Can I ask someone to rebuttal my argument against human space flight?

[Cdr. Shepard]

I feel like China only cares about proving they're superior to Artemis countries, and the military application of Earth orbit. IIRC, there's nothing stopping a country from signing the Artemis Accords and the ILRS, but they all sign one or the other based on geopolitics. I also recall that China spends less on space than the U.S.A.

My point is that I disagree with the idea that China sees the value of space colonization as opposed to the U.S.A. in the space race and today. I think they're doing the same thing, but people are less crazy than they were during The Cold War.

I am the opposite of an authority on this matter, though. I don't follow Chinese space nor relevant politics closely, and I likely have a bias against China due to the country where I was raised. I also didn't note where I heard most of this, so I don't have sources.

I'd also like to remind everyone that this forum is for discussing science, not politics, so try to keep rebuttals focused on disproving my point in my 2nd paragraph.

Completely unrelated and pedantic: people talk about countries "signing China's ILRS" but that parses to "signing China's International Lunar Research Station". You can't sign a station that doesn't exist. We don't say "signed NASA's Lunar Gateway", we say "signed the Artemis Accords". Similarly, we should call the organization "the U.S.A.'s N.A.S.A."

You sure love reminding folks of the rules.

The Space Race was more motivated by politics than by the scientific curiosity of figures like JFK or Khrushchev. Try having a conversation about it without any mention of politics.

 

[Cisventure Astronot]

You sure love reminding folks of the rules.

The Space Race was more motivated by politics than by the scientific curiosity of figures like JFK or Khrushchev. Try having a conversation about it without any mention of politics.

I do not "love reminding folks of the rules.", but I will point out when a conversation I'm having begins to drift from the topic, e.g., right now. I'll also preemptively point out when one of my posts might lead to political debate, because some people get political quickly, and it might be a mitigating factor if my post was political by mistake.

I assume you got the idea that I "love reminding folks of the rules." because I reminded you to stay on the thread-topic in another thread (I'd link to the thread, but our posts were deleted for being "Off topic". According to my notifications, you last posted in it an hour before you posted here.). But that wasn't a rule, and the fact that I do something multiple times doesn't mean I like to.

Also, this thread isn't about the Space Race. It has touched on it multiple times, though. But at some point something goes from political to historical fact, e.g., saying "the only reason we went to the moon was for publicity" might have been considered political at the time, but now it's agreed upon that it was just a stunt.

My post argues a point, one backed up by pieces of evidence. Disproving my point could be done without the discussion of politics. The evidence is as follows:

1. A feeling that China only cares about proving superiority, and militarization. I cast further doubt on this in my 3rd paragraph.
2. The vast majority of countries join a side based on preexisting geopolitical factors, and they only pick one.
3. China spends less on space than the U.S.A.

You wouldn't really need to disprove my 1st piece of "evidence". You could disprove my 2nd one by providing multiple examples of countries that don't act as I portray them. And you could disprove my 3rd point by providing a source that contradicts my statement. You could also provide new evidence that disproves my overall point.

 

[Ken Fabian]

I've never seen nor heard the word "rejoiner" before reading your post, and I can't find a definition of the word "rejoiner" that makes sense in the context of your post, so could you help me out?

That was probably a typo (or a mispronunciation carried over) meant to be rejoinder - a reply, especially a response to a reply. Out of mispronunciations new words are made. This comment could be a rejoiner - rejoining a discussion after an absence...

A feeling that China only cares about proving superiority, and militarization. I cast further doubt on this in my 3rd paragraph.

Whilst the individuals involved will have a variety of motivations governments with significant space programs have developing, improving and demonstrating technological competence in areas highly relevant to defense capabilities high on their list of reasons to have space programs.

Take the international rivalries and defense considerations out of the picture and I think space agencies will struggle - and I don't think it will be the nation that commits to space colonies first that will be the winner; inducing your rivals to voluntarily deprive their nation of 4% of their budget on something that will deliver little in tangible benefits could make the nation that doesn't do it the winner. An international space program eg a meteor defense program such as I would favour likely faces resistance because nations in conflict don't want to share their best tech.

