35 Years ago today - Columbia STS1
Discussion
I would argue that commercial imperative is a relatively minor player when it comes to real exploration and related technologies. POLITICAL power and influence is by far and away much more influential. And most of that political pressure comes from fear - fear of being wiped out or invaded by "the bad guy" (whoever that may be and however real the threat of "the bad guy" might really be).
Don't forget that the first customer for a Wright Brothers aeroplane was the US Army.
Commercial concerns are great at exploiting technologies invented and developed in response to political imperatives.
Don't forget that the first customer for a Wright Brothers aeroplane was the US Army.
Commercial concerns are great at exploiting technologies invented and developed in response to political imperatives.
Eric Mc said:
I would argue that commercial imperative is a relatively minor player when it comes to real exploration and related technologies. POLITICAL power and influence is by far and away much more influential. And most of that political pressure comes from fear - fear of being wiped out or invaded by "the bad guy" (whoever that may be and however real the threat of "the bad guy" might really be).
Don't forget that the first customer for a Wright Brothers aeroplane was the US Army.
Commercial concerns are great at exploiting technologies invented and developed in response to political imperatives.
I think you are right for initial exploration, however, exploitation as you say needs to be commercially based.Don't forget that the first customer for a Wright Brothers aeroplane was the US Army.
Commercial concerns are great at exploiting technologies invented and developed in response to political imperatives.
For example, Columbus was funded politically but there were underlying commercial imperatives to find trade routes so once the initial exploration had been done it moved into an exploitation phase with privately funded "Missions" to exploit (well, exterminate) the locals.
The challenge with manned space flights is that robots do it cheaper and more effectively. Humans are great for exploring and adapting but for exploitation of a known situation we might as well use a robot. That's not something which has ever happened before - the King of Portugal couldn't send a fleet of robot ships across the Atlantic to haul back the gold ...
They weren't just hunting for gold. They were hunting for dominance over the rival superpowers of the day - and they were also hunting for souls - something we may find difficult to comprehend in the modern secular age. But at that time, possession of a person's soul and/or winning it for God was a major driver.
Indeed, you could say that the Space Race of the 1960s was also a fight for the souls of men. Maybe not from a religious sense but certainly from a political sense.
Kennedy famously gave his reasons for going to the moon and science didn't figure as the main reason at all. His main reasons were stated as follows -
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too".
He wanted the world to see that the US, and all it stood for, was man enough to accept the challenge that had been set by the Soviets - and he was determined that America would win that challenge.
Indeed, you could say that the Space Race of the 1960s was also a fight for the souls of men. Maybe not from a religious sense but certainly from a political sense.
Kennedy famously gave his reasons for going to the moon and science didn't figure as the main reason at all. His main reasons were stated as follows -
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too".
He wanted the world to see that the US, and all it stood for, was man enough to accept the challenge that had been set by the Soviets - and he was determined that America would win that challenge.
It's pretty hard to argue that putting a man in space is important when the worlds most advanced aeronautical nation is reducing men even up to 100 000 feet by using UAV's to efficiently do an operation. If unmanned is important at less than 100 000 feet, I am sure it is less important over it.
Unmanned mission to Pluto with stunning results or International Space station with the odd selfie and some "science"....?? Let me thinkum?
Imagine what we would know know about the solar system or more if we had spent all that on unmanned missions rather than getting carbon based life forms into earth orbit. Note also that every time a human dies on these missions there is a pause, a lot longer pause than with if an unmanned craft goes tits up.
Putting people into space is a political willy waving exercise to be honest.
Unmanned mission to Pluto with stunning results or International Space station with the odd selfie and some "science"....?? Let me thinkum?
Imagine what we would know know about the solar system or more if we had spent all that on unmanned missions rather than getting carbon based life forms into earth orbit. Note also that every time a human dies on these missions there is a pause, a lot longer pause than with if an unmanned craft goes tits up.
Putting people into space is a political willy waving exercise to be honest.
Gandahar said:
It's pretty hard to argue that putting a man in space is important when the worlds most advanced aeronautical nation is reducing men even up to 100 000 feet by using UAV's to efficiently do an operation. If unmanned is important at less than 100 000 feet, I am sure it is less important over it.
Unmanned mission to Pluto with stunning results or International Space station with the odd selfie and some "science"....?? Let me thinkum?
Imagine what we would know know about the solar system or more if we had spent all that on unmanned missions rather than getting carbon based life forms into earth orbit. Note also that every time a human dies on these missions there is a pause, a lot longer pause than with if an unmanned craft goes tits up.
Putting people into space is a political willy waving exercise to be honest.
I am afraid I would tend to disagree, although perhaps not for the reason you imagine. There are plenty of people who have a refrain of "we should sort out problems at home/on earth before doing anything else". They are probably related to a dead tribe in some African caves who were too busy "sorting out" to actually move on when the food ran out. Unmanned mission to Pluto with stunning results or International Space station with the odd selfie and some "science"....?? Let me thinkum?
Imagine what we would know know about the solar system or more if we had spent all that on unmanned missions rather than getting carbon based life forms into earth orbit. Note also that every time a human dies on these missions there is a pause, a lot longer pause than with if an unmanned craft goes tits up.
Putting people into space is a political willy waving exercise to be honest.
Robots are generally "not sexy". There has been barely any press about SpaceX landing a "robot" booster on a "robot" barge. A lamentable lack of coverage in fact. Ditto I have seen very little about Project Starshot on the mainstream media.
But you can guarantee if we sent Celebrity-of-the-week into orbit then there would be wall to wall coverage.
People with a scientific mind find it hard to realise that at least 50% (*) of the human race are only interested in other members of the human race and not in knowledge, exploration or anything else.
