The lack of human space exploration really doesn’t help in terms of capturing the public’s fickle imagination. Sending robots is just not as exciting, even to me. Additionally, NASA’s failure to continue to show progress after the huge, dramatic victory of the moon missions was very bad, from a PR perspective. Many people feel that space is over, and that that chapter in humanity’s history is closed. Which is very sad, because I think the moon missions were one of the best things we’ve ever done, as a species.
“If you watch NASA backwards, it’s about a space agency that has no spaceflight capability, then does low-orbit flights, then lands on moon.”
We chose to develop space travel with short-term spectaculars in mind instead of long-term economics; now the long term is here, we’re barely started making space economical, and we can no longer afford to make it spectacular.
I strongly agree with the point about lack of dramatic victories. It is hard for people to be excited when most of what we’ve done is stay in low Earth orbit. At the same time, people don’t appreciate though how much progress we’ve made that’s slow and steady. We’ve reduced the cost of putting things into space, and we’ve started getting to the point where private companies can do things in space and routinely turn profits, not just for communication satellites, but also for mapping satellites, and in some cases, possibly human space travel. It may well be that we’ll return to the dramatic victories once we bring the cost down a bit more.
I agree with everything except I think sending robots is very exciting because not only does it advance space exploration but it also advances AI research.
This reminds me of an episode of The West Wing, where President Bartlett is inspired by Kennedy’s To the Moon speech, and decides that he wants to make a similar dramatic statement. In his case, it was to have a cure cancer in ten years. In my mind, curing cancer is similar, in intent at least, to universal healthcare—essentially, using medicine to help more people live longer, healthier lives. However, I think that curing a disease a disease or providing everyone with basic healthcare, while extremely beneficial to society, is not quite as inspirational as it was to send someone to the moon in the 1960s.
While I wasn’t alive then, I think it would be the equivalent of a president saying “we will be able to cure death in 10 years!” or “we will be able to send humans to another solar system in ten years!” Those are both dramatic visions that people think are either impossible or will occur in the distant future. And having the president say that they are achievable makes people believe that it is so.
Interesting that you point to that, because in my own mind, when I want to think about the most spectacular achievements of humanity, my two first candidates are : “we walked on the moon” and “we eradicated smallpox”. They are on pair to me, the glorious achievements of human minds overpowering Azathoth (gladly, Azathoth isn’t fighting back).
And a cure for cancer, along side with going to Mars or doing a permanent base on the Moon, would be the next step of those two achievements.
The lack of human space exploration really doesn’t help in terms of capturing the public’s fickle imagination. Sending robots is just not as exciting, even to me. Additionally, NASA’s failure to continue to show progress after the huge, dramatic victory of the moon missions was very bad, from a PR perspective. Many people feel that space is over, and that that chapter in humanity’s history is closed. Which is very sad, because I think the moon missions were one of the best things we’ve ever done, as a species.
“If you watch NASA backwards, it’s about a space agency that has no spaceflight capability, then does low-orbit flights, then lands on moon.”
We chose to develop space travel with short-term spectaculars in mind instead of long-term economics; now the long term is here, we’re barely started making space economical, and we can no longer afford to make it spectacular.
I strongly agree with the point about lack of dramatic victories. It is hard for people to be excited when most of what we’ve done is stay in low Earth orbit. At the same time, people don’t appreciate though how much progress we’ve made that’s slow and steady. We’ve reduced the cost of putting things into space, and we’ve started getting to the point where private companies can do things in space and routinely turn profits, not just for communication satellites, but also for mapping satellites, and in some cases, possibly human space travel. It may well be that we’ll return to the dramatic victories once we bring the cost down a bit more.
I agree with everything except I think sending robots is very exciting because not only does it advance space exploration but it also advances AI research.
This reminds me of an episode of The West Wing, where President Bartlett is inspired by Kennedy’s To the Moon speech, and decides that he wants to make a similar dramatic statement. In his case, it was to have a cure cancer in ten years. In my mind, curing cancer is similar, in intent at least, to universal healthcare—essentially, using medicine to help more people live longer, healthier lives. However, I think that curing a disease a disease or providing everyone with basic healthcare, while extremely beneficial to society, is not quite as inspirational as it was to send someone to the moon in the 1960s.
While I wasn’t alive then, I think it would be the equivalent of a president saying “we will be able to cure death in 10 years!” or “we will be able to send humans to another solar system in ten years!” Those are both dramatic visions that people think are either impossible or will occur in the distant future. And having the president say that they are achievable makes people believe that it is so.
Interesting that you point to that, because in my own mind, when I want to think about the most spectacular achievements of humanity, my two first candidates are : “we walked on the moon” and “we eradicated smallpox”. They are on pair to me, the glorious achievements of human minds overpowering Azathoth (gladly, Azathoth isn’t fighting back).
And a cure for cancer, along side with going to Mars or doing a permanent base on the Moon, would be the next step of those two achievements.