China, shooting for the moon

[Eric Mc]

A book I might well get hold of. I recently read the book from the same series on the lunar science programme element of Apollo.

[anonymous-user]

Personally, i'm not sure what putting a single man (or women, this is 2012 afterall(nearly!)) onto the surface of a planet really gets you these days.
Sure, you can do a bit of flag waving/planting, but our autonomous remote data gathering capability is so good that for 99.9% of scientific reasons you'd always send an unmanned probe now.

The only possible advantage to manned flight is to enable you to maintain a long term presence on a planet, rather than just go there, stick in your flag and hurry back home for tea and medals etc ??

[Eric Mc]

What's wrong with a long presence then?

That's where the US went wrong. They failed to consolidate the achievement of Apollo and essentially threw the whole effort away.

[anonymous-user]

Eric Mc said:

What's wrong with a long presence then?

That's where the US went wrong. They failed to consolidate the achievement of Apollo and essentially threw the whole effort away.

In a word COST

effectively rulling out any western long term space program for the next couple of decades ;-(

[Simpo Two]

Max_Torque said:

Personally, i'm not sure what putting a single man (or women, this is 2012 afterall(nearly!)) onto the surface of a planet really gets you these days. Sure, you can do a bit of flag waving/planting, but our autonomous remote data gathering capability is so good that for 99.9% of scientific reasons you'd always send an unmanned probe now.

The only possible advantage to manned flight is to enable you to maintain a long term presence on a planet, rather than just go there, stick in your flag and hurry back home for tea and medals etc ??

There is no *point* in doing anything, other than hunting for food and sex. There was no point in going to the Noth Pole, the South Pole, or to the top of Everest. Or running marathons or playing football. All completely pointless.

Practically speaking there are vast differences between sending intelligent trained humans and a Tonka toy - not just flag waving but in terms of what can be done, areas explored, decisions made, things fixed when they break. It really is totally different.

[Eric Mc]

Max_Torque said:

Eric Mc said:

What's wrong with a long presence then?

That's where the US went wrong. They failed to consolidate the achievement of Apollo and essentially threw the whole effort away.

In a word COST

effectively rulling out any western long term space program for the next couple of decades ;-(

Not as simple as that. It wasn't just cost that killed Apollo - it was the PERCEIVED waste associated with the Saturn V and lack of interest from the politicians and the public. America could have afforded to expand on Apollo - if they had chosen to do so. Instead they blew their space money on a makeshift, half cobbled together liability called the Space Shuttle.

[jmorgan]

The biggest advantage of any exploration is the Mark I attached to a brain and the muscle that goes with it. Man is needed at some point.

[jmorgan]

Max_Torque said:

Sure, you can do a bit of flag waving/planting, but our autonomous remote data gathering capability is so good that for 99.9% of scientific reasons you'd always send an unmanned probe now.

Why 99.9%? Imagine what a trained person on Mars can cover compared to a remote rover.

[Eric Mc]

It's nothing like 99.9%. I'd say it's barely 10%. The robot rover Curiosity launched just last month is the first truly multi-functional robotic exploration atempted on Mars (or anywhere else) and it will still fall far short of what humans could do if they were actually on the spot.

[anonymous-user]

jmorgan said:

Max_Torque said:

Sure, you can do a bit of flag waving/planting, but our autonomous remote data gathering capability is so good that for 99.9% of scientific reasons you'd always send an unmanned probe now.

Why 99.9%? Imagine what a trained person on Mars can cover compared to a remote rover.

Not for the same money it isnt! All the money you have to spend on developing "Life support" which gets more and more onerous the further one wants to travel away from the earth, and all the extra mass you need to launch to provide that support is therefore not availible to spend on the science bit. Robotic exploration, with specfic targeted abjectives is much much better value for money in terms of things learnt vs cost. (and it avoids that always slightly dicey political subject of having humans in places of high risk.........)

Take a look at what Spirit and Oportunity have acchieved over there extended mission! By now, any manned equivalent would have long faltered, even if its inital learning rate was higher. (assuming of course it ever landed safety!)

