Van ALLEN

[alokmohan]

Van allen states space flight unnecessary now.It was relevant at the time of cold war.

 

[najab]

With all respect to Dr Van Allen - WRONG!<p>Dr. Van Allen is a space scientist and as a result he believes that astronauts are unecessary and superflous and little more than an obstruction to getting his data. And if the space program was about nothing but science he would be 100% correct.<p>However, the space program is about developing space projects that lead to a space industry and on to a space civilization. As such it's not just sufficient to have men in space <b>it is necessary</b>!</p></p>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Dr. Van Allen has had the same point of view for the last 50 years. "</font><br /><br />Which is amazingly prescient of him, since the cold war has only been over for a bit under 20 years by most calculations. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[canadian_joe]

Anyone else feel like reaching through the computer and giving Dr Van Allen a good shake while reading that article? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[haywood]

This really burns me!<br />No wonder the Manned Space Program can't get any respect.<br />With the media and the "Powers That Be" listening to "Distinguished Scientists" like Van Allen for their direction, it's no wonder that funding for Manned Space Flight is where it is...or isn't.<br />I have to agree with you, Najab, that anything that gets in the way of Dr. Van Allen's precious vision is useless in his eyes.<br /><br />Or does human spaceflight simply have a life of its own, without a realistic objective that is remotely commensurate with its costs? Or, indeed, is human spaceflight now obsolete?” van Allen writes.<br /><br />Doesn't he realize that any "life" that Human Spaceflight has has been severely limited by the lack of vision both by short-sighted scientists like him and the politicians that wouldn't know a vision if it fell on them?<br />Obsolete?!<br />Rubbish.<br />Human Spaceflight has barely had a chance to start, let alone flourish, again, for the same reasons.<br />It's like a self-fullfiling prophecy...give HSF as little supprt as possible, and then when it fails to deliver towering results, blame the idea of HSF instead of the lack of support and vision.<br /><br /> “a far more costly and far more hazardous program” ?<br /><br />Yes, HSF is costly and hazardous. No pain, no gain...with all due respect. If you don't push the envelope, you don't get progress. Where would we be if Chuck Yeager hadn't pushed the envelope? Or Yuri Gagarin or John Glenn or Young or Crippen or the hundreds of other pioneers that blazed the trail.<br /><br />Supporters of human spaceflight “defy reality and struggle to recapture the level of public support that was induced temporarily by the Cold War,” van Allen charges.<br /><br />Imagine that! Having to struggle in the year 2004 for public support. People like you are the reason for this Dr. Van Allen. I'm sure there are lots of doubters out there who question the need for robots that collect data for data's sake. If collecting data is

 

[wvbraun]

Couldn't agree more, nice post.

 

[viper101]

As much I loved the Voyager missions, as well as other robotic flights, nobody talks much about where they were in August of 89 when it flew past Neptune, or where they were when it passed Jupiter etc etc.<br />It's putting men (and women) up there that matters. <br /><br />Yeah - I felt like giving him a shake too. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">With all respect to Dr Van Allen - WRONG!</font>/i><br /><br />The trouble is, he is not alone. I believe over the last many years even the Planetary Society has largely been against the high cost of manned exploration. [Which makes their support of the new vision all the more impressive!!]<br /><br /> /> <i><font color="yellow">And if the space program was about nothing but science he would be 100% correct. ... the space program is about developing space projects that lead to a space industry and on to a space civilization.</font>/i><br /><br />I completely agree! However, I am going to play the devil's advocate for a second.<br /><br />The FY2005 manned space budget (excluding new initiatives like SLI and CEV) is $6.7 billion -- this includes shuttle, ISS operations (ISS science is listed separately), and flight support. Since NASA's budget has been relatively static for the last several decades, this gives us about $200 billion spent on manned space exploration since the end of Apollo and Skylab.<br /><br />For that 1/5 of a trillion dollars, what capabilities do we have that we did not have with Apollo & Skylab or that the Russians didn't have with Salyut or Mir?<br /><br />Meanwhile, the Van Allen-type scientists of the world will point out that during the same period and for less money we have gained extensive knowledge and data with the successes the Voyagers, Vikings, Mars Global Surveyor, Cassini, Magellan, Stardust, Mars Odyssey, Mars Exploraration Rovers (MERs), Mars Pathfinder, Galileo, space telescopes (Spitzer, Hubble, Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, Chandra X-Ray Observatory), ...<br /><br />So at one level, the return on investment for science of the robotic missions have been great, and at another level it is hard to point to how we have advanced in manned space exploration after 30 years and 1/5 of a trillion dollars.<br /><br />We need to do better.</i></i>

 

[lunatic133]

I could not agree more! Excellent post, everything I WANTED to say but knew I rant too much anyway so didn't ... glad that someone feels the same way! And yes, to the previous poster, I wanted to shake him and possibly smite him, especially when he spat that bit at the end about Columbus ... god ... someone needs to give this man a good swift kick you-know-where.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Imagine that! Having to struggle in the year 2004 for public support. People like you are the reason for this Dr. Van Allen. I'm sure there are lots of doubters out there who question the need for robots that collect data for data's sake. If collecting data is the end-all and be-all, why are we collecting it in the first place? Where are we going to use it? As a stepping stone for human exploration, that's where, not sitting on some shelf somewhere or as a subject for a lecture at some "prestigious university". <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />yes, YES that is what I've been saying all along! I hate it when the scientists say that human curiosity and the need for exploration is not enough justification for human spaceflight and thats why we need only robots instead ... and so, I say, "Justify science about places where we never intend to go." We need BOTH robots and humans to get the most out of the universe beyond.

 

[CalliArcale]

*applauds*<br /><br />YES!!!! Well said, everybody!<br /><br />There is room <i>and need</i> for both robotic and manned spaceflight. I'm not surprised to hear Van Allen's take on it; as somebody said earlier, he's always considered manned spaceflight to be far too expensive to justify the cost. (I don't think he really ever considered the cold war to be a good justification for it, though I suspect he'd concede that a space race is better than open war.) <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>

 

[orzek]

i think the best way to deal with people like van allen ( apart from wringing their necks of course) is to stipulate that there will only be funding for unmanned missions if the space scientists support manned missions in concert otherwise they will all be put out of a job! Its drastic but I am sure they will change there tune if you threaten their livelihood.<br />Personally I believe that robotic missions are illusionary in terms of scientific discovery since even though we know more about space than we did before I still think it is a drop in the ocean compared to the potential scientific discovery through manned exploration. I think on their own robotic exploration is too expensive with meagre gains.

 

[kdavis007]

I don't mind a combination of Robots and humans together in space. <br /><br />What burns me up the most is that most people like Van Allen think space is their personal playground but it isn't.