Lunar Exploration: New Manned/unmanned Concept, allows for both Options

[dvandorn]

Very, very good reply, Bruce. Thank you -- this is more the kind of spirited discourse this subject needs.

Now, for a few counter-points and expressions of appreciation...

At some point, of course, new techonologies WILL make it worthwhile to send humans into space, just as new technology eventually made it worthwhile to return to the South Pole. If we do it before then, we will simply be seriously slowing down the progress of human exploration as a whole -- something the FY 2007 NASA budget makes excruciatingly clear.

I'm very glad to hear that first statement. I actually think we're more in agreement than not, overall, Bruce -- I don't think it's necessary for us to be spending billions on manned lunar or Martian operations within the next 20 years, when we're on the verge of making some significant breakthroughs in so many areas that will make it *far* faster and easier to get around the solar system than it is now. For instance, I think we're going to be hearing a lot more about Franklin Chiang-Diaz's plasma drive in the near future.

However -- and here we part company, I think -- I *truly* believe that we have to stay in the manned spaceflight business in order to be able to take advantage of these new technologies as they come on line.

I am convinced that developing a CEV that can be used as a multi-purpose crew delivery system to both present and future mission-dedicated spacecraft is a good idea, a good investment, a necessary maintenance of American manned spaceflight capability, and a justified use of NASA's resources.

I personally think that Shuttle ops should be limited to completing the ISS and performing one last Hubble servicing flight. The NASA planners are saying that will require 29 more flights. I assume they know better than I do how much it will require... though I have to say, I think it could be done in less. And the current (dare I say cowardly?) reluctance of NASA to fly a vehicle that is safer than any version of it they have ever flown before, drawing good money after bad without getting *any* result out of it, is the basis of yet another discussion... *sigh*...

The failure of NASA to be able to maintain any kind of consistent funding levels for a well-planned unmanned exploration program is not, in my opinion, simply a case of the manned program "eating" the unmanned program. What we are seeing is a political failure, not an administrative failure. For good and solid administrative *and* political reasons, the manned and unmanned spaceflight directorates were set up separately 'way back when in the '50s, precisely so that funding pressures from a potentially floundering manned program would not result in the rape of the unmanned exploration programs. The political failure took place gradually, over the course of both Democratic and Republican administrations, but the multi-center, separate-accounting days of NASA have been over for some time now. And with a single administrative steering committee responsible for *all* NASA programs, and responsible for the "sharing of the pie" all 'round the town, we have now been put in the position where political pressure to "make us some space heroes" has become responsible for cutbacks in unquestionably worthwhile programs.

As with any political failure, it can be reversed, over time. The concept of presenting to Congress separate funding requests from different NASA centers, each with its own set of justifications, can be brought back. I mean, there are constituencies within almost every other federal agency -- we *can* get it back to where the unmanned and manned constituencies are able to argue their own cases and be dealt with as separate entities, pursuing related but separate goals.

That, IMHO, is the only reasonable course to try and navigate -- get JPL and APL and Huntsville and Houston out there, pitching their own programs and getting their own separate budgets. Such a process would raise the level of discourse, and result in a better-educated set of lawmakers.

You don't have to completely follow Horowitz' belief that robots will ALWAYS be better at exploring worlds beyond the Moon than humans are to agree with his main argument. The switchover to robotic exploration of the deep sea has not "ended that era of exploration"; it has tremendously accelerated it. Unless we can come up with concrete reasons to pump gargantuan amounts of money into manned deep space expeditions in the near future -- and we can't -- their only possible purpose, as Horowitz said, is as public entertainment. And the public is consistently telling the pollsters that they aren't willing to spend more than a total of "a few billion dollars" of their tax money for manned lunar and Mars expeditions -- which is to say that they don't think they're worth doing at all for entertainment value. But they MIGHT be willing to spend that same "few billion dollars" on really interesting unmanned space exploration, in which case it actually WOULD get some results.

Yes, a lot of deep-sea investigation is being done by robots. But, even though robots can do the job far more safely and effectively, and can get into so many small nooks and crannies, why do people spend millions of dollars to arrange their own manned dives down to the wreck of the Titanic?

In that case, just sending our senses there isn't enough. As a people, as a culture, we have to *keep* sending people down to that wreck. Even though it costs a fairly ridiculous amount of money to do so, and is a somewhat risky thing to do. And even though such continued visits are destroying the wreckage.

Even though we don't have to.

But, as near as I can tell, solely because we can.

As for those pesky polls -- you know what they say: there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. If you look more closely at those same polls, those same people believe that NASA's budget is larger than that of the Department of Health and Human Services, that it amounts to well more than $100 billion a year, and that they believe that somehow all that money ends up getting shot into space, and not spent on salaries, resources, support and maintenance, etc., etc., etc....

Give me a poll of informed Americans, and I'll take it a little more seriously.

-the other Doug

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

"Yes, a lot of deep-sea investigation is being done by robots. But, even though robots can do the job far more safely and effectively, and can get into so many small nooks and crannies, why do people spend millions of dollars to arrange their own manned dives down to the wreck of the Titanic?"

