Wanted: A Gravedigger for NASA?

[tw]

Now the Space Station has problems - that top management is ignoring?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Oct22.html

NASA's decision to launch a fresh two-man crew to the International Space Station last weekend came over the strenuous objections of mid-level scientists and physicians who warned that deteriorating medical equipment and air and water monitoring devices aboard the orbiting laboratory posed increasing safety risks for the crew, according to space agency documents and interviews.

Two officials responsible for health and environmental conditions on the space station refused to approve the launch of the new crew, instead signing a dissent that warned about "the continued degradation" of the environmental monitoring and health maintenance systems and exercise equipment vital to the astronauts' well-being. ...

NASA's decision to launch a fresh two-man crew to the International Space Station last weekend came over the strenuous objections of mid-level scientists and physicians who warned that deteriorating medical equipment and air and water monitoring devices aboard the orbiting laboratory posed increasing safety risks for the crew, according to space agency documents and interviews.

The problems with monitoring environmental conditions aboard the space station have festered for more than a year, [even before Columbia] ... Space station astronauts have shown such symptoms as headaches, dizziness and "an inability to think clearly," ... The onboard sensors designed to provide real-time analysis of the air, water and radiation levels have been broken for months, which has made it impossible to determine at any given time whether there is a buildup of trace amounts of dangerous chemical compounds that could sicken the astronauts, or worse.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It really concerns me, the real time instrumentation for the parameters they're talking about, don't work. And haven't worked for a long time. Top management is afraid of losing momentum and public interest. And the Astronauts like most fighter pilots, are like a dog you just asked if they want to go for a walk.

[Uryoces]

We need a follow up to the Apollo program. The space shuttle is very pretty, and I had high hopes for it, but we need to move on. We need to get our act together and fix the space station to use it as a way point and not a destination. Southern polar region of the moon, anyone?

We need to put people with vision in charge of Nasa, get dreamers and tinkerers in there. Scaled Composites and Armadillo Aerospace come to mind. We need to get rid of those damned MBA's that are following the Peter Principle to the hilt.

[tw]

Originally posted by Uryoces
We need a follow up to the Apollo program. The space shuttle is very pretty, and I had high hopes for it, but we need to move on. We need to get our act together and fix the space station to use it as a way point and not a destination. Southern polar region of the moon, anyone?

Why? What is the strategic objective? To put men on the southern moon only for the glory of man? That is the reasoning that got us into this Space Station fiasco in the first place. And the need to maintain a schedule on that fiasco resulted in rationalization best summarized as the Columbia disaster.

Doing things without good logic reasons is simply wrong. Originally it was either the Space Station or the Super Collider. Now the Space Station does no science and the quantum physics world will soon be leaving the US to continue their research where necessary equipment will be available - Cern. Why then continue so much money on many space flight that has little logical purpose?

BTW, what is necessary to continue Moore's Law. A Space Station or quantum physics? What made gigahertz disk drives possible? Quantum physics - not a rocket launch.

[Uryoces]

South Polar Atiken basin has a large concentration of water ice in the perpetual shadows there. The Clementine mission found it. Why? Moving out into the solar system. I could just as easily say that the supercollider is a waste of money in that it's pure estoeric science with no application whatsoever. A lunar colony is a fairly pragmatic thing; we'd be moving out into the solar system, not placing all of our eggs in one basket.

The quantum physics drving new, experimental compouter technology would function just fine without the supercollider. I say we do more with the technology we have before we start to create quantum computational systems that will suck even more power out of overloaded grids.

[tw]

Originally posted by Uryoces
Why? Moving out into the solar system. I could just as easily say that the supercollider is a waste of money in that it's pure estoeric science with no application whatsoever.

Yes one could say that. But there is a difference between science and science fiction. Putting a few men on the moon struggling to survive while desperately mining for water is suppose to advance mankind? We are spending billions to keeping two men uselessly in space, only above the earth, doing nothing to advance mankind. Now a few starving earthlings on the southern pole of the moon would advance mankind? Only if using junk science reasoning.

We know superconductivity has massive potential for our future. Where is the knowledge to make superconductivity work? Quantum physics - not on a moon's southern pole. We know that newer materials and better production methods are necessary to advance mankind. Where is the knowledge? In learning how these materials are formed and better ways to make them. Quantum physics. Where is the future of memory, logic, and data storage. Already in science developed in quantum physics - without spending billions on two men in space. What makes our fundamental energy types work and interrelate. Wisdom from a man in the moon - or quantum physics? Where is the future in genetic research - the heart of future medical breakthroughs? In technology that is found in quantum physics - not the least of which is new computer components found in the principles of quantum physics. Where are the concepts of alternative energy sources such as fuel cells? We break up the atom into its quantum physic parts, each taking a different path. Its called quantum physics.

