A bet - Adrian and Josh - discussion

clark · 2004-11-21 08:33:51

:laugh:

BWhite · 2004-11-21 09:50:33

i win.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.htm … 3]Congress Fully Funds NASA - $16.2 Billion Funds Shuttle, ISS & Clears Way for Vision to Start
The mad rantings of a one-eyed lunatic... go figure.

It wasn't supposed to be this close. . .

clark · 2004-11-21 12:35:53

[sigh] okay. wait and watch.

Nasa with an increased budget in a time when every other department is being slashed. Nasa with a timeline to end the shuttle program. Nasa with a new vision, laid out by Presidential decree, which has been clamored for for years by space advocates. Nasa getting out of the launch business and into the customer of launch's. Nasa with prize money for the very things they are supposed to be doing. Nasa with a new mandate that places human exploration as being the point. Nasa with an emphasis of solving the problems related to people in space, not just the science of space.

Nasa pursuing nuclear propulsion. America with a goal for a moonbase between 2015-2020. Nasa doing all of this to send human explorers to the friggin red planet, fourth from the sun.

I told you. I told you. I told you.

:laugh:

BWhite · 2004-11-21 14:39:40

Is the VSE led by

Sagan-auts;

von Braun-ians; or

O'Neillians?

Josh Cryer · 2004-11-22 00:37:43

The bet was worded strictly for a reason. :;):

If Zubrin doesn't think the vision holds water... well... whatever.

Bill has already argued all the fine points for a Mars-base for me (futility of keeping the Shuttle a day longer, SDV being a necessary requirement in the near term, and so on).

Oink oink.

clark · 2004-11-22 07:11:46

Bill, how are you defining the various approaches?

It seems it would be a von Braun type approach...

As for what Zubrin thinks, well, I better just leave that alone. :laugh:

Josh Cryer · 2004-11-22 14:40:22

Don't bite Bill.

clark knows you and him have had many discussions regarding those subjects. :;): All of which you easily won.

And what's wrong with what Zubrin thinks? He's a standup guy, and certainly his position on Mars is closer to the wording of the bet. :;):

clark · 2004-11-22 14:56:41

Oh, when Administrator's turn troll!

Discussions? I've had a few. You're all nuts.

The reason I likened VSE to Braun is because Braun advocated a steping stone approach to space exlporation where we built off the previous experience and infrastructure. Gradully building up technical know how and capabilities till the point where we opened it all up.

Sagan is about the science, people are kind of secondary. At least in my take of him. It's about pushing the boundaries of science, not really about exploring with people for the sake of getting them out there.

O'Neil, now there is a beuatiful visonary! Not to settle for a planet or a star, no, no, no- his call was for giant Mc-Stations that churn out more stations (and solar power sats) and mankind filling up the empty void from here to the Oort Cloud. He said nuts to the planets.

As for Zubrin, sure, he's a stand up guy, but if he supported colonization of Mars, he wouldn't support Mars Direct. But he does, because he likes to sell books. Cynical? Perhaps. But then, one need only look at Apollo, our experience with a rush job, to realize that Mars Direct is just Apollo Redeux.

It also dosen't make sense to go half cocked on a multi-billion dollar program until the assurance of success if greater than 50-50. One way rides to Mars and the like just serve to point out the utter desperation of the whole premise that we are ready for Mars. Fanciful accounting and shell games galore ought to show that the resources are not quite there given the technological base.

But I digress, I'm wrong, always been wrong, and will continue to be wrong. But think about this Josh-o, now with NASA given it's budget, now with a mandate, now with Republican control of Congress and Bush looking to cement a legacy, what do you think he is going to talk about come next year?

He didn't talk about NASA so as not to politicize and taint the well. Now it's done. They passed a budget increase for NASA when both the House and Senate wanted to cut her down (by about a billion or more). Yet it went through.

It went through because someone in the White House wanted it. They will do something with this now. So, wait and watch.

Josh Cryer · 2004-11-22 15:13:30

As for Zubrin, sure, he's a stand up guy, but if he supported colonization of Mars, he wouldn't support Mars Direct. But he does, because he likes to sell books. Cynical? Perhaps. But then, one need only look at Apollo, our experience with a rush job, to realize that Mars Direct is just Apollo Redeux.

Mars Direct is a "cheap way" to get to Mars. It's not the "best way." Zubrin supports it because it's the best shot he has at getting to Mars, certainly waiting for some (unnecessary) highway to be built will put him in his late 80s, and he'll not even be an option by then (however, at least now he might have a shot at getting his named pulled out of a lottery of scientists; which again may be unlikely).

