High School Debate topic: Space development and Exploration

[mistergrinch]

The thing a lot of scientists don’t seem to get is that space exploration is not fundamentally about science! It’s about human survival and opening new frontiers so we can avoid stagnation and a Malthusian trap here on Earth. We only have one shot at becoming a cosmic species before resource scarcity and other problems kick in, and the clock is ticking. I’m so fanatical about this issue that I’m actually founding a new religion called “Cosmism”, because I think space exploration requires that kind of commitment. If a new space race starts between the USA and China, Russia or whoever, I can live with it if that’s what it takes to get our monkey asses moving onto the High Frontier!

Why are people today so #(*#$@ timid and lacking in ambition? Where is the "can do" spirit of our ancestors? Don’t you see what is at stake, and what is available to us in the Cosmos? There’s a whole universe up there and a highly unstable planet down here, and it’s always going to be that way because that’s the nature of the beast. Up in space we can create entire worlds from the ground up without tsunamis, super-volcanoes, hurricanes, droughts, etc., and any limits to growth are *far* in the future. Manned space exploration is the most rational and important thing in the world, even more important than looking at galaxies 13 billions light years away with space telescopes, so WTF are we waiting for?

 

[D H]

I see what you mean. Hindsight is 20/20.Yes, that is correct. I am judging by today's standards.

You are not only judging by today's standards, you are judging by today's standards for automobiles and airplanes.

NASA flew STS-125, the last Hubble repair mission, less than a couple years ago (May 2009). NASA did this with full knowledge that such a flight was particularly hazardous, much more hazardous than the typical Shuttle flight. The standards you deem reckless are run of the mill when it comes to human spaceflight. The Shuttle is sitting next to (not on top of!) a tank of liquid hydrogen and two solid rocket boosters. The astronauts are sitting on bombs. The solids are bombs. They cannot be turned off once they are started. To make them even more bomb-like, they are outfitted with remote control self-destruct mechanisms. One of the key jobs of the range safety officer is to send the signal that will make those mechanisms go off. (The signal has been sent once, with STS-51L.)

Yet astronauts still volunteer to go up.

 

[ladykrimson]

You are not only judging by today's standards, you are judging by today's standards for automobiles and airplanes.

NASA flew STS-125, the last Hubble repair mission, less than a couple years ago (May 2009). NASA did this with full knowledge that such a flight was particularly hazardous, much more hazardous than the typical Shuttle flight. The standards you deem reckless are run of the mill when it comes to human spaceflight. The Shuttle is sitting next to (not on top of!) a tank of liquid hydrogen and two solid rocket boosters. The astronauts are sitting on bombs. The solids are bombs. They cannot be turned off once they are started. To make them even more bomb-like, they are outfitted with remote control self-destruct mechanisms. One of the key jobs of the range safety officer is to send the signal that will make those mechanisms go off. (The signal has been sent once, with STS-51L.)

Yet astronauts still volunteer to go up.

I understand now. Still, I guess we need to be a little reckless in order to learn.

 

[jambaugh]

How about all the people who supposedly have legal documents proving that they own parts o the moon? LOL

Buy Moon Real Estate
http://www.moonshop.com/

Heinlein wrote a great story "The Man Who Sold The Moon" in which he used the legal premise that an owner of real estate owns the airspace above it with no limit on altitude. Thus the hero of the story purchased the moon from all the countries over which it orbits, and then sold shares in is venture to explore and develop it.

But in the end, the owner will be whoever can occupy the moon and has the power to hold on to it. This is the practical definition behind any legal one. Legal ownership only dictates what a government which has the power to enforce the dictate shall recognize and use its power to enforce as ownership. If aliens come along and plant a flag in the name of Zork the Great, then they own the moon by right of might and we would have the recourse only to appeal to their government (Zork) or fight a war with them.

...My point was that the dangers of that mission were not known. Imagine if there had been a CME (directed towards Earth) while the astronauts were on the moon or on their way to the moon. They would have died. Nothing would have protected them [...]
It was reckless, [...]