The vast majority of countries join a side based on preexisting geopolitical factors, and they only pick one.

I haven't followed the process of how the Artemis program was developed or how international cooperation is arranged but was China invited or permitted to participate? It seems like the US specifically excludes China and cooperation between NASA and China's space agency, like the US has opposed China's participation with the ISS - (from Newsweek) -

The 2011 Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, which set rules and funding for defense and other U.S. government agencies for that year, states in section 1340 that NASA may not use funds from that division to collaborate in any way with China unless a law specifically authorizes it.

I think there is no evading that sort of political consideration for the foreseeable future. The US wants China excluded and it's technological and economic advancement curtailed, including by disapproving of and discouraging other nations from collaborating with China.

I don't think China's leaders would be foolish enough to commit to colonies in space and like the US want demonstrations of technological excellence for more down to Earth (if a bit off the planet) political reasons. Inciting the US to blow 4% of it's Federal Budget on Mars colonies that have zero chance of success sounds quite Sun Tzu'ish and would probably please China just fine.

 

[Atlan0001]

If China is "foolish enough" to go for space colonization they will win history and the "high ground" space frontier over the Earth, big time! They backed off from frontier and the energies in colonization once around 600 years ago to their nearly 600 years of very great cost, they will not back away twice whatever the initial cost to get energies' momentum going and flowing!

 

[Catastrophe]

A "rejoiner" is an answer to a reply.
Note that it is common to restate a fact as part of any explanation to someone who does not understand the concept. This both forces the proponent to concisely and accurately state their position and it gives the recipient another look at the assertion. It sets the stage for questions from the recipient to help clarify in their mind what is going on. Alternatively they might offer a counterpoint that seeks to invalidate the original assertion. It is called "give and take". It helps us arrive at mutual understanding.

Perhaps the US has dropped the 'd'?

Rejoinder Definition & Meaning​

Merriam-Webster
https://www.merriam-webster.com › dictionary › rejoi...



retort implies a reaction to an implicit or explicit charge, criticism, or attack which contains a countercharge or counterattack.

REJOINDER | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary​

Cambridge Dictionary
https://dictionary.cambridge.org › dictionary › rejoinder


a quick and often angry or humorous answer: She always has a witty rejoinder to/for any question.

Cat

 

[billslugg]

No, they didn't drop the "d", I simply was not paying attention.

 

[DrRaviSharma]

When I attended the International Space Development Conference back in 2019, I attended a plenary session keynoted by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. He responded to a question about NASA's definition of sustainable referring to its strategic sustainability to continue to receive support from Congress for funding.

Knowing how NASA makes decisions, it relies heavily on the opinions of industry and key academics, but it largely ignores public support. Politicians care more about how NASA contracts affect the economy of their district than they care about far-reaching ideas from space enthusiasts.



Fairchild Semiconductor (later Intel) was the first to develop the Integrated Circuit. The first generation IC chip was too expensive for regular industry. It would have never taken off without the Apollo Program needing to put computers into spacecraft. Without NASA being their first customer, the computer revolution would have never happened.



The line between robots and humans is a little fuzzier than this argument pretends. There can be overlap with teleoperated robotics. But that overlap has limits due to the speed of light. After a certain point, we really need humans to be on site.

Robots could be used in dirty, dangerous, and dull jobs such as asteroid mining. Humans can teleoperate with them if they're nearby. But suppose there's an asteroid that's at risk of splitting apart and humans on site could improvise a way to hold it together. Suppose there's a manufacturing plant on the Moon and a solar flare ionized a microcontroller for a radiator for a power plant. Now the entire mission is at risk of total loss.

Note that in space, radiation isn't limited to solar flares, it comes from the rest of the galaxy and even the universe.



Ever strip a screw. How do you handle it? When Apollo astronauts needed to remove a camera from one of the first lunar landers, a mounting screw was stripped. The function of the screwdriver failed. The astronaut ripped the camera off its housing. That's something a machine wouldn't be able to do. There are also stories about how Apollo astronauts were trained to be field geologists. They learned to recognize glint off the surface of rocks and pick out anorthosite, which revolutionized our understanding of lunar geology.