Using their own money. And THAT is the center of the whole issue. If gazillionnaires want to use their own cash to go into space, or dive to the Titanic, or try to set a new world record for how many live hornets they can glue to their head without increasing their hat size, while I can think of (to put it mildly) more socially responsible uses for their moolah, after they've paid their taxes they are perfectly free to use what'e left for those activities. But they do NOT have the right to use taxpayer money for those purposes.

As for "a poll of informed Americans", the informed Americans -- consistently -- take a dimmer view of manned space exploration, because (as I keep saying) it's far less cost-effective at gaining any concrete benefits for humanity. Which means that the only justification for it is entertainment, under whatever name you want to call it. And that means that the taxpayers, who are supposed to be the ones being entertained, have every right to directly decide how much they want to pay for that particular form of entertainment -- a right they do not have with any kind of spending that actually requires specialized knowledge as to its cost-effectiveness.

One final note: since I seem to have a perverse talent for hijacking every thread on this site for the purpose of diatribes against manned spacelight, I think it might be wise to set up a thread specifically to discuss the preferability of manned versus unmanned spaceflight down in the "Policy" section, and plant all future discussions on the subject there.

[David]

One final note: since I seem to have a perverse talent for hijacking every thread on this site for the purpose of diatribes against manned spacelight, I think it might be wise to set up a thread specifically to discuss the preferability of manned versus unmanned spaceflight down in the "Policy" section, and plant all future discussions on the subject there.

That only works if you can keep from talking about MSF on the other threads... yes, I know. It's like scratching an itch.

[djellison]

One final note: since I seem to have a perverse talent for hijacking every thread on this site for the purpose of diatribes against manned spacelight, I think it might be wise to set up a thread specifically to discuss the preferability of manned versus unmanned spaceflight down in the "Policy" section, and plant all future discussions on the subject there.

If you want a ranting place ( and you've done plenty of it here, and formerly elsewhere ) then get a blog - take you 30 seconds with google to sort it out and bish-bash-bosh, you can lambast away to your hearts content

If you want to have a discussion, then by all means do it here.


Doug

[tedstryk]

There are really three facets to the manned vs. unmanned. The first is arguable - whether the science accomplished by robots can equal or best humans on the moon. The second and third are tied. If human settlement of space is our ultimate goal, and if there is something significant that warrants any costs to actually send humans - and this is a subjective question - then it might be easier to come up with 100 billion for a manned program than 5 billion for an unmanned one. The third is where the general public stands, which will determine political will.

It is worth remembering that many of the hardline Apollo opponents were the old-guard sky-scientists (I say that because many working in particle and fields today are much more understanding when it comes to the value of remote sensing) who also opposed cameras on robotic missions - see the Venus thread. And although scientists bemoaned the lack of emphasis on science in Apollo - it did indeed ride beack seet to just getting there and propaganda - I think we also have to be aware that without the race to put a man on the moon, there would have been no Ranger, Surveyor, Lunar Orbiter - or Zond, Luna, and Lunokhod. If you look at the science done by Apollo, it was far above the robotic technology of the day. I still see having a human present as being an advantage, although technology has improved the prospects for robitic missions. I also think that the fact that Harrison Schmidt being the only trained geologist-astronaut to fly is a factor - had more field geologists been sent, I think the scientific return would be improved.

[dvandorn]

I dunno about the lack of sending professional geologists to the Moon (with the exception of Schmitt) really hurting the science return, since the J mission crews were well trained in geology. VERY well trained. In essence, we sent six professionally trained geologists to the Moon -- only one of them had a degree in the field, but all of them could well have claimed such a degree.

-the other Doug

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

If you want a ranting place ( and you've done plenty of it here, and formerly elsewhere ) then get a blog - take you 30 seconds with google to sort it out and bish-bash-bosh, you can lambast away to your hearts content

If you want to have a discussion, then by all means do it here.


Doug

I agree. For once that I launch a thread, I would have prefered to have replies on the topic itself (manned missions serviced Moon rover) rather than a manned/unmanned debate, even if the later was interesting too.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

I agree. For once that I launch a thread, I would have prefered to have replies on the topic itself (manned missions serviced Moon rover) rather than a manned/unmanned debate, even if the later was interesting too.

In that case, I apologize in advance for mentioning this. However, Springer Link is offering free online access to the recently published June 2004 issue of Earth, Moon, and Planets, which is a special issue regarding the scientific case for human space exploration.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

There was tremendous progress recently in the domain of autonomous drive, see Opportunity and Spirit, which are able of a safe obstacle-pits avoidance, and of some efficiency about circunventing obstacles. So a rover on the Moon will be able to take profit of these developments.
On the other hand, a Moon rover can be easily remote-controlled with a video link.

But the Moon terrain is much more rugged that what we see on Meridiani and even at Gusev. There are large rocks (metre or more) and many craters with slopes as steep as 30°. Even a flat surface perspective could hide a small but dangerous pit.

