Yes, a robot car that drives on its own will be a better driver than most humans who text and drive, or have 400ms reaction times.
But making a machine that can beat a 110ms reaction time human with 2SD+ IQ, and the ability to override the ground controllers with human curiosity is much harder. Humans have high dexterity, are extremely capable of switching roles fast, are surprisingly efficient, and force us to return back home.
So in terms of total science return, one Apollo mission did more for lunar science and discovery than 53 years of robots on the surface and in orbit.
Because many small steps are required before every giant leap.
I would like to point out that the current misadventure in the ME has cost at least $38,035,856,006 in 32 days. And that won't receive half of the "this is a waste of money" critiques this mission will. And there are a ton of people who are against that excursion.
Most people who will come across this will react with either extreme negativity or indifference. Very few people will react positively. This thread itself is evidence of that. This is a nerdy community filled with people who are deeply positive about space exploration and excluding my comments, the straw poll was,
> Apollo was over three orders of magnitude more efficient in producing scientific papers per day of fieldwork than are the MERs. This is essentially the same as Squyres’ (2005) intuitive estimate given above, and is consistent with the more quantitative analogue fieldwork tests reported by Snook et al. (2007).
Scientific papers are a pretty poor measure of productivity so here's another one. We know about the existence of He-3 thanks to samples brought back from astronauts on the moon. Astronauts setup fiddly UV telescope experiments on the moon, trying to set up a gravimeter to measure gravitational waves, digging into the soil to put explosive charges at different ranges for seismic measurement of the moon's subsurface... They were extremely productive. Most of what we know about the moon happened thanks to the 12 days spent on the lunar surface.
Because the goal of the program is to return humans to the moon. Artemis I was the unmanned test. This is the first manned test, and what they learn will support the subsequent missions that eventually land humans on the moon.
This is the same way that all manned spaceflight programs are conducted. You iterate and learn a little bit at a time. "Move fast and break things" doesn't work here. :)
If you can fly people around the moon, then landing people on the moon is a more reasonable next step.
I agree that it may not be entirely logical, but keeping public and funding opinion positive & invested _is_ important.
edit: I thought RocketLab flew their elecron rocket around the moon a few years ago? So it's definitely doable... so again I think it's about the optics.
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
Money being fungible and all, the rest can pretend their tax money is going exclusively to their favorite programs, whether that's healthcare or environment or building roads or starting wars or funding more startups or whatever.
Independent of how scientifically awesome this is, this is probably the most cost effective long term propaganda. Why waste money on posters when you can orbit the moon.
The amount of my taxes that went toward people flying on this trip is so small to be not worth considering.
I'm much more concerned about my tax dollars going toward the US military, especially with Trump wanting another $200B so he can murder more people in Iran while making the world and the US measurably less safe.
It is a test of the spacecraft. They need people onboard to test all the human systems. But yes, if this was a purely scientific flyby and not part of a larger manned program, machines would do it fine.
Yeah. Doesn't really make sense. The entire mission could be done remotely.
Even with a goal of eventually putting humans on the moon, it'd be better to do an automated run, measure everything in the cockpit, and put in sandbags and/or something to consume O2 to make sure the CO2 scrubbers are working correctly. It's maybe cruel, but a few dogs would work fine for that sort of thing. A flame would be better, but it's pretty dangerous.
The first mission in decades doesn't need to have humans in it.
Because human beings are remarkably capable, especially the best and the brightest. There's a great paper called the "dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency." https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article-abstract/53/2/2.22... // https://lasp.colorado.edu/mop/files/2019/08/RobotMyth.pdf
Yes, a robot car that drives on its own will be a better driver than most humans who text and drive, or have 400ms reaction times.
But making a machine that can beat a 110ms reaction time human with 2SD+ IQ, and the ability to override the ground controllers with human curiosity is much harder. Humans have high dexterity, are extremely capable of switching roles fast, are surprisingly efficient, and force us to return back home.
