steven slater
England
County of Essex
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It’s cheaper and safer to use robots, so why use people? An astronaut's life is worth no more then mine, so if we don't have to spend that money why do so?
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Bob Briggs
United States
Lynnwood
Washington
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Space, the final frontier, (well of course there is also the uncharted ocean), who would not like to be part of a space mission which explores space, knowing you might not be able to return but have the experience of a lifetime (your lifetime)...if only I were younger.
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steven slater
England
County of Essex
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javapuzzles wrote: Space, the final frontier, (well of course there is also the uncharted ocean), who would not like to be part of a space mission which explores space, knowing you might not be able to return but have the experience of a lifetime (your lifetime)...if only I were younger.
They want the adventure holiday of a life time, they can pay for it.
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steven slater
England
County of Essex
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bjlillo wrote: slatersteven wrote: It’s cheaper and safer to use robots, so why use people? Depends on what the mission is. I would imagine there are some missions where robots just aren't going to be able to replace people.
Given modern remote technology I can't imagine that much that a robot (or remote drone) could not do that a Human could.
Quote: An astronaut's life is worth no more then mine, so if we don't have to spend that money why do so?
Quote: The government has spent $10's of millions training an astronaut. For that reason alone, the astronaut's life is worth more than yours or mine.
But if they did not pay to train them that would be irrelevant. They are only worth more because they spend more on them.
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Rich Hussein Shipley
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
By some definitions, gaming is my religion
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I'm with you on this one. Why is it just fine to send people to war where many will be killed, but terrible if there is ever a accident involving space exploration?
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Trey Stone
United States
Texarkana
Texas
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Astronauts, like our soldiers, are volunteers. They offer flexibility the machines don't (machines aren't automatically better for every mission).
Besides...in the case of space flight, many have lamented the public not caring. The general public cares not about the gee whiz science and technology in the abstract sense. That is for the nerds like us, in the minority. They don't care about the lofty ideas of the far horizon. They don't hear, or are consciously aware of "the music of the spheres". But they DO care about what other people do.
For people to give a damn about the space program (and they do need to care, for various reasons, practical and symbolic, wrapping up in politics), you need people.
You also need human warriors, for entirely different, but just as important reasons.
This trend some want to embrace, of putting all of the human race in a safe, little bubble (or at least they want to think its safe) and send machines out to do the risky stuff, is not only lacking in vision and adventure, but only sets us up to be a further risk averse culture of pussies.
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Moshe Callen
Israel
Jerusalem
I like to exchange ideas but I have no interest in a pissing contest.
If you want me to review your game, just GM me and send me a copy. Abstracts, wargames and euros equally welcome. No party or dexterity games please.
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It's actually not primarily about risk but practicality. A robot will get more, better and more reliable data in an equal time than a human possibly can-- without needing to sleep-- and will do it at a fraction of the cost.
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Trey Stone
United States
Texarkana
Texas
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whac3 wrote: It's actually not primarily about risk but practicality. A robot will get more, better and more reliable data in an equal time than a human possibly can-- without needing to sleep-- and will do it at a fraction of the cost.
If the mission throws a curveball or a surprise, though, and someone on the spot to make a decision or a judgement call...
Not saying that robots have no purpose. They do. For initial recon and survey, they most certainly do. But for follow on...
...and again...you want people to continue not carrying and the program continuing to lose public support (and money)...just send machines alone.
You want public support and tax dollars? Keep people in the mix.
Political reality when humans make the decisions.
Yes, some of it is symbolic (though some is practical, as humans DO offer capabilities machines can't match). But when humans are involved, symbols have, do and always will remain part of the equation.
The Chinese put a robot probe on the Moon...impressive...but people will go "wow", shrug and get back to their lives.
When they put a man there, and they will, different story.
There was much ado and continues to be much ado made about the cancellation of the shuttle program, a program whose costs far exceeded estimates and whose utilities did not match cost. Even before the next system is ready, they killed the program, for "practical"considerations, and the fact that NASA is underfunded. But the sturm and drang (outsized by a bit, considering other systems to get men and equipment to LEO are on the way, both private and public) was and remains massive. Because of the GIGANTIC symbolic place the system and the system's cancellation held in the eyes of the USA and the world.