To quote Buzz Aldrin, we need to get out of the mud with arguments about manned vs. unmanned operations.

The biggest problem for the entire argument is that people are fighting over a fixed funding pie that comes from taxes, which are themselves a small subset of what resources actually exist. The economy is far bigger than government budgets. We can have an entirely different conversation about space moving away from a $20 billion USD/year government budget vs. a space economy that generates $2-5 trillion USD/year.

Unmanned operations are good for space exploration and early economic development. After a certain point, we're going to find resources that allows us to operate commercially which moves us beyond simple exploration towards economic development. Such economic development can help humans become economically sustainable in space. The main added benefit to sending humans into space is they can reproduce and expand their population. When it becomes self-sufficient and sustainable, it redefines what humans are capable of.

Yes and we need to add the element of human survivability challenge and balance it with human curiosity to conquer or understand mysteries!

 

[Atlan0001]

Yes and we need to add the element of human survivability challenge and balance it with human curiosity to conquer or understand mysteries!

It is way too bad that only a few people like Stephen Hawking, and I must add myself (I've enough threads and posts detailing to do it), understand the bad of entropy in a closed world system. Some understood it concerning a system behind an 'Iron Curtain' but never thought about the entire world, our entire Earth as far as mankind and mankind's evolution of energy structure and infrastructure is concerned, like a developed child -- developed in every way for the universe outside -- in the ninth month inside the womb coming upon the "due time of birth," being behind an 'Iron Curtain' now.

Physicist Michio Kaku once put it this way in his book 'Hyperspace': In the last two-million years mankind has increased one-million-fold in its numbers upon the Earth. This does not begin to tell the reality, the truth, of mankind's numbers regarding an evolution. Over the same two-million years mankind has increased in its energy, its energies, its structures and infrastructure, its overlapping complexities, reaches, and chaos, two-million-fold average per every man, woman, and child living today. One-million-fold of that two-million-fold increase in just the last eighty years! For the simplest picture (actually far too simplistic a picture but....) of what this means, multiply 8-billion people by 2-million-fold to get the equivalent of 16-quadrillion people short needs and wants jostling in an overall vulnerable 'Iron 'Curtain' bubble-system, a closed world system, of countless invisible invulnerable iron curtain bubbles of a bad, a very negative, entropy within. Bubbles of bad entropy, of negativity, within that nothing can be done about until something is done about the overall 'Iron Curtain' enclosing the world, the Earth, in a titanic web of isolation from frontier universe. Until the system is opened, blown wide open . . .and, therefore, the exhaust pipe (to the frontier universe outside) of a combustion engine of Earth's life is unplugged!

What happens to a child ready for a process of birth in a "due time of birth" that turns its vastly expanded and evolved energies and energy intensive extensions of itself in structures inward upon its environment and itself to satisfy its ever increasing, ever growing, needs and wants and won't be born to the new rough, tough, abrasive outside universe of alien, raw, harsh and forbidding frontiers that its energies and evolutions of structure has prepared it for (rather than preparing it to go for some kind of perfection of Utopia in place)?! The picture gets ugly, very ugly! Dystopian to the max!

 

[DrRaviSharma]

Observations inspired by previous 80+ comments:

1. Humanity's quest for knowledge and spirit for adventure to know the unknown is insatiable. Space as a vast unknown void inspires explorers. They will find ingenious government, foreign, industry and international means to get resources!
2. Synergy among enterprise would hopefully sustain and fund a lot. Logic and cost or resource constraints would inspire automation and differentiate towards robotic missions and very rarely human space exploration.
3. Congressional funding cycles, dictatorial finding choices, availability and growth of countries like China will determine pace as well as genius of SpaceX like entities will influence short term space directions.
4. Contacting other intelligence in universe is also part of quest full of risks as knowledge of differing alien species might create part of conflicts or rarely may result in synergy.
5. I am on the emotional side of supporting consortia that make logical choices, usually explore robotic missions and support niche use of human space where it is beneficial. Wish we would develop new ways of perceiving intelligence "out there" especially with noble intentions?
6. Great posts and comments..... Regards.