Regarding the "because it's there" comment, i totally agree, as humans we need to push the boundaries, do new things etc. But landing a man on the moon for the single sake of saying "we have landed a man on the moon" etc is pointless (as it was done 40 years ago!)#


In a perfect world, we would develop the capability for long range, long duration manned exploration of our planet system and beyond. But, we don't live in a perfect world, commercial and political pressures abound. With the world now balanced on what could be a significant economic downturn, and with ever more people voicing the concern that before we look away we should put our own house in order i cannot see a near future time where the budget for a reliable (safe, efficient etc) extended space program will exisit??

Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 31st December 19:31

[jmorgan]

Problem is not doing makes doing it hard. We should have been using the Moon as a handy sand pit for years. The means is there, perfecting it is next and that can have many benefits to us on lowly Erf. The rovers I think had an initial mission time of 90 days? Pretty good engineering. If contact was lost they were lost. Looking forwards to the new one.

The Apollo missions did quite a lot with the human on the end of the sensory inputs. Orange soil or the core samples that took quite a bit of effort for example.

[Eric Mc]

Even though Spirit and Opportunity were great successes, they were/are extremely limited in what they can do. In the 7 years they have been on the planet, they have covered a distance a human could have covered in a couple of days - on foot.

The new rover, Curiosity, will be much more capable but will still have limitations.

Edited by Eric Mc on Sunday 1st January 10:35

[Simpo Two]

Sending robots to take a scoop of sand is not the same achievement as sending a man to do it.


Can't imagine the great leaders getting very far with:

'We choose to do these things because they are easier and cheaper'

'We will run away from the beaches'

'I don't have a dream'

[jmorgan]

Bedazzled said:

People aren't comparing apples with apples here, the Mars Spirit and Opportunity rovers were built on a relative shoestring with a budget of less than $1 billion compared with $200 billion for the Apollo programme (in present day $). Just think what could be achieved using the latest automation technology and a similar budget; far more than a couple of Michelin Men kicking up the dust.

Not sure what the comparison is but 19.5 million in 1973 (end of program) for a 13 year program.

What happens when the core drill on a rover gets stuck? OK, have to plan for that, take easy samples, leave the good stuff in the ground. Get a bloke on the end of it and he will get blisters trying rather than a strain gauge say stop.

Edit. looks like 1968 took 70% of NASA budget.

Loot divy

Edited by jmorgan on Sunday 1st January 10:57

[Eric Mc]

NASA's peak budget was Fiscal Year 1966. That is when much of the infrastructure for Apollo was being built. And it needs to be remembered that although the last Apollo flightb was in July 1975, most of the infrastructure built for Apollo continued to be used right up to the last Shuttle flight last July. Depending on what happens next for NASA manned spaceflight. a lot of that infrastructure will continue to be used for many more years.

[jmorgan]

Was going to edit but not sure I have the right figures.

Ah you dopy git (meaning me). Just spotted it, I am not adding the years up.



I shall go around the back and shoot myself.

Dopy is having a bad day with numbers, there is already a total.

Edited by jmorgan on Sunday 1st January 11:24

Edited by jmorgan on Sunday 1st January 11:27

[anonymous-user]

So how will china film their one then..

[Eric Mc]

The way the Apollo expeditions were recorded - with the latest TV and imaging technology available.

[Eric Mc]

jmorgan said:

Was going to edit but not sure I have the right figures.

Ah you dopy git (meaning me). Just spotted it, I am not adding the years up.



I shall go around the back and shoot myself.

Dopy is having a bad day with numbers, there is already a total.

Edited by jmorgan on Sunday 1st January 11:24

Edited by jmorgan on Sunday 1st January 11:27

The general consensus is that the Apollo programme cost around $24 billion in 1960s dollars. That covers the entire spend from inception (which was actually in 1959 - not 1961) up to the final Apollo flight (Apollo-Soyuz of 1975). So, $24 billion over a 16 year period is not too bad - especially considering that another 36 years at least of further use of the much of the basic infrastructure was also obtained.

[jmorgan]

The Spruce goose said:

So how will china film their one then..

In HD and 3d and smello vision.