, will be fought almost entirely with semi- and fully-autonomous machines. All of the lessons we've learned will be pointless. Similarly, NASA is geared up for yesterday's space race. We…
When discussing the 2 rovers with a 90% success rate, the author comes to the conclusion: The right answer is to go for two rovers, because if you do it that way, you will have a 99 percent probability of succeeding with at least one of the vehicles Which is not exactly right. It's correct if you're looking at random, uncorrelated factors. However, two rovers from the same program are not going to be uncorrelated. If…
Actually, this is something they plan for. It is not unheard of to have the software for two different devices developed by two different teams who are not allowed to talk to each other, precisely to avoid this scenario.
In fact, there are Common Cause Analysis people whose whole job is to think of this sort of thing and recommend ways to avert it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's the same situation. Our military is geared up to fight yesterday's war; the "wars" we're involved in now could be solved more cost-effectively by literally paying our enemies not to fight. The next real war, if it happens, will be fought almost entirely with semi- and fully-autonomous machines. All of the lessons we've learned will be pointless. Similarly, NASA is geared up for yesterday's space race. We…
the "wars" we're involved in now could be solved more cost-effectively by literally paying our enemies not to fight. Thereby creating a nation of people dependent on our aid, who, when we cease sending aid due to budget constraints, will likely decide to start a war anyway . cough North Korea cough Not saying that line of reasoning is totally invalid, but it's definitely not so clear-cut that you can use it in an ana…
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.
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.