 

[Jim Franklin]

Lets get a few things cleared up.

The Population density of Earth is not as much as the media would have you think. If you take the habital surface area of Earth, which is a little over 148 million square km, and spread the human population evenly within this, you get a population density of around 107 humans per sqkm, this is significantly lower than most major cities and conurbations, in fact, it is even lower than moderatly population nations like France which is around 123 humans per sqkm according to 2025 French Government data.

The is sufficient land space to both house and grow food for humanity, the big problem is how the food supply is managed, there is a clear disparity with excess food in the West, around 40% gets wasted within the supply chain and consumer end, that is a disgrace. Humanity currently has around 800 million people that are malnourished, but the food waste just from the EU, USA, Canada, Mexico and Oceania, which accounts for 82% of all food wastage, could feed 1.6 billion people at 2600 calories per day.

The trope rolled out by many that the planet cannot sustain humanity is a strawman argument that is easily disproved, the problem is that HUMANITY is unable and unwilling to sustain itself.

Is Human spaceflight worth it - absoloutely, you cannot come up with a credible argument against it. Of course it has its challenges, and it has increased costs associated with it, but there are no machines capable of competing with a human when it comes to exploration and adaptability. That may change in 100-200 years time, but if we hang around for technology to make our life easier, we would still be living in trees.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Not convinced what crewed missions in space do is exploration, not like into any mysterious unknown. It isn't like that. They are going to places already photomapped and surveyed and if interesting enough, already probed and sampled remote robotically. It will be because we know what is there that we will send crewed missions. Or more likely just send better robotic missions.

 

[Jim Franklin]

Not convinced what crewed missions in space do is exploration, not like into any mysterious unknown. It isn't like that. They are going to places already photomapped and surveyed and if interesting enough, already probed and sampled remote robotically. It will be because we know what is there that we will send crewed missions. Or more likely just send better robotic missions.

I think you are forgetting the science that is done on the effects of weighlessness etc on humans for extended periods. Further, they do testing of materials to be used in space in ways that a machine is unable to do. Yes, one can argue that since Apollo humans have not "explored", but that is due to change. Sending humans back to the Moon changes things up, humans can see something that no robot could, and react, make a decision to go off at a tangent, and that could change our understanding - and it happened in the Apollo program when Harrison "Jack" Schmidt, Apollo 17, saw strange rocks and went off program to investigate, bringing 12Ib of samples back with him, the rock samples, in the bottom of the small impact crater named "Shorty", were of volcanic origin and clearly showed the Moon had a volcanic past. A Robot rover would never have seen these this layer of volcanic rock on the surface and identified it as "strange. Schmidt said in an interview that he noticed the rock "because it looked orange and stood out from the bland rock material around it"

The material showed that the volcanic event happened some 3.6 billion years ago, but along with these sample, Schmidt recognised rocks nearby to Camelot crater that on Earth usually have zircon crystals in that require water to form, he collected samples and brought them back. Initial dating suggest the rocks were 4.15 billion years aold, but recent and more modern tasting has shown the zircon crystals are at least 4.36 billion years old with some potentialy over 4.53 billion years, which means the Moon could not have formed from a giant impact of another body with Earth because the oldest rocks on Earth (4.33 billion years) suggest the planet had fully formed by this stage and the impacts following this were the late heavy bombardment, rulling out a Mars sized body impacting Early Earth.

That was done by a human - and no robot has done that and nor could it do that without a human actually training it.

 

[Ken Fabian]

I disagree. Robotic machines will take pictures of everything, not just something "interesting" and do it to high resolution in multiple spectra, better than human eyes. The human eyes that choose the things to examine in greater detail will be those of world's leading scientists, working from the comfort of their offices. They already do surveying in places humans can't reach.

If there is a crewed base on Mars I expect the principle way they will "explore" (mineral surveys, borehole sampling) will be using remote operated machines from the safety and comfort of their base.

