Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Space Exploration
I've been following pretty closely press reports of the data coming back from the twin Mars landers. It looks like we'll prove fairly definitively that there is water on Mars (well, more than just the stuff found in the ice caps), and if there is water, then there is a high likelihood of life. In fact, we may already have evidence of microbial life on Mars. One of the experiments conducated by the Viking landers back in 1976 was the "Labeled Release" life detection experiment. It involved mixing a nutrient solution into Martian soil and looking for the emission of gases normally produced when bacteria metabolizes food. As it turns out, such a gas WAS detected. Other experiments conducted by the landers produced different results, though, so the consensus at the time was that life was NOT detected.
This is all exciting stuff, and it's all been done using nothing more than robots. The Spirt and Opportunity landers cost a "mere" 800 million altogether, which isn't chump change, but is a bargain compared to the price of human space flight.
On that note, one would think that I would be very enthusiastic about Bush's declared intent to push for landing humans on Mars within the next 20 or so years. One would, unfortunately, be wrong.
I am EXTREMELY keen on putting humans into space, and even getting them all the way to Mars. I think humanity has a future in space, and part of that future will involve colonizing our own solar system. I just don't think the federal government is the right body to make that push.
I remember reading awhile back of plans by the Hilton hotel chain to put up an orbiting hotel by 2035 (or something like that). Granted, this was WILD speculation on the part of people within Hilton, but I thought the idea was spectacular. This old man (I'll be, well, a LOT older then) would gladly plump the $15,000 a night room rate for the chance to spend a week in outer space.
Hilton wouldn't do something like this if it wasn't profitable. Furthermore, they could be expected to be a LOT more careful about costs than federal agencies ever could be, given that they don't have access to the bottomless pit of tax revenue. I think putting an outpust on the Moon (another part of Bush's plan) is a GREAT idea. Why does the outpust have to be built by the US government?
State run companies are generally inefficient and wasteful of taxpayer money. Most people understand that, and there is a global move towards privatizing formerly nationalized assets (though there have been hiccups along the way). Why, then, are we taking a "central planning" approach to space exploration?
I think NASA is a GREAT body for conducting pure research. Few companies would spend 800 million just to send a few rovers to find out if the conditions for life ever existed on Mars. That's IMPORTANT information, but not PROFITABLE information (though the fact that there is water on Mars might certainly help future colonists). All this pure research can be done with robots, and robots cost a LOT less than the cost of putting humans into space.
Leave the expense of human space flight to private industry. They are more likely to find a sustained (read: profitable, which tends to help the endeavor to pay for itself) way to put humans into space than NASA, whose human space endeavors include the pointless international space station that cost more than twice the original budget outlay and incapable of conducting any of the research NASA first planned for it.
I've been following pretty closely press reports of the data coming back from the twin Mars landers. It looks like we'll prove fairly definitively that there is water on Mars (well, more than just the stuff found in the ice caps), and if there is water, then there is a high likelihood of life. In fact, we may already have evidence of microbial life on Mars. One of the experiments conducated by the Viking landers back in 1976 was the "Labeled Release" life detection experiment. It involved mixing a nutrient solution into Martian soil and looking for the emission of gases normally produced when bacteria metabolizes food. As it turns out, such a gas WAS detected. Other experiments conducted by the landers produced different results, though, so the consensus at the time was that life was NOT detected.
This is all exciting stuff, and it's all been done using nothing more than robots. The Spirt and Opportunity landers cost a "mere" 800 million altogether, which isn't chump change, but is a bargain compared to the price of human space flight.
On that note, one would think that I would be very enthusiastic about Bush's declared intent to push for landing humans on Mars within the next 20 or so years. One would, unfortunately, be wrong.
I am EXTREMELY keen on putting humans into space, and even getting them all the way to Mars. I think humanity has a future in space, and part of that future will involve colonizing our own solar system. I just don't think the federal government is the right body to make that push.
I remember reading awhile back of plans by the Hilton hotel chain to put up an orbiting hotel by 2035 (or something like that). Granted, this was WILD speculation on the part of people within Hilton, but I thought the idea was spectacular. This old man (I'll be, well, a LOT older then) would gladly plump the $15,000 a night room rate for the chance to spend a week in outer space.
Hilton wouldn't do something like this if it wasn't profitable. Furthermore, they could be expected to be a LOT more careful about costs than federal agencies ever could be, given that they don't have access to the bottomless pit of tax revenue. I think putting an outpust on the Moon (another part of Bush's plan) is a GREAT idea. Why does the outpust have to be built by the US government?
State run companies are generally inefficient and wasteful of taxpayer money. Most people understand that, and there is a global move towards privatizing formerly nationalized assets (though there have been hiccups along the way). Why, then, are we taking a "central planning" approach to space exploration?
I think NASA is a GREAT body for conducting pure research. Few companies would spend 800 million just to send a few rovers to find out if the conditions for life ever existed on Mars. That's IMPORTANT information, but not PROFITABLE information (though the fact that there is water on Mars might certainly help future colonists). All this pure research can be done with robots, and robots cost a LOT less than the cost of putting humans into space.
Leave the expense of human space flight to private industry. They are more likely to find a sustained (read: profitable, which tends to help the endeavor to pay for itself) way to put humans into space than NASA, whose human space endeavors include the pointless international space station that cost more than twice the original budget outlay and incapable of conducting any of the research NASA first planned for it.