IOW quantum physics is involved with or fundamental to many technologies that appear to be our future. How do we get propulsion systems and newer lighter materials so that two men can beg for water on the moon's southern pole? Breakthoughs that probably are found in new technologies - based fully or in part on .... quantum physics.

Most of the breakthrough technologies that made latest computers possible were from the world of advanced physics - because the US has most of the worlds advance quantum physics tools. Quantum physics research are why transistor not are only single digit atoms thick. However a large sucking sound will begin soon as those world leading minds go where basic research is appreciated. Same place that the 'www' was created. Cern. Why? Too many Americans even in the Cellar cannot tell the difference between spending $billions to put two beggars on the moon's southern pole - verses where many new breakthrough technologies come from. Many of our previous advances were pioneered in work from predecessors of the super collider. But now a super collider does nothing? Only where people don't read science.

When science fiction is rationalization for big dollar science, then we have the ISS - which costs $billions - and produces nothing - no science. Did we not yet learn the lesson of science fiction to justify junk science?

When less money is spent, because it is what anti-junk scientists want, then we would have the super collider. But this assumes one has enough knowledge of science and the world to see the difference. A man scratching for water on the moon would be just another ISS or a liberation of people who don't want to be liberated. It does not advance mankind and does not even promise a single major breakthrough. Scratching for water on the moon is not even proposed for a single scientific reason. What is left? Junk science? Romance? Wild speculation? None of these justify a man on the moon - yet.

Putting a human on the moon's southern pole is advocated only for romantic reasons - the irrational exuberance that created our ISS and Iraq messes. A super collider is a critical tool so important to advance mankind and to advance many of America's money making industries. Beggars on the moon is how politicians get more bribes in exchange for junk science hype - and no science. And yet some cannot see the difference between nonsense (ISS or drilling for moon water) verses where science is really moving. Advocating well drillers on the moon so obviously does nothing to advance mankind - but is so romantic to science fiction advocates.

[Undertoad]

The rub, then, is that since it's public money, you're not allowed to use NASA-type money on anything that doesn't really strike the public's imagination.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I agree, in that I don't see the purpose of sending people to the moon or mars. But saying that the space program produces nothing is a little much. Tremendous strides in science and medicine have come from the space program. Of course they might have been developed at lower cost than with NASA's shotgun method of research.
After we spend billions of taxpayer dollars on the super collider, is the resultant technology the property of the Government? I'd assume it would be passed on to "private industry" like in the past. Then of course "private industry" would pass it along to their "global partners" just like Boeing did to China with our space technology. Now China has put a man in space, thanks to the Soviets and the US taxpayer.

[tw]

Originally posted by Undertoad
The rub, then, is that since it's public money, you're not allowed to use NASA-type money on anything that doesn't really strike the public's imagination.

Like planes with morphing wings - another promising advancement in aircraft development. Or a new wing that reduced the sonic boom (and reduces fuel consumption) by 40%. Of the many spectacular planetary missions that even provides incite into how our weather works.

NASA's best work is done on almost no budget - virutally all of the productive stuff in less than 1%. Big budgets are where romantics promote nonsense such as a manned space station that sitll has no purpose. But then we graduate less technically trained people every year. How can the nation apprieciate what is really breakthrough science. No wonder so few see the critical importance of quantum physics to this nation's next technology wave. Too many only believed in bigger battleships (instead of aircraft carriers) because battleships were the big hype 20 years previous. Myopics would never appreciate a breakthrough technology until it was no longer revolutionary.

Much of the technologies in today's computers were based in that government research. Anyone doing advanced particle or plasma research once came to America where the big research tools were built (ie Stanford Linear Accelerator). Next year, there will be a mass migration to Cern. America now believes in investing in presidents, keeping human bodies doing plant maintenance in space, and in liberating countries that don't want to be liberated.

[Uryoces]

I believe I have been insulted, numerous times. Yea, verily I bleed.

My comment was to suggest that the shuttle's time is past. It's very pretty, but expensive in cost and lives. I remember following it's progress in grade school, and being very excited about the prospects of space travel. Dreams die hard. The Soviets have been using a tried and true 40-year old technology called Soyuz. At one time we had a program that was similar. With our adavances in materials and control systems today, we should be able to come up with something similar that makes more sense.

This makes the idea of a moonbase a realistic prospect. I won't go into how many advances came from the space program. Pure science needs to be done, and the Supercolider is important. However you weren't interested in finding out what I thought of it. Your Supercollider probably won't get done unless it's seen as a pork-barrel project that some state can reap the benefits from, and your billions of dollars wasted on it are somehow cleaner, and I won't hear you complain. Texas was the last state that would have had it constructed; Washington was beat out by superior politics I guess. How is creating a big magnetic ring in the dirt more important that two men scratching in the dirt on the moon? Will it help us create better fuel cells? Nope. The space program, and a company in Vancouver B.C. called Ballard Power Systems is seeing to that.