But once Mars Direct was built, subsequent versions could be built for pennies, in comparasion, so it is indeed a viable colonization scenario. Throw some CELSS in there (as I always maintain is necessary) and I'd be on board. Mass producted Mars Direct is the quickiest way to get colonization started.

clark · 2004-11-22 15:22:54

No, it's not.

Mars Direct relies on interminentant launch schedules that does nothing to lead towards innovation and reduce the cost of future launches. Apollo got us to the Moon, did we stay? No. Why? Because there wasn't enough reason given the cost.

There is no need to rush to Mars, other than to salve the ego of one particular space advocate.

Subsquent versions cannot, and will not be built for pennies the same way they weren't built for Apollo. Pushing the bleeding edge of technology to do something is only half of the problem. The major hold up for the likes of everyone else down here on earth is for the cost of this technology- the cost of barriers to access and utilize space, to come down to the point where eccentric yahoo's can titilate their dementia and psychosis.

Little boys who become rich now have the money to play rocket man? How, why? Because costs associated have come down to the level, and wealth aquisition has risen to the level, where they can indulge their little sci-fi fantasy.

Mars colonizationain't going to happen till launch costs come down. Mars Direct does nothing for that. All it will do is siphon off resources that can go to building the infrastructure where we need it- at L1, Moon, LEO, and GEO. Half the battle is getting off good ol mother earth- once we are there, then we can go anywhere. Going to Mars ala Mars Direct will only hinder our progress for another 30 years.

BWhite · 2004-11-22 15:32:00

Lets just say Mr. Tumlinson has some interesting points on these topics. So I am now 2/3rds a Zubrin guy and 1/3 a Tumlinson guy. But Zubrin has the enginnering nailed.

CEV is all about selling rope, nothing more and "MoonMars" is one word, not two.

IMHO there is no economic reason to go to the Moon, except maybe practice. And given the presence of CHONs on Mars, living on Mars actually will be easier than on the Moon. Paul Spudis thinks we need maybe 50 years of lunar "practice" before we go to Mars. To that I say, NO!

And it takes less rocket fuel to drop 100 kilos of supplies on Mars than on the Moon. It just takes longer.

Place a chess knight on square e2. e3 seems closer but in reality, g6 is closer to e2 than e3.

Josh Cryer · 2004-11-22 15:33:39

Mars colonizationain't going to happen till launch costs come down. Mars Direct does nothing for that.

SDV could potentially bring launch costs down considerably. Especially if oversight was maintained, rather than lots of pork barreling.

There's nothing wrong with "interminentant launch schedules" as you have to start somewhere. The early American pioneers (uh oh, it's been awhile since I mentioned them, eh?) didn't need some superhighway to be built. And I don't think it's fair to have that as a prerequisite to start colonization.

Once you have the little colonies on Mars, once you have infrastructure that will let you expand, then the highway will be built, naturally.

clark · 2004-11-22 15:35:23

I thought we were supposed to be playing GO.

So I'll bite, who is Tumlinson?

Perhaps CEV is about selling rope, but I'm inclined to believe that it isn't quite so certain. There are a few pressures that are at work that make "business as usual" as detremental to overall policy needs.

BWhite · 2004-11-22 15:35:53

Low cost launchers?

Mass produce Thiokol RSRMs with RL-10 upper stages.

Increase the Thiokol RSRM mass ratio to 92.5/7.5 by using composites and plastics instead of aluminium and cost per pound should fall below $750 per pound.

RL-10s are no more complex than gas turbine helo engines which cost less than $100,000 each, not $3 million.

Separate crew and cargo and send up crew in Kliper or Elon Musk's Falcon V.

Launch costs ARE cheap today if your goal is not to buy as much rope as possible.

= = =

Killer point, IMHO. Will anyone CARE about a go slow return to the Moon? Excetp a tiny handful of space fans?

Did funding for the VSE crack the news cycle anywhere except with Keith Cowing and Jeff Foust?

Shaun Barrett · 2004-11-22 18:58:23

I know this isn't my party but I'm a Mars Direct fan and I agree with Bill on virtually every point he's made, Josh too.

