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2013/12/18 08:56:33
Subject: Re:The Space exploration & technology discussion thread
Peregrine wrote: So we're left with the absurdity of pursuing a goal of extremely limited inherent value (putting humans on mars instead of robots) in the desperate hope that by doing so we'll produce vague unknown side benefits.
This reminds me a bit of the, "Why use manned aircraft when you can just send drones?" 'logic.'
2013/12/18 09:06:27
Subject: Re:The Space exploration & technology discussion thread
Peregrine wrote: So we're left with the absurdity of pursuing a goal of extremely limited inherent value (putting humans on mars instead of robots) in the desperate hope that by doing so we'll produce vague unknown side benefits.
This reminds me a bit of the, "Why use manned aircraft when you can just send drones?" 'logic.'
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."
d-usa wrote: "When the Internet sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending posters that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing strawmen. They're bringing spam. They're trolls. And some, I assume, are good people."
2013/12/18 09:09:26
Subject: Re:The Space exploration & technology discussion thread
Seaward wrote: This reminds me a bit of the, "Why use manned aircraft when you can just send drones?" 'logic.'
At least in that case you're not paying all that much to haul a human pilot around, if you're willing to accept the possibility of getting those pilots killed. It's a very different situation with space travel, where adding a human crew results in a massive increase in spacecraft size/complexity/cost.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2013/12/18 10:20:21
Subject: Re:The Space exploration & technology discussion thread
Peregrine wrote: At least in that case you're not paying all that much to haul a human pilot around, if you're willing to accept the possibility of getting those pilots killed. It's a very different situation with space travel, where adding a human crew results in a massive increase in spacecraft size/complexity/cost.
But a better chance of success in the face of unanticipated difficulty. Also, planes do not haul pilots.
Anyway, as far as long-haul manned spaceflight goes, I can imagine a variety of fields it would jump-start development in that robotic flight wouldn't that would benefit us back here on earth.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/12/18 10:20:38
2013/12/18 10:33:26
Subject: Re:The Space exploration & technology discussion thread
Seaward wrote: But a better chance of success in the face of unanticipated difficulty.
But a much greater chance of having unanticipated difficulty in the first place (since the manned spacecraft is much more complex, has a whole range of life support systems that kill everyone when they fail, and has less payload capacity to spend on redundant backups), and much harsher consequences of failure. If your manned spacecraft suffers an unanticipated difficulty you're desperately trying to fix it and avoid killing the crew. If your robot suffers an unanticipated difficulty and crashes into mars you just send the next robot, and all you've lost is the inconvenience of having to wait to make another attempt. Or since you've saved so much money and payload capacity compared to the manned mission you already have a dozen more backup robots on the way to different landing sites, so you still accomplish most of your mission.
To repeat the Apollo 13 example all having a manned crew accomplished in that situation was making the stakes a lot higher. The mission was still a complete failure, the only difference with a robot mission would have been that NASA could have just saved themselves a lot of stress and crashed the whole mess into the moon to record some new impact data for the sensors previous missions had placed.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/12/18 10:35:18
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2013/12/18 11:00:57
Subject: Re:The Space exploration & technology discussion thread
Seaward wrote: But a better chance of success in the face of unanticipated difficulty.
But a much greater chance of having unanticipated difficulty in the first place (since the manned spacecraft is much more complex, has a whole range of life support systems that kill everyone when they fail, and has less payload capacity to spend on redundant backups), and much harsher consequences of failure. If your manned spacecraft suffers an unanticipated difficulty you're desperately trying to fix it and avoid killing the crew. If your robot suffers an unanticipated difficulty and crashes into mars you just send the next robot, and all you've lost is the inconvenience of having to wait to make another attempt. Or since you've saved so much money and payload capacity compared to the manned mission you already have a dozen more backup robots on the way to different landing sites, so you still accomplish most of your mission.