 

[Jim Franklin]

I disagree. Robotic machines will take pictures of everything, not just something "interesting" and do it to high resolution in multiple spectra, better than human eyes. The human eyes that choose the things to examine in greater detail will be those of world's leading scientists, working from the comfort of their offices. They already do surveying in places humans can't reach.

If there is a crewed base on Mars I expect the principle way they will "explore" (mineral surveys, borehole sampling) will be using remote operated machines from the safety and comfort of their base.

I suspect you over estimate the ability of robots and the ability of AI because you have read all the scare stories. I do agree with your view that remote sensing machines will be used from a local base on Mars, as this makes life easier, but we still have to get humans to Mars, thus we need human space flight, you have actually disproved your own argument!!

 

[Ken Fabian]

I suspect you over estimate the ability of robots and the ability of AI because you have read all the scare stories. I do agree with your view that remote sensing machines will be used from a local base on Mars, as this makes life easier, but we still have to get humans to Mars, thus we need human space flight, you have actually disproved your own argument!!

I said "if" humans get to Mars. And that is a very big IF. I don't think it is impossible but I think it is extraordinarily difficult and we lack compelling reasons to do so.

I think you underestimate how difficult and expensive missions to Mars with live astronauts will be and how much more missions could do with similar funding and resources when uncrewed. I think you overestimate the capabilities of astronauts in such difficult conditions and underestimate the capabilities of remote operated semi-autonomous machines and of the instruments they can carry.

I have said nothing about AI; having operators and experts on Earth view the data and decide priorities doesn't need AI although it may be used. More likely Earth based AI helping study the huge amounts of imagery and instrument data - more than any in person observer on the ground could deal with. Operating rovers won't need that level of intelligent autonomy.

 

[Classical Motion]

Space travel won't go far. People don't like spending time getting somewhere. Space travel might not be slow, but it still takes too much time.

 

[Jim Franklin]

I said "if" humans get to Mars. And that is a very big IF. I don't think it is impossible but I think it is extraordinarily difficult and we lack compelling reasons to do so.

I think you underestimate how difficult and expensive missions to Mars with live astronauts will be and how much more missions could do with similar funding and resources when uncrewed. I think you overestimate the capabilities of astronauts in such difficult conditions and underestimate the capabilities of remote operated semi-autonomous machines and of the instruments they can carry.

I have said nothing about AI; having operators and experts on Earth view the data and decide priorities doesn't need AI although it may be used. More likely Earth based AI helping study the huge amounts of imagery and instrument data - more than any in person observer on the ground could deal with. Operating rovers won't need that level of intelligent autonomy.

Humans will go to Mars unless we iterate into a global conflict first, which is highly likely given how we have gone to hell in a hand basket since 2022.

AI is creeping into all types of control, it has already been launched in several probes and will be the controls system for Titan missions and most if not all future missions to other parts of the solar system.

I think, when you speak about how much I underestimate about the difficulties of a manned mission to Mars, you have no idea what I think and you could not be further from the truth. I honestly believe that we are not ready to go to Mars yet, that is the first mission to Mars has 12 astronauts aboard (SpaceX estimate) then I would expect at least a 50% loss rate - meaning at least 6 will lose their life over the course of the mission. The3 dangers are underplayed by many, I have a lot of respect for Dr Robert Zubrin, but he does talk utter tosh at times and is an example of how an intelligent human can be a pig headed buffoon on occasion. The cost of Apollo was estimated to be around US$318 Billion in 2023 money, however, a single trip to Mars is estimated to cost around US$1.9 trillion WITHOUT a return journey (and ignoring development costs), if they want to come back, you need to add another US$560 billion according to the most optimistic estimates.

I cannot remember who wrote it, I will try to find it, but a NASA report, created in conjunction with SpaceX, estimated the full program cost of putting 12 astronauts on Mars, which was to include a 6 month journey there, 502 days on the surface and 6 month return journey, this includes all development costs for the launch vehicles, habitats, equipment etc etc etc at a nice US$18.93 trillion - this is around 74% of the US annual GDP.

Thus, I am fully aware of the financial costs and the likely human costs of such a mission, the risks are as great as the risks of polar exploration 100 years ago - now it is routine.