I don't really see why Mars Direct is perceived by some as another Apollo-type dead end. Actually Apollo didn't have to be a dead end itself; it just turned out that way. The hardware for Apollo was evolving quickly, mission by mission, and there were some very promising plans being made for future landings. And it seems likely to me that production-line manufacture of Saturn V parts would have reduced basic costs as time went by.
Apart from the political situation back in the early seventies, I think the lunar program died, as much as anything else, for the simple reason that the Moon is a relatively boring place, at least in the mind of the average 'person-in-the-street'. (That's heresy to lunar scientists of course! And for reasons I understand very well. But the argument is, I think, still valid.)

Initially, Mars Direct would look a lot like Apollo. But I think the key difference is that each mission would leave a functional Habitation Module on the surface, whereas each Apollo landing left only the spent descent stage of the Lunar Module, some instruments, and some garbage!
From memory, once a string of Habs had been left at strategic points all around Mars - Habs that could be pressed into service again later as exploration outposts, once resupplied with consumables - the idea was to land subsequent Habs in a cluster at the most suitable spot and join them up into a permanently manned proto-colony.

Mars Direct is a relatively cheap modular exploration/colonisation system which would enable the staged and achievable build-up of a human presence on Mars, starting almost immediately. The science return would be staggering and the psychological, hence inspirational, hence educational and technological spin-offs would fuel a surge in human advancement we can only dimly perceive from our present vantage point.

The Moon has, at best, only marginal utility for the testing of Mars hardware under real space conditions; marginal because the conditions on the Moon and Mars are almost completely different. The day/night-length is totally different, the temperature range is very different, the intensity of sunlight is very different, the weather (or lack thereof) is totally different, the gravitational acceleration is very different, and the availability of accessible volatiles is radically different.
Add in the mathematics of how much it will cost to go to Mars via the Moon and the picture of pointless incompatibility is complete.
You might as well suggest an athlete should practise hard at archery to prepare for the Olympic finals in the shot-put!

Yep, I'm a Mars Direct fan! (Just expressing an opinion and rehashing the reasons for it.)

BWhite · 2004-11-22 20:11:16

I know this isn't my party but I'm a Mars Direct fan and I agree with Bill on virtually every point he's made, Josh too.

:up:

= = =

Come one, clark. This is NewMars.

Folks are waiting to stomp all over you Luna-tics.

Practice on the Moon? Yeah, okay, I guess. But don't forget that old Jewish saying. . .

clark · 2004-11-23 07:37:14

know this isn't my party but I'm a Mars Direct fan and I agree with Bill on virtually every point he's made, Josh too.

The more the merrier. Feel free, I do. :laugh:

Come one, clark. This is NewMars.

Ah, no approaching the sacred cow? Politics, religion, gender, we can bloody our noses, it's all fine. But not this?

I'm not a luna-tic, and the moon ain't a whore. All quips aside, and to be honest, I don't share this lust for Mars that is so prevalent here. I have tried to understand it, I have tried to embrace it, I have lied to myself, misled myself, but you know what, it isn't in me.

It isn't in a lot of people.

It rained last night. I listened to the rain fall gently against the window. I felt the water softly falling on my hands and face as I strolled outside and heard the wind and rain rustle the few remaining leaves left in this autumn. There isn't a star in the heavens I would give this up for- yet that is precisely what Mars is. It is loss, it is poverty.

You yourself talk about the need to have children in space- to be a space faring civilization. I find it odd that people might want to bequeath to their children a lack of sense. A lack of snow, of spring flowers wild and in bloom, of rivers, natural or man made to lose yourself in and escape from the oppressive heat. The feeling of wind and imagining shapes in clouds or flying kites.

Instead to submit to the ever constant danger you submit to by living in a situation where machinery, glass and plastic is all that keeps you alive.

The boy in the bubble. Generations of them. Everything domesticated and tame. Everything proscribed and regimented. Of course there is a silver lining to all of this, but it doesn’t quite sparkle as much as you might think.

Anyway, Mars Direct is no colonization. Mars direct is about sending a handful of scientists at less cost for greater risk. Colonization is thrown in as a sound bite to garner larger support among the sci-fi crowd.

Mars Direct is a program to rush to Mars without a reason to rush. Therefore, once we reach Mars, there is no more need to rush, so there is even less reason to continue.

As much as we may wish it, NASA is not about Mars. NASA isn't about colonization. The federal government and society isn't about one particular planet either. There has to be more of a fundamental reason to go to Mars, and stay on Mars, than is being articulated now.

To find life? Okay, is sending a fast burn approach to Mars that leaves items that will contaminate the Martian surface to such an extent that it undermines the search for life really sensible? No.