The problem is still worse if we consider that this rover will have to make long drives, thousands of kilometres, in a reasonable delay. This requires that it can drive fast, say in the 30km/h domain or more.

And driving on a treacherous terrain at such a speed with a more than 2s delay would quickly end to send the rover in a small but deadly pit, that the controler would not see behind a small fold of terrain.

So a Moon rover would have to be much larger than the Mars caddies. It has to be large anyway, to be of some use: carry a complete analysis lab, and eventually piggy-back an habitation module or LEM-like crew return module.

So it would need some features:
-large wheels
-long suspention arms
-active suspention able to absorb large shocks.
-forward looking cameras mounted high on top of "antennas".

Eventually an autonomous drive capability would allow to react in time to an unseen hazard even in a remote controled drive session.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

I agree. For once that I launch a thread, I would have prefered to have replies on the topic itself (manned missions serviced Moon rover) rather than a manned/unmanned debate, even if the later was interesting too.

The trouble is that, in this particular case, there's simply no way to avoid bringing up the issue -- at least in connection with lunar exploration. (The issues involved with manned deep-space exploration, as I tried to make clear, really are different in nature, thanks to the vastly greater difficulty in teleoperating robots on any world farther away than the Moon.)

[djellison]

The trouble is that, in this particular case, there's simply no way to avoid bringing up the issue

It's really very easy Bruce, you just have to stop making the point. It's that easy. If you can't stop making the point, then I'll start stoping you doing it the hard way - I'd rather you did it the easy way by restraint.

Doug

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

OK.

As for a fast-moving unmanned lunar rover (of any type), I presume the solution to the problem of dangerous obstacles is a scanning lidar to recognize dangerously tall rocks and dangerously steep slopes ahead -- that is, exactly the same sort of thing planned for the MSL lander. We are, after all, starting to develop similar laser systems for passenger cars on THIS world. (I doubt that a purely visual recognition system, like that on the MERs, would be adequate -- at least until we learn more about how our own eyes compute recognition of features, and even that might be an inferior system on a world without the long-distance atmospheric blurring that we rely on so much to judge relative distances on this planet.)

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

OK.

As for a fast-moving unmanned lunar rover (of any type), I presume the solution to the problem of dangerous obstacles is a scanning lidar to recognize dangerously tall rocks and dangerously steep slopes ahead -- that is, exactly the same sort of thing planned for the MSL lander. We are, after all, starting to develop similar laser systems for passenger cars on THIS world. (I doubt that a purely visual recognition system, like that on the MERs, would be adequate -- at least until we learn more about how our own eyes compute recognition of features, and even that might be an inferior system on a world without the long-distance atmospheric blurring that we rely on so much to judge relative distances on this planet.)

Yes, a laser-sensing or lidar would be a good idea.

The MERs on Mars work the same than our eyes: they create a 3D map from two slightly different perspective views. This process has fundamental limits. For instance a slight hill on a flat terrain is often unseen, and it can hide a pit. Other illusions are possible, and to drive fast our cars on the road we need roads specially marked with colors, bands, etc. which allow our eyes to have a simple perspective view, univocal, or at least to detect the tricks (in the case of a slight hill, the side band appears sheared). Driving on the Moon at high speed would rather be like driving fast a tank on a virgin and hostile terrain. Tank drivers could testify about this...

A lidar (or rather a laser telemetre) scanning the front view would allow to directly make a 3D map. And an univocal map, without the above vision tricks. Even in the case the scan comes on the top of the slight hill, it detects an abrupt change in the distance, hinting for an unseen zone which can be treated as a hazardous zone.

The next step could be presenting the scene to an human driver. For this a color could appear on a synthetized view (or over a natural greyscale view) to indicate the distance. (Black could be very close, after brown, red, yellow, blue, white for the farthest). In such a view, the slight hill could appear like a color transition where the greyscale image appears of an uniform grey. So even a human driver could infer the presence of an unseen zone (the top of the slight hill could even appear highlighted) but robots would perform better, and in this case even an astronaut would prefer to rely on the robot, just monitoring it.

[djellison]

You see Bruce - not that hard. Here, have a cookie


Seriously - the manned v unmanned stuff is old, repetative and boring -but if you want to thrash it out, do it in its own thread.

Doug

[Bob Shaw]

OK.

As for a fast-moving unmanned lunar rover (of any type), I presume the solution to the problem of dangerous obstacles is a scanning lidar to recognize dangerously tall rocks and dangerously steep slopes ahead -- that is, exactly the same sort of thing planned for the MSL lander. We are, after all, starting to develop similar laser systems for passenger cars on THIS world. (I doubt that a purely visual recognition system, like that on the MERs, would be adequate -- at least until we learn more about how our own eyes compute recognition of features, and even that might be an inferior system on a world without the long-distance atmospheric blurring that we rely on so much to judge relative distances on this planet.)

Bruce:

There's also the raft of technologies demonstrated, by among others, Carnegie Mellon University in the DARPA unmanned desert race contest:

http://www.cmu.edu/cmnews/extra/050927_redteam.html

Bob Shaw