RadioBanter - View Single Post - BTW Stevie were watch the news lately about NASA

October 8th 05, 09:08 AM

wrote:
K4YZ wrote:
wrote:
K4YZ wrote:
MY biggest disappointment is that we are as close to Mars
as we've
been in centuries, but we don't have a manned mission there yet.

???

Not sure what you mean, Steve.

I MEAN that my biggest disappointment is that we are as close to
Mars as we've been in centuries, but we don't have a manned
mission
there yet. How was that confusing?

The distance from Earth to Mars varies from when the two planets are
right next to each other in their orbits (about 35 million miles) to
when they are opposite each other, with the Sun in between (well over
210 million miles).

The minimum distance varies with each orbit - is that what you meant?

No...

(This IS Jim Miccolis, right...?!?!)

I MEAN that my biggest disappointment is that we don't have a
manned mission on Mars yet.

Yes, I know it would be dangerous.

Yes, I know it would be expensive.

Yes, I know there are thousands of technological hurdles to
overcome. "T'aint nuttin' new"

Going to Mars is at least 100 times more difficult than going to the
moon. Mars never gets closer than 30 million miles - more
than 100
times farther away than the moon. A Mars mission would be
years long
rather than a week or two. Martian gravity and atmosphere
make the
problems even worse.

Yep...But...

It's been over 30 years since we've walked on the moon. We got
there in a bit over 9 years from President Kennedy's
challenge to do
so.

Yep. Think about *why* the USA was able to do it.

I know why, Jim...Money and govenmental subsidies witha bit of
technological application.

And if it took 9 years to get to the moon, and Mars is 100 times
harder, that works out to 900 years!

You're being facetious.

We've squandered those intervening years on LEO manned
missions.

I'd hardly say they were "squandered". Other things took precedence.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh....TIVO and HBO.

Astronomers and scientists knew then when Mars would be in an
Earth-Mars-Earth (In this thread if I refer to EME, this is
what I
mean...Not EME as in "moonbounce")-transit favorable trajectory.

And they know all the problems. One of them is that with any known
practical rocket technology, a mission to Mars will take *years*. With
no hope of rescue from Earth if anything serious goes wrong.

I discussed that below.

Also...there was no hope of rescue when Cloumbus shoved off...So
again, what's new?

There have been hundreds of plans put forth using AVAILABLE
technology and resources to get there...All we had to do was
pick one and get started.

The plans are only basic outlines. They require lots of development to
become reality.

Uh huh. And what did I say?

Pick one and get busy.

Just ONE plan that seemed practical enough (or at least made the
most sense) to me was one to send the necessary resources for
life
support in a series of UN-manned "pre-missions" while the
manned vessel
was prepared in Earth orbit.

Of course. The first missions would be one-way supply ships that would
orbit Mars for years, waiting for people to show up. They could go at
very slow speeds to maximize the usable payload.

Resources would be pre-positioned both on
Mars and along the way.

Pre-positioning "along the way" isn't practical. The only really
practical place to put a supply cache is in Martian orbit.

Placing a satellite into a known, predictable orbit isn't
practical?

Since when?

Not one man had to spend a day in orbit until
the "package" was in place.

More like "packages", so that the mission would not depend on any
single component.

In military parlance, when the entire mission is ready to go, THAT
is "the package".

Sorry to confuse you even more.

Now consider how much payload would have to be sent ahead. We're
talking *tons* of supplies and equipment, all of which would have to be
still usable after *years* in space. Sure it can be done, but it's not
easy, fast or inexpensive.

There's not one word from me saying it is. However water doesn't
decay into anything else, and we have pretty reliable technologies when
it comes to preserving our foodstuffs. An we've already proven we can
work in space to "fix stuff".

If it costs $100-200 billion or more to go to the moon, what would Mars cost?

Who cares?

Those of us who have to pay the bills!

I've already shown where those "investments" come home.

The PRESENT Space program has already generated TRILLIONS of
dollars in new technology and incentives since July, 1969..

Like what?

Start off with the PC, iPod, new textiles, and communications
technologies.

And can you guarantee that the money would not have been better
spent on direct problem solving?

Can you show me where direct problem solving is doing as well?

Everyone is hoo-yah'ing over the Rutan/X-Prize flights and
ballyhooing the emerging commercial space market, but while admirable,
they are ony re-inventing the wheel.

Imagine
where we COULD have been...?!?!

Do you remember the 1970s? I do.

Uh huh...And I didn't have a PC or iPod then.

All through the 1950s and 1960s, "aerospace" was the big deal.
Incredible resources were poured into the space programs and "defense".
We were told our future would be like that shown on "The Jetsons".

But when the supply of cheap oil disappeared in the early 1970s, we
found ourselves unable to produce a decent "economy" car. "Aerospace"
didn't help the folks in the gas lines.

Was it supposed to? Where are the claims? Who said that?

Meanwhile the Japanese and Europeans already had lots of good economy
cars. It's taken the US auto industry decades to catch up.

Japanese and Europeans were used to living on streets narrow
enough to tll what the guy next door had for breakfast without parting
the shades. Americans were use to having "the wide open spaces" and
cheap gas.