Firstly I dispute that they were totally ignorant of the dangers. Second I would compare this risk with the risk of a hurricane scuttling Columbus' fleet (or anyone of a number of other dangers in crossing the uncharted Atlantic in a rickety wooden sail boat). I would not call it reckless but calculated risk...and daring.

Give me the chance to take one of those Apollo trips, with the risks known, and given no one would know so there's no glory in it, I'd jump at the chance just to walk on the moon for an hour or two. That is not reckless as I'm assuming a known risk for what I deem a proportionate reward within my own value system. You can deem it reckless only in so far as what value you'd see in it...

This I distinguish from the reckless use of graphite reactors for civilian power production which led inevitably to the Chernobyl disaster, and its demonstrated risk to life and health for the regional population. That was reckless (unless you buy the arithmetic of socialism.)

[... which I likewise distinguish --lest I be misunderstood-- from the acceptable risk of using modern reactors in Japan wherein only a disaster orders of magnitude higher in damage and loss of life could cause the relatively minor concerns we are seeing now.]

 

[ladykrimson]

Heinlein wrote a great story "The Man Who Sold The Moon" in which he used the legal premise that an owner of real estate owns the airspace above it with no limit on altitude. Thus the hero of the story purchased the moon from all the countries over which it orbits, and then sold shares in is venture to explore and develop it.

But in the end, the owner will be whoever can occupy the moon and has the power to hold on to it. This is the practical definition behind any legal one. Legal ownership only dictates what a government which has the power to enforce the dictate shall recognize and use its power to enforce as ownership. If aliens come along and plant a flag in the name of Zork the Great, then they own the moon by right of might and we would have the recourse only to appeal to their government (Zork) or fight a war with them.



Firstly I dispute that they were totally ignorant of the dangers. Second I would compare this risk with the risk of a hurricane scuttling Columbus' fleet (or anyone of a number of other dangers in crossing the uncharted Atlantic in a rickety wooden sail boat). I would not call it reckless but calculated risk...and daring.

Give me the chance to take one of those Apollo trips, with the risks known, and given no one would know so there's no glory in it, I'd jump at the chance just to walk on the moon for an hour or two. That is not reckless as I'm assuming a known risk for what I deem a proportionate reward within my own value system. You can deem it reckless only in so far as what value you'd see in it...

This I distinguish from the reckless use of graphite reactors for civilian power production which led inevitably to the Chernobyl disaster, and its demonstrated risk to life and health for the regional population. That was reckless (unless you buy the arithmetic of socialism.)

[... which I likewise distinguish --lest I be misunderstood-- from the acceptable risk of using modern reactors in Japan wherein only a disaster orders of magnitude higher in damage and loss of life could cause the relatively minor concerns we are seeing now.]

Back in the days before Apollo, no one knew about the dangers of traveling outside of the protective electro-magnetic field or how one CME could have completely ended the mission and the astronauts' lives. I never said they were totally ignorant, but cosmic radiation and solar activity are huge factors.

It was reckless to make it a political race.

 

[D H]

Back in the days before Apollo, no one knew about the dangers of traveling outside of the protective electro-magnetic field or how one CME could have completely ended the mission and the astronauts' lives.

Baloney.

NASA knew the risks. The key risks were radiation from passing through the Van Allen belts and radiation from solar flares / coronal mass ejections.

The Van Allen belts were discovered in 1958, and the configuration of these belts was well-known by the time of the Apollo missions. NASA's solution was to pass through these belts quickly and to choose a path that avoided the thickest part of these belts.

Solar flares / coronal mass ejections were also a known problem. While NASA couldn't predict when solar events would occur (they still cannot do so), they did know the frequency of such of events. The Apollo missions were intentionally short so as to keep the risks small. NASA had backup plans such as delaying/canceling the launch or the translunar ejection in the case of a solar flare near the start of a mission, flying in an attitude that placed as much spacecraft bulk as possible between the astronauts and the Sun, and cutting lunar excursion short.