The value of manned space flight?

[Morrus]

Let's just say NASAs budget is not impressive,

It is impressive. It's very impressive, despite being just a line item for the USA. It's larger than the GDP of 70 countries. And 25 times the space budget of my country. $25B is a LOT of money. I think you have a perspective issue! It's like a billionaire saying "My extensive Ferrari collection is not expensive!"

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's like a billionaire saying "My extensive Ferrari collection is not expensive!"

Jay Leno ruins it for everyone.

 

[Deset Gled]

It is impressive. It's very impressive, despite being just a line item for the USA. It's larger than the GDP of 70 countries. And 25 times the space budget of my country. $25B is a LOT of money. I think you have a perspective issue! It's like a billionaire saying "My extensive Ferrari collection is not expensive!"

Well of course its relative. And I'm obviously being euphemistic.

Saying you own 25 Ferraris sounds like a lot, sure. And it is a lot (pun intended). But when you advertise that you're the biggest Ferrari dealer in the world, and then you park all 25 that you own next to your 800 Lamborghinis, it puts the numbers in a slightly different perspective, eh?

 

[Morrus]

Well of course its relative. And I'm obviously being euphemistic.

Saying you own 25 Ferraris sounds like a lot, sure. And it is a lot (pun intended). But when you advertise that you're the biggest Ferrari dealer in the world, and then you park all 25 that you own next to your 800 Lamborghinis, it puts the numbers in a slightly different perspective, eh?

It doesn’t make it not impressive. It just sounds a lot like immense (like galactic scale) privilege.

 

[MGibster]

Is there value in manned space flight, or is it some sort of expensive vanity project? Should we be spending that money "at home" instead?

There is another option to manned space flight and that's unmanned space flight. Given the hostility of the cosmos towards life as we know it, the great time it takes to travel the vast distances of even our solar system, and the costs of keeping hairless monkeys alive under such conditions, meaningful exploration of space will largely be done with robots for the foreseeable future. I expect we'll be able to build a probe in the not too distant future that will be able to gather data better than any manned mission we send to Mars.

So put me in the camp of manned space flights being expensive vanity projects right now.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This thread makes me want to know more about the British space programme, which is how I assume it legally has to be spelled.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Jay Leno ruins it for everyone.

Except Leno refuses to own Ferraris.

 

[trappedslider]

Artemis will take Americans to the moon for the 1st time since 1972. Why has it been so hard to go back?

Five reasons why human space flight is a bigger challenge today than it was during the Apollo era.

www.yahoo.com

Interesting overview in the differences between then and now,not just on tech but also on the drive to do it.

“There’s no reason to spend money like it was a war,” John Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington University and founder of the Space Policy Institute, told Scientific American. “There’s really no national interest or political interest that provides the foundation for that kind of mobilization at this point.”

This wasn’t quite the case during the Apollo era. Back then, swashbuckling fighter pilots were converted to astronauts and rocketed into space much in the way they’d previously been deployed to war: with the knowledge that they were doing something very, very dangerous. The risk was worth the reward (i.e., winning the space race).

In the YA novel Red Thunder by John Varley, where the mentor character, a former astronaut talks about the original moon race and compares it to the Manhattan project, in that it was throw everything at the wall and see what sticks aspect.

 

[trappedslider]

the menu for the artemis II mission, needs some red and or green chili

 

[Clint_L]

I support crewed (not manned; last time I checked crews could be of various genders) spaceflight, essentially because of the PR value for science. It's wildly impractical; it's true that lots of technologies designed for it have gone on to have unexpected and successful applications...but that would be true of any ambitious science program. Realistically, robotic exploration is far, far more effective and efficient, so these are more or less vanity projects. Like Artemis.

I think space colonies are a completely implausible pipe dream. The incredible expense to make them work, let alone be self-sustaining, dwarfs what it would take to settle the most inhospital place on our planet. In fact, I don't think a self-sustaining colony is possible, barring finding and somehow reaching a largely hospitable world. I do think a temporary colony for the purpose of, say mining an asteroid, could justify the incredible expense, though I think by the time we get to that stage, if ever, robots will be the only realistic choice.

Mars, in particular, is fantastically hostile to human life. Titan would be a much better choice...and it would also be a woefully horrific option. If space colonies are our fallback option, then humanity is doomed.

It gives me no joy to write this. I'm a lifelong sci-fi nerd and I would love to be wrong. But when you look at the science...there's just no way.