To spread humanities seed? Okay, is sending humans on a fast burn approach the most sensible way to enter into what can only be a multi-generational quest? No.

Of you all want to colonize the red planet, we have to do it slowly. We have to build up massive infrastructure in near space to enable people to get off this rock and get to Mars. We have to become masters of resource utilization and CLESS systems first, not scientists with theories and assumptions that it will all work out.

I would support Mars Direct if it were more honest. If it simply stopped pretending to be about colonization or about furthering our reach. It isn't. It is a plan to get to Mars as quickly as possible, and sacrifices safety and coherency in the name of one singular goal.

BWhite · 2004-11-23 10:14:43

Of you all want to colonize the red planet, we have to do it slowly. We have to build up massive infrastructure in near space to enable people to get off this rock and get to Mars. We have to become masters of resource utilization and CLESS systems first, not scientists with theories and assumptions that it will all work out.

How do we pay for this infrastructure if it fails to make any return on investment? Spend trillions on ISS like habitats?

Who will pay for that, any why?

Retired General Mike Worden spoke in Boston and asserted that one major proponent of the "spiral development" concept is now in prison. I have yet to google for details or to verify the exact facts. He also said every military project following the "spiral development" model has had cost overruns with less than expected results.

= = =

Some things are best done slowly. Others are best done fast. Cross the tipping point.

What if the Pilgrims had decided to anchor the Mayflower 300 miles east of Plymouth Rock, you know, to go slowly.

What is there to learn in space?

Radiation kills? Yup, true.

Micro-gravity ruins your bones? Yup, true again.

= = =

Why would anyone want to leave Earth? Seems to me those that do not shouldn't create artificial roadblocks.

Why would anyone leave England for the wilds of Massachusetts?

We have to become masters of resource utilization and CLESS systems first, not scientists with theories and assumptions that it will all work out.

Where is the VSE is there ANY money for CELSS? Or lower cost Earth to LEO lift?

= = =

It rained last night. I listened to the rain fall gently against the window. I felt the water softly falling on my hands and face as I strolled outside and heard the wind and rain rustle the few remaining leaves left in this autumn. There isn't a star in the heavens I would give this up for- yet that is precisely what Mars is. It is loss, it is poverty.

Edit: clark, you have basically said that anyone who seeks to leave this beautiful Earth "must be a madman" (my words) - - okay that may well be a legitimate point I have mixed feelings about. Life on Mars will be cold, nasty, claustrophic, brutal and often fatal.

Buit if you are correct, then will we EVER be ready to go no matter how much we spend on infastructure and research?

If we are not going to become spacefaring then I say shut down the entire program and use NASA's money for something else. This is the precise question William Langeweische raised in his January 1st essay for The Atlantic.

= = =

What's the rush? Many reasons. Here is one.

A drive to go "out there" can serve as a release valve for the pressures which come from too many ideologies crowded into too small a container. Not the raw numbers of people, per se, but the numbers of conflicting ideologies that have no hope of advancement except by fighting their rivals.

clark · 2004-11-23 10:46:35

How do we pay for this infrastructure if it fails to make any return on investment?

Sell ad space.

Apollo failed to make a return on investment. The Shuttle. Voyager. Hubble. ISS, space station Freedom, Gemini, etc.

The research though is what pays off. The furthering of our scientific and technological understangins and capabilities.

You also seem to be under the impression that VSE is supposed to lead to colonization. It isn't. It isn't about colonization, and it isn't just about the Moon and it isn't just about Mars. It's about all of the solar system. It's about going back and going further.

Lift your head up and look beyond Mars. What do you see?

What if the Pilgrims had decided to anchor the Mayflower 300 miles east of Plymouth Rock, you know, to go slowly.

Give it some context Bill. From the point of Colombus to the Mayflower, how many centuries passed? How much time went by?

We've been at this space thing for 40 years. We haven't contemplated going back to the Moon in 35 years.

What is there to learn in space?
Radiation kills? Yup, true.
Micro-gravity ruins your bones? Yup, true again.

Ways to cope and mitigate is what we should be doing. VSE will lead to that since it places human exploration as the neccessity. NASA has it's marching orders- figure out how to keep people alive up there.

Why would anyone want to leave Earth? Seems to me those that do not shouldn't create artificial roadblocks.

What artifical roadblock?

Why would anyone leave England for the wilds of Massachusetts?

Mars is not. No air. No water. Nothing green. No rain. No wind. No flowers. No birds. No fish. No clouds. It is barren and dead and cold and the only thing special about it is that it happens to be another planet that isn't earth.