So in terms of total science return, one Apollo mission did more for lunar science and discovery than 53 years of robots on the surface and in orbit.
How does any of that matter for this mission, which will not be landing on the moon?
Because many small steps are required before every giant leap.
I would like to point out that the current misadventure in the ME has cost at least $38,035,856,006 in 32 days. And that won't receive half of the "this is a waste of money" critiques this mission will. And there are a ton of people who are against that excursion.
Most people who will come across this will react with either extreme negativity or indifference. Very few people will react positively. This thread itself is evidence of that. This is a nerdy community filled with people who are deeply positive about space exploration and excluding my comments, the straw poll was,
Only a plurality of comments were positive. 88 comments were neutral or negative.
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> How does any of that matter for this mission
This is a fair question. The closest answer I can get is eyes and ears onboard complement sensors.
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To test the stuff that will allow to land humans on the moon
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Are you referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troctolite_76535 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Schmitt#NASA_career)?
Yes, and more!
Scientific papers are a pretty poor measure of productivity so here's another one. We know about the existence of He-3 thanks to samples brought back from astronauts on the moon. Astronauts setup fiddly UV telescope experiments on the moon, trying to set up a gravimeter to measure gravitational waves, digging into the soil to put explosive charges at different ranges for seismic measurement of the moon's subsurface... They were extremely productive. Most of what we know about the moon happened thanks to the 12 days spent on the lunar surface.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Ultraviolet_Camera/Spectro...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Surface_Gravimeter
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ok sure but are humans a full decade of NSF budget better than robots
a bunch of robot cars broke down middle of wuhan highways today.
Because the goal of the program is to return humans to the moon. Artemis I was the unmanned test. This is the first manned test, and what they learn will support the subsequent missions that eventually land humans on the moon.
This is the same way that all manned spaceflight programs are conducted. You iterate and learn a little bit at a time. "Move fast and break things" doesn't work here. :)
I suspect it's the optics of it.
If you can fly people around the moon, then landing people on the moon is a more reasonable next step.
I agree that it may not be entirely logical, but keeping public and funding opinion positive & invested _is_ important.
edit: I thought RocketLab flew their elecron rocket around the moon a few years ago? So it's definitely doable... so again I think it's about the optics.
> I suspect it's the optics of it.
That's probably the justification for sending four people. First test flight probably could have been done with one or two pilots.
Because they want to be on the rocket. To see the moon up close with your own eyes? It's spiritual.
I understand why they want to fly. I don't understand why the people is fine paying taxes for that.
Why does Rice play Texas?
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
https://www.rice.edu/jfk-speech
Some are.
Money being fungible and all, the rest can pretend their tax money is going exclusively to their favorite programs, whether that's healthcare or environment or building roads or starting wars or funding more startups or whatever.
The space program has created some great technology we use every day now.
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Bro, of all the stupid shit we spend taxes on ($50 billion on corn subsidies), you're mad about space exploration?
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Independent of how scientifically awesome this is, this is probably the most cost effective long term propaganda. Why waste money on posters when you can orbit the moon.
The amount of my taxes that went toward people flying on this trip is so small to be not worth considering.
I'm much more concerned about my tax dollars going toward the US military, especially with Trump wanting another $200B so he can murder more people in Iran while making the world and the US measurably less safe.
Because of all the bullshit that the government wastes our tax funds on, this is the least bullshit.
It is a test of the spacecraft. They need people onboard to test all the human systems. But yes, if this was a purely scientific flyby and not part of a larger manned program, machines would do it fine.
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Yeah. Doesn't really make sense. The entire mission could be done remotely.
Even with a goal of eventually putting humans on the moon, it'd be better to do an automated run, measure everything in the cockpit, and put in sandbags and/or something to consume O2 to make sure the CO2 scrubbers are working correctly. It's maybe cruel, but a few dogs would work fine for that sort of thing. A flame would be better, but it's pretty dangerous.
The first mission in decades doesn't need to have humans in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_I
Thanks. I should have looked this up before posting.