If it had been one of the unmanned rocket systems, no one would have cared.
Manned spaceflight remains important in many ways, but one of the most? Engaging the public in the importance of space exploration.
It is NOT enough to engage and impress scientists, engineers and most especially bean counters.
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Rich Hussein Shipley
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
By some definitions, gaming is my religion
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whac3 wrote: It's actually not primarily about risk but practicality. A robot will get more, better and more reliable data in an equal time than a human possibly can-- without needing to sleep-- and will do it at a fraction of the cost.
It will do what it was designed and engineered to do (hopefully). There is no general purpose robot that is as adaptable as a human being. It took a human to fix the Hubble (admittedly beacause humans didn't desgn it right in the first place).
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Trey Stone
United States
Texarkana
Texas
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slatersteven wrote: bjlillo wrote: slatersteven wrote: It’s cheaper and safer to use robots, so why use people? Depends on what the mission is. I would imagine there are some missions where robots just aren't going to be able to replace people. Given modern remote technology I can't imagine that much that a robot (or remote drone) could not do that a Human could.
A human would never be hacked and captured by Iran using off the shelf technology.
Drones are neat, and fearsome against stone age warriors pitching rocks and carrying rifles. Against a more technological society, their potence valls off sharply.
They have and probably will always have a place in war from now on...but the idea that they can (or should) replace human pilots and warriors, imo, is nonsense.
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Steve Bauer
United States
Gilbert
Arizona
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tstone wrote:
A human would never be hacked and captured by Iran using off the shelf technology.
Did the British use special military grade bitterness and disappointment to flip Benedict Arnold? I always thought it was of the off the self variety.
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Trey Stone
United States
Texarkana
Texas
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Touche. But if you make your machines too smart...you get hackable hardware ALSO subject to bitterness and disappointment, too.
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Joe Lott
United States
Tacoma
Washington
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I would totally go on a one way trip to mars, if I knew that it wasn't suicide, just one way. Live my life till I die, doing work up there, receiving crappy food in a tube from earth. BRING IT ON!
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Rusty Ballinger
United States
Arcata
California
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bjlillo wrote: Quote: To be conservative, let us assume that all the safety improvements undertaken after the Columbia accident accomplished absolutely nothing, so that the space shuttle’s reliability rate was still just the 98 percent demonstrated up until that time (123 successful flights out of 125).
(Wait, a conservative risk assessment says wear & tear on those 20-year-old vehicles has no effect on their reliability rate?)
bjlillo wrote: Quote: Proceeding with the mission—which would have extended Hubble’s life for another decade, yielding incalculable scientific knowledge—therefore would have posed a 2 percent risk of losing $3.35 billion, which implies a probabilistic loss of $67 million. Comparing that $67 million risk or insurance cost to Hubble’s $5 billion value, we can see that O’Keefe’s argument for abandoning Hubble was completely irrational.
No comment on the guy's point, but I wonder whether he would still find O'Keefe's argument "completely irrational" if he had a 2% chance of being asphyxiated/burned alive/etc. in the attempt to extend Hubble's operational period.
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Rusty Ballinger
United States
Arcata
California
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bjlillo wrote: Quote: Comparing that $67 million risk or insurance cost to Hubble’s $5 billion value, we can see that O’Keefe’s argument for abandoning Hubble was completely irrational.
And, WTF? That it cost $5 billion to build Hubble 15 years earlier doesn't mean it still had a "$5 billion value" in 2004--this guy's never tried to sell a 15-year-old truck, I guess?--and even if it did, that's totally irrelevant in calculating the value of another 10 years of operation, which is what he should be comparing to that $67 million risk.
Again, no comment on his conclusions, but his arguments are gibberish.
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Adrian Hague
United Kingdom
Leamington, Warwickshire
West Midlands
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slatersteven wrote: [q="bjlillo"][q="slatersteven"]It’s cheaper and safer to use robots, so why use people?
Ok, I've played High Frontier once, so that maakes me an expert, right?
The main reason humans are needed is because of the time-lag involved in the teleoperation of a robonaut. If a robonaut is on Mars, there is a 10 minute lag, due to the distances involved, and Mars is one of the closest sites. It is a lot more practicable to have humans in the vicinity to control any prospecting devices.
