No computers, better manned space program?

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spacefire

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Back in the 50s and 60s there were a lot of proposals for manned space stations and spacecraft for various , mainly military purposes. With advances in computer technology, it became feasible- and much cheaper- to send unmanned spacecraft and satellites to accomplish the same missions.<br />What if computers were still heavy and unreliable? There would always be a need for heavy lift at the cheapest price possible and tons more people would need to go in space.<br />Is it possible that now we would have cheap access to space and colonies on the Moon or Mars? <br />Had the transistor never been developed. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>
 
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trailrider

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In the 1950's and '60's, the advances in reducing warhead size and weight by the United States military (primarily due to the reduced size of electronics), compared with the Soviet Union, resulted in our reducing the size of the launch vehicles developed. As a result, when we needed to lift space exploration payloads, especially manned missions (you can't reduce the size of the basic "Mark I, Mod 0, Type M or F" human being), we were "behind the power curve." No question about it. The Saturn V was the result. The Russians attempted to develop the N-1, which was a semi-Nova class (a design the U.S. proposed, but never built). <br /><br />Might we have developed even larger HLV's had the electronics not been reduced in size? I doubt it. <br /><br />No, the problem is more one of money and national WILL! Modern electronics will allow us to put more useful payload into larger vehicles, that would otherwise be taken up with heavy computers. <br /><br />Ad Luna! Ad Aries! Ad Astra!
 
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tomnackid

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Maybe more men in LEO and possibly on the moon, but no Pioneer or Voyager. No Viking, pathfinder, Spirit or Opportunity. No Galileo, no Satrdust, no Deep Impact, No NEAR no Hubble--just to name a few of the top of my head. We would in many ways be stuck in the position of the Russian space program. Lots of experience in LEO but little else. And without computers how would you design large boosters? How would you control their flight? Detect problems and initiate aborts? It would cost a lot more, and be a lot more dangerous. Probably too expensive and dangerous to make it worthwhile except under the desperate circumstances like all out war between the US and USSR, and who really wants that?
 
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josh_simonson

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Integrated circuits flew on apollo too.<br /><br />One could argue that the steady advance of robotic techology will continue to errode the rationale of sending people to moon, mars, europa, wherever, over time. In 20-50 years I expect the scientific justification for human exploration to be very tenuous, aside from human biology related stuff.
 
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tomnackid

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Yes, I know, what I meant was you could probably land men on the moon without ICs if you really had a good reason to, but that would be pushing it. I remember reading about the British Interplanetary Society's 1930's moon landing plan. A booster made up of thousands of solid fuel rockets, leather spacesuits, math tables and navigation charts printed on rice paper to save weight, "astrogators" peering out portholes with sextants (something Apollo astronauts actually did to back up their computer calculations.)
 
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nacnud

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I bet they did have computers working on the V2, but I bet they also had desks, chairs and stopped about 11 for a coffee.<br /><br />Once computer was a job title...
 
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bobw

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one would have to be an a*** to fly under the assumption that computers do not exist. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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pathfinder_01

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“Is it possible that now we would have cheap access to space and colonies on the Moon or Mars?” <br /><br />Doubtful. The problem with manned spaceflight is the fact that it is manned. Machines don’t need food, water, and oxygen to keep alive. Machines don’t need return trips and machines can cope with environments people can not (high radiation, high g-forces). Machines can work 24/7 non-stop for years. The pioneer 10 and 11 for instance lacked a true computer and even lacked a tape drive to store data(data was sent on the fly) and yet even those primitive devices were able to do what current technology probably wont do for decades with a manned flight go to Jupiter and Saturn. <br /><br />
 
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qso1

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If the only part of this equation is no computers, the need for tons of people and huge rockets would severely limit what we do and the NASA cost cutting mentality that has been in place since the mid 1970s would eliminate the bulk of any potential human missions requiring large boosters. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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propforce

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Think about this for a minute. When was the last time you did any mental math without the use of calculator?<br /><br />Uh huh, that's what I'd thought..... and you expect someone to put their lives in YOUR hands to ride on rockets and capsules designed and built without using computers?<br /><br />They don't make engineers like they used to anymore <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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qso1

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Well, I hate to rain on your parade but I still do math in my head. I'm no math genius by any means but I'm not always around a computer. I don't even own a calculator. I don't actually expect anyone to ride rockets designed and built without computers. Are you sure your responding to the right person? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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propforce

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actually my post was responding to this thread in general, not to you specifically. I just attached to the latest post. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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qso1

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Sorry about that. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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CalliArcale

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I'm a relatively young engineer (30) and I own a slide rule. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />(Never mind that I have to read the instructions every time I use it.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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mikejz

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Don't feel bad, There is a goog chance that by this time next year I'll be working for one of the Big-Four--and i still can't do my taxes myself.
 
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rocketwatcher2001

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Calli-<br />Don't worry, I still carry a slide rule (CR-3) with me, and I carry the instructions, too. This is a little unrelated, but there is a movement in my airline to have our manuals replaced by a CD for an onboard laptop, which might be a good thing as long as they keep the real manuals onboard and updated as well. I've been broken down one too many times in Mexico, or some other place with no electricity, and no APU to run the airplane electrical system, while I spend 2 days fixing the airplane. My laptop battery would hardly last an hour. I'm fighting to keep all of our manuals onboard and on paper.<br /><br />Books really can't be replaced by computers. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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siarad

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Here here & you can guarantee the scratch on the CD will be on the only bit you want to read.<br />If you understand indicies you can make it up as you go along with a slide rule, they really test your <i>true</i> understanding of numbers & trigonometry perhaps.
 
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mikejz

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Actually, this post brings up an interesting point in a slightly related area. <br /><br />For example, during the mid-90s there was a boom in the comm sat market. Driven by a growth of tv channels and back haul feeds there was a shortage of transponders. This led aerospace companies to undertake massive capital expenditures to bring more capacity to market, Boeing for example forcast 40 Delta IV CBCs being produced every year!<br /><br />However, what happened was that the shortage of capacity led broadcasts to rapidly adopt digital video compression to compensate for the shortage. This led to a massive reduction in demand---and thus the current over supply in the current comm sat market. <br /><br />Aerospace companies were two slow to meet market demand, and developed a product that was not needed anymore.<br /><br />In many ways the same could be said for Iridium and Globelstar, not taking into account the rapid growth of wireless telephones in the developing nations. <br /><br />
 
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nyarlathotep

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>>"However, what happened was that the shortage of capacity led broadcasts to rapidly adopt digital video compression to compensate for the shortage. This led to a massive reduction in demand---and thus the current over supply in the current comm sat market."<br /><br />It also lead to most data and video providers laying down massive fiber networks. This killed the majority of the demand for launch services.
 
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