Planes with morphing wings? That seems to require advances in materials. Now, I wonder, which program is involved in materials like that? Will accelerating protons and antiprotons bring us any insight into this?

You're mixing your sciences together. The Supercollider won't tell us anything about superconductivity that can't be learned with out it. Indeed superconductivity is required for the larger accelerators, NOT the other way around.

All science exictes me, including the Supercollider, but you're not willing to find out, you jump to conclusions, and are ready to insult anyone that has a differing opinion.

You know the shuttle's external tank? It's a big shiny, aluminum tube.

[tw]

Originally posted by Uryoces
How is creating a big magnetic ring in the dirt more important that two men scratching in the dirt on the moon? Will it help us create better fuel cells? Nope. The space program, and a company in Vancouver B.C. called Ballard Power Systems is seeing to that.

Planes with morphing wings? That seems to require advances in materials. Now, I wonder, which program is involved in materials like that? Will accelerating protons and antiprotons bring us any insight into this?

Uryoces really doesn't have insight into science. Ballard Power Systems is simply applying what had long since been learned by basic research so many decades previously.

Maybe I should step back and explain differences between basic research and application research. Bell Labs in its creative day was basic research. Application research was then conducted by Western Electric, et al to develop products based upon basic research. Classic science history - when basic and applied research is done simultaneously, then progress stops.

Ballard Power Systems is only application research. They are not doing the breakthrough research. They only made a major step forwared in fuel cell development (application research) AND are now being surpassed by other application research centers. None of this proves a super collider unnecessary.

Concepts of superconductivity apparently are not understood. We so little understand the inner workings of superconductivity that we cannot even predict what can and can not be a superconductor - and why. Major breakthroughs included the BCS theory that explained something called phonons (no not photons). But again, to understand how these forces work, we need data that only a super collider could have provided. Concepts including how strong forces, weak forces, etc all work, are interrelated, created, and controlled.

Again Uryoces confuses application science (application of known superconductors and their proven abilities) with basic research (learning how and why superconductivity works).

But this in his post I have not a clue. How will putting two men on the moon scratching for water make breakthroughs in fuel cell technology? What are they going to find - magic slippers? A geni?

Apparently Uryoces is using the myth that the space program resulted in numerous breakthrough technologies. In reality, the space program was only a consumer of products that were already marketed or developed for other purposes. If Uryoces was right, then the 8080 microprocessor was a direct result of the space program. In fact that propaganda was promoted in about 1970. Now for reality. The 8080 microprocessor was an existing technology also used by the space program and by other big budget programs such as the Minuteman missile program. What created the 8080 and it predecessors? Trying to make a calculator. There it is. Calculator development - not a space program - should be encouraged because it results in major technological breakthroughs.

If Uryoces was correct, then disk drives also were created by the Minuteman missile program. After all, critical to the guidance system was a big disk drive in the top of that nuclear missile. Therefore the cold war is responsible for creating disk drives.

Reality - a space program will not result in better fuel cells.

We cannot even get a launch every few months but a few hundred miles to the top of earth's atmosphere. How does Uryoces expect that we supply two men on the moon every month? We don't even have enough rocket power to maintain the ISS? Where is the massive extra power coming from to go to the moon every month - so that two men can scratch the moon for water? Even Soyus cannot supply enough material to keep two men alive in the ISS? Where is this rocket large enough to supply two men every month on the moon?

Uryoces - you were only insulted if you are emotionally attached to your conclusions. I read not one personal attack on you - not even close. Not a single reason to discuss blood. But the word blood says to me you are emotionally attached to your conclusions when you should be logically attached. I read a severe shortage of basic science knowledge in your posts. First learn how basic particle research applies to previously posted science breakthroughs. You have confused application research with sub-atomic particle research. You don't appreciate how important particle research has becoming even to new materials and technology tools. Even that head on the gigahertz disk drive comes from work in particle physics - things learned from smashing sub-atomic particles together.

Tell me about strained silicon - a new concept in IC development. Were these concepts developed from men trying to stay alive in the ISS - or from fundamental science learned from plasma and sub-atomic particle physics?

If we are to produce better fuel cells, the technology will come only from particle physics. Why platinum and paladium work as they do - sub-atomic physics. Things learn from smashing atoms into pieces. Creating a big magnetic ring in the dirt IS that important even to fuel cell research - as to superconductivity - as to faster computers (and I am not talking about quantum computers) - as to greater data storage - as to new materials that are faster, stronger, lighter, etc. No space station or men romantically scratching for moon water is going to discover those breakthrough technologies.