So...where was the incentive to make itty-bitty gas sippers? That
wasn't what the American market wanted. Even now more and more SUV's
are rolling off the lines...even Honda and Suzuki have gotten on the
band wagon.

Now we're set to repeat that history.

Probably. And Americans STILL can't be told to start spending
money on trains and subways.

Maybe we would have had our CURRENT level of technology 15 or 20
years ago?

How? And current level of which technology?

Now you're treating me like an idiot, Jim.

Just think...If we'd pared only $10B from each YEAR'S defense
budget since 1970, we'd have "only" spent $360B now, which is
about 1
1/2 years military budget over THIRTY-SIX years...And wudda had an
American flag and American footprints on TWO astronomical
bodies by
now.

Imagine if that money had gone into energy independence instead.

But wait! You've previously suggested such is the realm of the
commercial entities. So why aren't THEY doing it?

If we're going to have a tit-for-tat about the bottom-line
practicality of going, Jim, I'm not up for it.

I am. That's what engineering is all about - dealing with *real*
problems.

Obviously not in this case (travel to Mars).

It's easy to blue-sky what coulda-woulda-shoulda been done. It's a lot
tougher to actually do the things.

No kidding?

Seems to me that a certain, since deceased, President of the
United States said we were going to to the moon not because it was
easy, but because it WAS hard.

If you don't want to take a long
serious look at just how difficult and expensive a manned Mars trip
would be, please don't lecture us about what
should have been done.

Jim, you're wanting to explain away why we languished for 36 years
on what would have been the feat of TWO millenium...OK...But the FACTS
are we did absolutely NOTHING to facilitate this mission.

Nothing.

Anyone can
"successfully" argue that it's going to "cost" time, money and
resources to go. Even lives. But EVERY expedition of
exploration in
man's time has cost money up front and lives along the way.

Of course. And some times it was worth it. Other times it wasn't.

So...Which ones were worth it, and on the UNsuccessful ones, do
you think the participants thought that thier lives were worth it?

The REAL
bottom line is that we could have done this a LONG time ago if we'd only said "Let's Do It."

But "we" didn't, because "we" didn't think it was worth the costs.

"We" didn't do it becasue we had just come out of Viet Nam and
already landed 12 men on the moon...thier attention span was short and
ready to move on.

So...If we're to accept your apparent suggestion that
short-sightedness is an excuse for not pursuing research and
exploration, let's just go ahead and kill the ENTIRE space program,
Jim...I mean, afterall, MOST folks shrug thier shoulders and dismiss it
as science fiction...UNTIL you start pointing out the in-their-face
examples of what seemingly non-porductive research does to better thier
daily lives.

And I think "we" made the right decision.

I don't.

I thinnk that it's humiliating to have had it at our discretion to
do this thing and have not done it. It's like Jonas Salk looking
through his microscope, then saying, whelp, that was fun...

Back to NASA...The technologies in my chosen profession
alone that
have benefitted from the Space Program are phenominal. I think if we
pulled the rug out from under it any time soon, the "trickle down"
effect in lost of impetus in technology development would be rapid and
deep felt.

Can you guarantee that those advances would not have
happened if the
money had been spent on research in the fields
directly affected? IOW,
why not simply go after a problem directly?

In industrialized society's history, major technological
advancements have MOSTLY followed (1) war, (2) captialist investment for profit (3) government subsidy to do research in that field (usually the impetus of, again, war).
There are certainly exceptions to the rule, radio being one of them.
"Radio" was not developed by governmental subsidy, nor was it the
product of an 18th century "Motorola" but was the "product" of private
inventors.

BINGO!

Thank-you for agreeing with me.

The same was mostly true of computers. Oh yes, the first real computer,
ENIAC, was built for the Army to compute artillery aiming tables. But
it was built on the work of earlier machines like the Atasinoff-Berry
Computer. And only one ENIAC was ever built. Its successors came from
private industry, for commercial purposes.

Uh huh...and had the government NOT poured millions of dollars
into this, providing untold collateral research opportunities, how much
longer until commercial systems filled in the holes?

As a matter of fact, considering the times, if you take away the
military and space programs, what WAS the incentive for such computing
systems?

No, I can't guarantee that those advances would not have
occured...but WHEN would they have occured?

Nobody knows.

Certainly NOT in the time
frame that they have.

Why not?

Because they haven't yet, and even Associate degree sociology
programs show the direct link between the advancement of technology and
warfare. There was a parallel rise during the "space race".

The fact is that we've avoided making serious longterm plans to solve
some basic technological problems in the USA. That avoidance has cost
us dearly, and will cost us more, until we
tackle the problems head-on rather than expecting some silver bullet to
do it for us.

I agree...Mass transit...universal healthcare...housing and
feeding the poor.

Now imagine spending the monies I suggested on a new "space race",
this time one shared with other nations...Not all of that money goes
into "research"...There are salaries to be paid, goods to be bought and
sold, and new means of transportation and communications to be
installed.

Collateral good instead of collateral damage.

THAT would be amazing.

73

Steve, K4YZ