Where is the VSE is there ANY money for CELSS? Or lower cost Earth to LEO lift?

Sending humans on long duration missions or creating bases underground on the moon will force the development of this technology. Won't happen till Shuttle is retired though. [shrug]

clark · 2004-11-23 10:52:54

Edit: clark, you have basically said that anyone who seeks to leave this beautiful Earth "must be a madman" (my words) - - okay that may well be a legitimate point I have mixed feelings about. Life on Mars will be cold, nasty, claustrophic, brutal and often fatal.

Yes. Nuts. Of course, the bigger nuts are those that want to go and live there, but not terraform. That's just stupid.

Buit if you are correct, then will we EVER be ready to go no matter how much we spend on infastructure and research?

Yes. In about a hundred years we should be ready. Sorry to disappoint you all, but thems the breaks.

If we are not going to become spacefaring then I say shut down the entire program and use NASA's money for something else. This is the precise question William Langeweische raised in his January 1st essay for The Atlantic.

This is where we seperate the believers from the sycophants. Would you support the "cause" even if you knew that you and your children and grandchildren would never see the final outcome- a spacefaring civilization?

Cathedrals are not built in a lifetime.

A drive to go "out there" can serve as a release valve for the pressures which come from too many ideologies crowded into too small a container. Not the raw numbers of people, per se, but the numbers of conflicting ideologies that have no hope of advancement except by fighting their rivals.

Sending 6 people out to Mars does not seem to help 6 billion fighting over ideology at home. It's an artifical rationale.

BWhite · 2004-11-23 10:57:40

You also seem to be under the impression that VSE is supposed to lead to colonization. It isn't. It isn't about colonization, and it isn't just about the Moon and it isn't just about Mars. It's about all of the solar system. It's about going back and going further.

I predict that the VSE will be increasingly seen as irrelevant. Sir Richard Branson will be asked to light up his billboards so the first CEV lunar landing can find its way.

So long as the proponents of the VSE stop selling it as the greatest thing since the invention of light beer, I have no problem with it. I have and continue to support full funding for the VSE.

I also believe that if its supporters knew how little it really does, there would be many fewer supporters. Emperor's New Clothes and all that.

clark · 2004-11-23 11:00:10

You predict? :laugh: Find yourself your own one eyed hobo?

Cobra Commander · 2004-11-23 11:02:34

Sending 6 people out to Mars does not seem to help 6 billion fighting over ideology at home. It's an artifical rationale.

Not directly, but then no one is seriously suggesting we ship a large percentage of the population off of Earth. Yet another world for human habitation expands the realm in which differing ideologies can exist and compete. It makes little difference from an individual standpoint, but from a species standpoint it gives us much needed breathing room.

BWhite · 2004-11-23 11:03:09

Buit if you are correct, then will we EVER be ready to go no matter how much we spend on infastructure and research?
Yes. In about a hundred years we should be ready. Sorry to disappoint you all, but thems the breaks.

You may be right. Therefore, the right set of madmen can go now and accomplish the equivalent of buying IBM in 1957.

The best time to build the first city on Mars is a few decades BEFORE low cost Earth to LEO comes on line. Buy up the good real estate BEFORE the State builds the new off-ramp for the Interstate highway.

If we are not going to become spacefaring then I say shut down the entire program and use NASA's money for something else. This is the precise question William Langeweische raised in his January 1st essay for The Atlantic.
This is where we seperate the believers from the sycophants. Would you support the "cause" even if you knew that you and your children and grandchildren would never see the final outcome- a spacefaring civilization?

Unless you believe the real game is about selling rope; like nuclear fusion thats been "30 years away for the last 50"

100 years from now the world's cultures may well be all mixed up. Those who don't try now may never get the chance.

BWhite · 2004-11-23 11:07:27

A drive to go "out there" can serve as a release valve for the pressures which come from too many ideologies crowded into too small a container. Not the raw numbers of people, per se, but the numbers of conflicting ideologies that have no hope of advancement except by fighting their rivals.

Sending 6 people out to Mars does not seem to help 6 billion fighting over ideology at home. It's an artifical rationale.

= = =

True. (Zubrin's plan needs to be the start, not the end of our strategery.)

Therefore, declare that settlement is the objective.

MarsDirect missions then become like the frogmen who scout the terrain before the Marines hit the beaches in mass numbers. With LSTs and troop transports and Liberty ships filled with cargo stretching to the horizon.

Remember, Lewis & Clark used canoes.

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