The ISS has no scientific reason to exist. It has no monetary reason to exist. It has become a big white elephant because it has lost its only reason to exist. And its existance comes at the expense of mankind advancements in basic research. Big bucks does not mean big results. But spending big bucks only because of romantic ideas can starve mankind of fundamental science breakthroughs. Without understanding even the difference between basic research and application research, then we, the public, permit enemies of science to control science. We needed that super collider. It got killed by the ISS whose price has since skyrocketed by a factor of 10. And I now suspect super collider also got killed because the common man did not have a clue as to it's importance.

[xoxoxoBruce]

And I now suspect super collider also got killed because the common man did not have a clue as to it's importance.

But you have decided the common man should pay for it?

[Griff]

Uryoces tw really doesn't have insight into science.

[tw]

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
But you have decided the common man should pay for it?

The common man was going to pay for something. It was either $8billion for the super collider or $8billion for ISS. The super collider had scientific value. ISS did not. But ISS was an excellent platform to build a common trust between the US and Russia while teaching how the other thinks. American's approach scientific solutions is quite different from how the Russian do it. And getting both side to have their little people in direct communication and cooperation was right important to building trust.

Unfortunately, no one bothered to notice that the ISS budget of only $8billion was but a joke. Currently ISS has cost somewhere around $80billion - and still it will do no science. The basic super collider budget would have cost about what was budgeted - as demonstrated by other smaller and existing particle accelerators. AND the super collider would have been addressing serious fundamental science questions that currently are not answered by existing research tools.

So which do you want to pay for? $80+billion for the ISS that currently serves no purpose, or the super collider that would truly advance science and keep American in the forefront of breakthrough technologies? The latter costing about 1/10th the cost for many times more rewards.

[OnyxCougar]

Source

The ISS is NOT a useless bit of money gobbling metal in orbit.

Yes, it's overpriced.

Yes, it's expensive to maintain.

Yes, a superconductor is essential to quantum physics. But quantum physics is NOT the be-all, end-all of science.

Some things the ISS is helpful for (emphasis mine):

Cells associate in complex, three-dimensional groupings—called lines—to form living tissue. When researchers try to replicate this natural growth in ground-based laboratories, they find that the cultivated cells form flat, thin specimens. Since these specimens do not accurately represent cell behavior, they are of limited use to researchers. On the other hand, cells grown in the microgravity of low Earth orbit grow three-dimensionally, more closely resembling cells found in living bodies. CBOSS provides the first on-Station hardware dedicated to cultivating cells: a Biotechnology Specimen Temperature Controller (BSTC), a Biotechnology Refrigerator (BTR), a Gas Supply Module (GSM), and two Biotechnology Cell Science Stowage (BCSS). BSTC's chamber will act as a non-rotating bioreactor, where the cells will be cultivated. The experiments grown during this mission will be used for the study of human diseases, such as cancer.

In dilute magnetorheological (MR) suspensions the dipolar particles aggregate to form long chains. More concentrated systems exhibit a rapid liquid to solid transition as chains cross-link, and are capable of supporting stresses perpendicular to the applied field. These unique properties have many possible technological applications, especially for actuator-type devices. While several studies have aimed to describe the rheological properties of MR fluids on a microstructural basis, we seek to investigate the fundamental particle motions of such systems in an effort to relate dynamics to changes in structure and interactions. Additionally, the ability to experimentally probe colloidal suspensions interacting through tunable anisotropic potentials is of fundamental interest.

Space is a punishing environment. Extreme temperatures, radiation, vacuum, and orbiting debris can damage and destroy building materials and hardware. MISSE will test the durability of hundreds of samples—ranging from lubricants and paints to solar cell technologies—by exposing them to the potential hazards of space. By flying these samples in one of nature's harshest environments, researchers will not only discover the strength and durability of the samples, but will also gain insight that will help them design and manufacture new materials that will last longer on Earth, in space, and on other planets.

Your posts, while mostly logical, are written with tunnel vision. To YOU, the superconductor was the better choice.

Personally, if it came down to a superconductor that already exists (or is already being built in Europe) or creating a living environment in space... I'll pick the space station. It can help us learn how to live long term in that environment, so that one day we can build spaceships at the ISS, opening a whole new realm of possibility of space travel.

There were already SC's underway, why recreate the wheel? So the US can say nyah nyah, we have our own? Let the scientists go to CERN. They'll still report the science.

The Reasearch Triangle, in Raleigh/Durham, NC has over 13% of the Top Scientists in the United States, and has a population with doctoral degrees of over 35%.

I don't think all of them are running off to CERN.

I'd rather cure cancer.