To repeat the Apollo 13 example all having a manned crew accomplished in that situation was making the stakes a lot higher. The mission was still a complete failure, the only difference with a robot mission would have been that NASA could have just saved themselves a lot of stress and crashed the whole mess into the moon to record some new impact data for the sensors previous missions had placed.
And so it begins again...
Unfortunately, it will lead to this and is the reason why we cannot have a conversation about it:
Peregrine wrote: Of course I attempt to discredit it, because it's wrong.
Which is essentially this:
d-usa wrote: "When the Internet sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending posters that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing strawmen. They're bringing spam. They're trolls. And some, I assume, are good people."
2013/12/18 11:15:14
Subject: Re:The Space exploration & technology discussion thread
Peregrine wrote: But a much greater chance of having unanticipated difficulty in the first place (since the manned spacecraft is much more complex, has a whole range of life support systems that kill everyone when they fail, and has less payload capacity to spend on redundant backups),
But a much more complex mission profile counters that. You can do a lot more with humans than you can with robots.
2013/12/22 15:21:41
Subject: The Space exploration & technology discussion thread
Well, There is a company who are actually planning to put a man in space, with plumbing parts, ethelene rocket fuel, and home-grown engineering.
Landing a man on the moon, apollo. Created hundreds of new jobs, inspired THOUSANDS of people to study rocketry, science and so forth instead of blue-collaring it.
Yeah, We can put satellites in LEO, and geosync orbit. Space culture, space research is ignored, or at best, put out of our minds.
To get to another planet, we could find out science from evolution on mars and Europa. New elements and new minerals.
The benefits of space exploration are too important to just ignore.
2013/12/29 01:59:23
Subject: Re:The Space exploration & technology discussion thread
No mention of this yet, possibly the most important launch ever for the ESA and has cosmologists doing back-flips in terms of what it represents. Loved reading about the background for it; they knew what they wanted to do, but had absolutely no idea how it could be achieved technically. Put a bunch of extremely bright people in a room and 20 years later it has been made a reality. Really sad this hasn't been featured more prominently in the mainstream media..
The Rosetta space probe chasing the comet 67P/Churyumov--Gerasimenko has probably woken up from its deep 2.5 year long slumber that took it nearly as far out as the Jupiter orbit and we will hear from it in a few hours:
Rosetta’s computer is programmed to carry out a sequence of events to re-establish contact with Earth on 20 January, starting with an ‘alarm clock’ at 10:00 GMT.
Immediately after, the spacecraft’s startrackers will begin to warm up, taking around six hours.
Then its thrusters will fire to stop the slow rotation. A slight adjustment will be made to Rosetta’s orientation to ensure that the solar arrays are still facing directly towards the Sun, before the startrackers are switched on to determine the spacecraft’s attitude.
Once that has been established, Rosetta will turn directly towards Earth, switch on its transmitter and point its high-gain antenna to send its signal to announce that it is awake.
Because of Rosetta’s vast distance – just over 807 million kilometres from Earth – it will take 45 minutes for the signal to reach the ground stations. The first opportunity for receiving a signal on Earth is expected between 17:30 GMT and 18:30 GMT.
Deep space tracking dishes will be listening out for the signal, starting with NASA’s ‘big ears’ – the 70 m-diameter station at Goldstone, California, followed by, as the Earth rotates, the Canberra station in eastern Australia. ESA's New Norcia 35 m antenna, in Western Australia, would be next in line to await the signal's arrival.
Here's a video of its flight trajectory through our solar system:
ESA Rosetta Twitter wrote:“Hello, world!"
7:18 PM - 20 Jan 2014
Apparently the device has warmed up, determined its position and orientation, and turned the main antenna towards earth to send us greetings from outer space.
Much earlier during its mission the probe send us a "selfie" during a Mars flyby:
Spoiler:
Let's hope we'll get to see some equally stunning images of the comet in the coming month.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/01/20 20:34:27
