Woodruff wrote:safariguy5 wrote:This actually brings up a good point. The ISS is an international project with multinational support. We've had enough problems with "violation of sovereign airspace" in the past, don't expect me to believe that continued government R&D will focus solely on astronomy and cosmology and ignore the military applications of space weaponry. I think a degree of privatization is appropriate because the private companies would have a vested interest in keeping space demilitarized.
That's a nice thought, but it's really not true at all. In fact, I think privatization leads MORE toward that (as they can then SELL to the government).
Well then it would play out one of two ways. Either the companies sell to EVERYONE or they sell to nobody. When we talk about privatization, I refer to the people paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to take a trip into space. My metric is what is immediately feasible in the coming years, not necessarily the Star Wars defense of Reagan. If we eventually get to the point where people want to live in hotels in space and there is a tourism market, the companies running transportation and operating the facilities would absolutely lobby against armament buildup because warfare is the ultimate drag on tourism.
Of course I'm no expert, so if there's a private company out there developing space lasers or something, I suppose this argument is kaput. But last I checked, DARPA wasn't handing out million dollar prizes for building a lightsaber.
TA1LGUNN3R wrote:Maugena wrote:TA1LGUNN3R wrote:I personally think that manned flight, however, should be all but scrapped. Robotics ftw. With an advance in robotics, we could achieve space exploration much easier, efficiently, cheaper, and safer. I've read but little on the subject, but manned space flight is ridiculously expensive. Now, atm robotics is lacking, but I think an advance in robotics would not only advance our space programs but also pretty much everything else. So that would probably be my one caveat.
We could colonize like BvP suggested once we've actually perfected space travel.
-TG
I disagree with this. You can't foresee all of the problems that would arise for manned flight, thus, though I think it is more or less a terrible thing to say, we should learn from trial and error. It's the only way we'd actually get anywhere. Thankfully there's still the space station, so we can continue to learn from that, for now.
You're kinda making my point. Failures or even less than stellar successes in costly manned flight only serve to hold back the field. This would apply to either gov't spending or privatization, which is why we've got the imminent demise of space exploration atm.
Who's going to continue to foot the bill when and if we have multi-billion failures that result in death and loss of profits, which atm is hitting the wallets of taxpayers? If we advance robotics, the costs of both running a program and possible failures are much cheaper, plus it would open the field to more private companies entering into space exploration (if we assume privatization).
And, like I said, an advance in robotics would benefit pretty much every industry and economy. Who really cares that we have guys who can ride in a rocket? Their use is limited to one or two fields (they could go on to pilot other aircraft??), whereas the effects of advancing robotics is widespread.
-TG
From an engineering standpoint, tails is absolutely correct. Besides the whole issue of "human error", humans are incredibly fragile things with very specific needs in space (air, food, living space, pressurized cabins, waste disposal, light). If we move towards robotic technology, we'd save space and cut down on all the necessities a human crew would need.
Short of the robots going all HAL on us, I think it would be easier to send unmanned crews into space unsexy as it sounds. The one drawback is that it would preclude any plans for colonization for quite awhile.
