Image (Credit): Space Launch System rocket. (NASA)
“The launch industry is at a point where the technology is so mature that it may not be necessary to have the U.S. government invest in it… It may be we’re at a tipping point with this rocket.”
-Statement by Dan Goldin, a former NASA administrator, regarding NASA’s expenditures on the Space Launch System (SLS) in a Wall Street Journal article, “NASA Is Building Moon Rockets, Maybe for the Last Time.” The SLS and Orion spacecraft are part of NASA’s Artemis Program to return astronauts to the Moon.
“We should not have publicly funded programmes to send people to the moon, still less to Mars…It’s hugely risky, hugely expensive, and there’s no practical or scientific benefit to sending humans. It’s a pretty bad bargain for the taxpayer.”
-Statement by Lord Martin Rees, co-author of the book The End of Astronauts, speaking to the The Guardian. He argues that private sector humans and government robots are the future of space exploration. In other words, let billionaires die space, while the government avoids this risk. Harvard University Press states:
In The End of Astronauts, Goldsmith and Rees weigh the benefits and risks of human exploration across the solar system. In space humans require air, food, and water, along with protection from potentially deadly radiation and high-energy particles, at a cost of more than ten times that of robotic exploration. Meanwhile, automated explorers have demonstrated the ability to investigate planetary surfaces efficiently and effectively, operating autonomously or under direction from Earth. Although Goldsmith and Rees are alert to the limits of artificial intelligence, they know that our robots steadily improve, while our bodies do not. Today a robot cannot equal a geologist’s expertise, but by the time we land a geologist on Mars, this advantage will diminish significantly.
Image (Credit): The Very Large Array located at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NROA) site in Socorro, New Mexico, which is used by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute. (Alex Savello/NROA)
“There is a real possibility that humans will not exist as a species thousands of years from now, and thus a ‘message in a bottle’ about the very basic details would at least serve as a small reminder that we existed.”
An updated, binary-coded message has been developed for transmission to extraterrestrial intelligences in the Milky Way galaxy. The proposed message includes basic mathematical and physical concepts to establish a universal means of communication followed by information on the biochemical composition of life on Earth, the Solar System’s time-stamped position in the Milky Way relative to known globular clusters, as well as digitized depictions of the Solar System, and Earth’s surface. The message concludes with digitized images of the human form, along with an invitation for any receiving intelligences to respond.
I am not what the value of a ‘message in a bottle’ would be from a dead civilization. I was hoping for a more hopeful spin about why we want to send a message. Of course, many do not want to send a message at all because the alien response may not be what we want.
Image (Credit): SpaceX AX-1 mission to the International Space Station. (SpaceX)
“We are not space tourists.”
– Statement by Michael López-Alegría who traveled as a private citizen (and former NASA astronaut) to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday as part of SpaceX’s AX-1 mission.
Why does this remind me of the statement “I am not a crook”? Mr. López-Alegría leads the mission carrying three wealthy passengers who spent about $55 million apiece to stay on the ISS for eight days and basically get in the way of working astronauts. I thought Bigelow was working on inflatable space hotels. Wouldn’t that be more appropriate? And maybe that $55 million could go towards STEM classes for students who want to go to space as a career rather than a joyride. Just an idea.
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of a Bigelow inflatable space station. (Bigelow Space Ops)
Image (Credit): NASA Astronaut Mark Vande Hei aboard the International Space Station. (NASA)
“They were, are and will continue to be very dear friends of mine. We support each other throughout everything. And I never had any concerns about my ability to continue working with them – very good professionals and technically competent and wonderful human beings.”
-NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who returned to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) last week, regarding his US and Russian crew mates, as quoted in the Washington Post. As a result of his latest ISS mission, Mr. Vande Hei has now spent more time in space on a single mission than any other US astronaut.
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