(*) Random statistic pulled out of thin air
Gandahar said:
stuff
It's not often I disagree with every single sentence in a post. So you wouldn't have done Apollo then, or even put anyone into orbit, you'd just be sitting at home firing toys about?
'I fired a toy at Mars. Ooh look it's taken a photo'. Well frankly, gosh. A win to the Gadget Show perhaps, but not to mankind.
In your world did anyone try to cross the Atlantic? Or even the Channel?
Max_Torque said:
Mike Mullane's book comes the closest to being able to put into words the mental stress of knowing that something you are deeply involved with has a very very good chance of killing you, but being unable, and in fact, unwilling to stop ones self from wanting and doing it!
Agreed.It shows that the urge to push oneself and do extraordinary things can be a bit like being a drug addict.
But where would we be without people like that?
Gandahar said:
It's pretty hard to argue that putting a man in space is important when the worlds most advanced aeronautical nation is reducing men even up to 100 000 feet by using UAV's to efficiently do an operation. If unmanned is important at less than 100 000 feet, I am sure it is less important over it.
Unmanned mission to Pluto with stunning results or International Space station with the odd selfie and some "science"....?? Let me thinkum?
Imagine what we would know know about the solar system or more if we had spent all that on unmanned missions rather than getting carbon based life forms into earth orbit. Note also that every time a human dies on these missions there is a pause, a lot longer pause than with if an unmanned craft goes tits up.
Putting people into space is a political willy waving exercise to be honest.
Cant disagree, unmanned missions are safer cheaper and you can still get the science, cars, drones and industry is hurtling down the autonomous path. To think that a human being present is essential is not the best way to get a return on the R&D budget there has to be a good case to place Man on another planet. Even if we place man on Mars in the next 30 years its not going to be mass migration or space tourism for a long long time if ever Unmanned mission to Pluto with stunning results or International Space station with the odd selfie and some "science"....?? Let me thinkum?
Imagine what we would know know about the solar system or more if we had spent all that on unmanned missions rather than getting carbon based life forms into earth orbit. Note also that every time a human dies on these missions there is a pause, a lot longer pause than with if an unmanned craft goes tits up.
Putting people into space is a political willy waving exercise to be honest.
Eric Mc said:
I still have three VHS tapes, full of contemporaneous tv coverage (news etc), and some audio cassettes of the flight. We forget, some of the tiles fell off! They did indeed - and very concerning it was too. There were also issues with shock damage caused by the ignition of the SRBs which damaged the rear body flap. The base of the External Tank was also much more severely scorched by the SRB exhaust than anybody had expected.
The launch of STS1 really was a leap into the unknown and I doubt that we will ever again see a manned maiden launch of a new spaceship.
The launch of STS1 really was a leap into the unknown and I doubt that we will ever again see a manned maiden launch of a new spaceship.
There's an interesting bit in "Into the Black" where it is mentioned that the Salyut3 orbiting station was armed! Apparently with some type of anti-aircraft gun. Which got me thinking, orbital mechanics would make for some tricking aiming, what with having to shoot below (earth side) any target at the same altitude as you? (on earth the sights are aligned so the gun fires high, and the bullet falls towards the earth as it travels towards it's target. in orbit, if you accelerate you move AWAY from Earth, ie to a higher orbit)
Max_Torque said:
There's an interesting bit in "Into the Black" where it is mentioned that the Salyut3 orbiting station was armed! Apparently with some type of anti-aircraft gun. Which got me thinking, orbital mechanics would make for some tricking aiming, what with having to shoot below (earth side) any target at the same altitude as you? (on earth the sights are aligned so the gun fires high, and the bullet falls towards the earth as it travels towards it's target. in orbit, if you accelerate you move AWAY from Earth, ie to a higher orbit)
Conventional propellant won't work in space... do you have the breech inside and the end pointing through a mini-airlock...? What nobody outside the higher echelons of the Soviet Administration and of course, the Soviet space programme knew at the time was that they were operating two separate space station programmes - a civilian one called Salyut and a military one called Almaz. Almaz was much more in line with the American Manned Orbiting Laboratory programme and the gun was for defending their station from attack.
The Soviets were convinced that the main purpose of the American Shuttle programme had to be connected with taking out or kidnapping Soviet satellites - or space stations.
They thought that all the NASA talk of "routine access to space" and bringing down launch costs was a cover for a more sinister programme. Part of the reason they thought this was because they could not see how a vehicle as complicated and as fragile as a Space Shuttle could actually achieve these "false" goals.
The Soviets were convinced that the main purpose of the American Shuttle programme had to be connected with taking out or kidnapping Soviet satellites - or space stations.
They thought that all the NASA talk of "routine access to space" and bringing down launch costs was a cover for a more sinister programme. Part of the reason they thought this was because they could not see how a vehicle as complicated and as fragile as a Space Shuttle could actually achieve these "false" goals.
Max_Torque said:
There's an interesting bit in "Into the Black" where it is mentioned that the Salyut3 orbiting station was armed! Apparently with some type of anti-aircraft gun. Which got me thinking, orbital mechanics would make for some tricking aiming, what with having to shoot below (earth side) any target at the same altitude as you? (on earth the sights are aligned so the gun fires high, and the bullet falls towards the earth as it travels towards it's target. in orbit, if you accelerate you move AWAY from Earth, ie to a higher orbit)
Unless it achieved earth escape velocity, wouldn't it eventually come back and shoot you in the arse?Simpo Two said:
Conventional propellant won't work in space... do you have the breech inside and the end pointing through a mini-airlock...?
A gun will work fine in space - the bullet powder contains an oxidiser, so no oxygen required.Edited by Halmyre on Wednesday 20th April 09:27
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