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Moshe Callen
Israel
Jerusalem
I like to exchange ideas but I have no interest in a pissing contest.
If you want me to review your game, just GM me and send me a copy. Abstracts, wargames and euros equally welcome. No party or dexterity games please.
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AdrianPHague wrote: slatersteven wrote: [q="bjlillo"][q="slatersteven"]It’s cheaper and safer to use robots, so why use people? Ok, I've played High Frontier once, so that maakes me an expert, right? The main reason humans are needed is because of the time-lag involved in the teleoperation of a robonaut. If a robonaut is on Mars, there is a 10 minute lag, due to the distances involved, and Mars is one of the closest sites. It is a lot more practicable to have humans in the vicinity to control any prospecting devices.
That depends on the mission. If you're collecting data, then it really isn't a problem. Unfortunately all these people sure we need manned missions haven't come up with one that:
1. economically and scientifically can be justified
and
2. can't be done better and cheaper by a robot.
So everybody insisting we need people in space. Fine. Exactly what are they going to do there?
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Moshe Callen
Israel
Jerusalem
I like to exchange ideas but I have no interest in a pissing contest.
If you want me to review your game, just GM me and send me a copy. Abstracts, wargames and euros equally welcome. No party or dexterity games please.
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bjlillo wrote: whac3 wrote: That depends on the mission. If you're collecting data, then it really isn't a problem. Unfortunately all these people sure we need manned missions haven't come up with one that:
1. economically and scientifically can be justified
and
2. can't be done better and cheaper by a robot.
So everybody insisting we need people in space. Fine. Exactly what are they going to do there? Considering the tragedy caused by Friendship One, I'd think people would be more wary of relying strictly on automation for space missions.
Um, yeah.
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Rich Hussein Shipley
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
By some definitions, gaming is my religion
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whac3 wrote: So everybody insisting we need people in space. Fine. Exactly what are they going to do there?
Same stuff we do here, but somewhere else. People go where they haven't been before and don't know what will happen when they get there. The process of figuring out how to do it often reaps side benefits.
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Ed Bradley
United Kingdom
Haverhill
Suffolk
The best things in life aren't things.
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I still love this post:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/6826513#6826513
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Rich Hussein Shipley
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
By some definitions, gaming is my religion
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Fwing wrote:
Is it supposed to read like a dare?
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Adrian Hague
United Kingdom
Leamington, Warwickshire
West Midlands
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whac3 wrote: So everybody insisting we need people in space. Fine. Exactly what are they going to do there? Play High frontier? 
Fwing wrote: All I got from that was 'we shouldn't do stuff, 'cos it's like, hard'.
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Ed Bradley
United Kingdom
Haverhill
Suffolk
The best things in life aren't things.
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AdrianPHague wrote: whac3 wrote: So everybody insisting we need people in space. Fine. Exactly what are they going to do there? Play High frontier? Fwing wrote: All I got from that was 'we shouldn't do stuff, 'cos it's like, hard'.
I got "we shouldn't do stupid stuff cos it's stupid".
There might come a time to send man into deeper space. I don't think we're there yet.
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Moshe Callen
Israel
Jerusalem
I like to exchange ideas but I have no interest in a pissing contest.
If you want me to review your game, just GM me and send me a copy. Abstracts, wargames and euros equally welcome. No party or dexterity games please.
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AdrianPHague wrote: whac3 wrote: So everybody insisting we need people in space. Fine. Exactly what are they going to do there? Play High frontier?
Ironically, in principle, I'm all for sending people into space but like anything else it should not be done stupidly or thoughtlesly. In other words, there needs to be a realistic practical reason with tangible results in the offing to make the cost and the risk worthwhile.
Until someone comes up with that, manned missions are a waste of time, resources and potentially lives.
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Adrian Hague
United Kingdom
Leamington, Warwickshire
West Midlands
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Helium 3? Pretty rare on earth, but there is some on Luna, and beyond.
This can be handy for relatively clean fusion power generation and research. What with the increasing concerns for 'energy security' we have nowadays, it may become more attractive in the future.
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Posted Sun Jan 29, 2012 7:25 pm
