President of the Royal Society demands a stop to European Manned Spaceflight

[simonpro]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7349610.stm



Who is this dip****?

"What actually makes the newspaper headlines are the marvellous pictures from the Hubble telescope and those of the surface of Mars and Jupiter and Titan, all obtained robotically."

So he thinks we should only ever do something if it can get into the newspapers? I thought the royal society was supposed to be for scientists, not celebrities. I thought it was for people who were working towards expanding the boundaries of human knowledge, not expanding the amount of column space they take up in newspapers.
Leave newspapers to Paris Hilton, the rest of us can do some proper work.

Jesus, reading that has really pissed me off.




(edit) The cynical part of me says it is because cosmological research is hard to conduct on a manned spacecraft and that he doesn't actually care about what is good for Europe at all. He only cares about getting more research money for his pet project - even if it is at the expense of everything else.

 

[Urwumpe]

Reminds me on the good old days of maritime travel, when the Royal Society bet on astronomical solutions for finding the longitude, when a mechanical solution was more viable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_prize

So, I couldn't care less, if he can't justify his opinion to avoid repeating the glamorous history the royal society. Manned space travel is sure not the most cost effective way to take beautiful photos.

But a telescope can't build a space station and a robot can't tell if a rock is interesting or not within a few seconds.

EDIT: BTW, to quote Lord Rees himself...

Once the threshold is crossed when there is a self-sustaining level of life in space, then life's long-range future will be secure irrespective of any of the risks on Earth (with the single exception of the catastrophic destruction of space itself). Will this happen before our technical civilization disintegrates, leaving this as a might-have-been? Will the self-sustaining space communities be established before a catastrophe sets back the prospect of any such enterprise, perhaps foreclosing it for ever? We live at what could be a defining moment for the cosmos, not just for our Earth.

("Our final hour", Martin Rees)

A pretty notable quote regarding his latest opinion.

 

[bujin]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7349610.stm



Who is this dip****?

"What actually makes the newspaper headlines are the marvellous pictures from the Hubble telescope and those of the surface of Mars and Jupiter and Titan, all obtained robotically."

So he thinks we should only ever do something if it can get into the newspapers? I thought the royal society was supposed to be for scientists, not celebrities.
I thought it was for people who were working towards expanding the boundaries of human knowledge, not expanding the amount of column space they take up in newspapers.

I think that's a little unfair of an interpretation of his words. The Royal Society is supposed to be for science, not for scientists. Rees is right in saying that the UK budget on space is miniscule compared to even ESA, and ESA's budget is only about a quarter of the NASA's. NASA can afford to build manned spacecraft, but there is a hell of a lot more unmanned research that can and should be done with the limited budget that Europe has.

I think that humankind must return to deep space soon, but it should be left to the countries that can afford it. Unless the European budget can be significantly enhanced, it's just not really practical to pursue manned exploration for us.

 

[Urwumpe]

I think that humankind must return to deep space soon, but it should be left to the countries that can afford it.

I think this opinion is pretty along the line "Let them eat cake" (For people not adept with history: Was a response to people who had not been able to afford bread).

So, if you want to keep manned spaceflight expensive and monopolized, you are right. Only those who can really really afford it should go. No reason to change the number of people who could afford it by lowering the prices.

If you want to make sure, that many people can afford it, you need to lower the prizes and create competition. Air travel was also once only for people who had been able to afford it, but it had been the desires of people who had not able to afford it, to make sure they can afford it one day.

 

[Notebook]

I'm surprised at Lord Rees for saying these thing, he's probably one of the few scientists the UK public will recognise. Maybe a bit of an ongoing punchup about science funding? There has been a bit in the press about that:-.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7347561.stm

The Royal Society has called for the BNSC to be replaced by a fully fledged UK space agency.

Could be Lord Rees is putting a bid in for Head of UK (Un)Manned Space Flight?

N.

 

[bujin]

If you want to make sure, that many people can afford it, you need to lower the prizes and create competition. Air travel was also once only for people who had been able to afford it, but it had been the desires of people who had not able to afford it, to make sure they can afford it one day.

Absolutely agree, and you'd probably find that Martin Rees would agree too. He's commenting on the current state of space exploration, though, where space travel is not readily affordable, and while that is the case, there are lots other things that can be researched without using manned spacecraft. There are (probably) more important things for Europe to spend its money on, especially since three other countries are already doing the manned spaceflight thing.

Sure, we could throw money at a manned space programme for Europe, but that would be at the expense of other research.

There is already competition between America, China and Russia on the manned spaceflight front. Would adding Europe to the mix really make that much of a difference?

 

[Urwumpe]

Sure, we could throw money at a manned space programme for Europe, but that would be at the expense of other research.

There is already competition between America, China and Russia on the manned spaceflight front. Would adding Europe to the mix really make that much of a difference?

Look at Arianespace and ESA. Which is currently the most successful commercial operator of launch vehicles. If people thought like you in the 1970s, establishing a forth space program between USA, Russia and China would have never happened.

Also, ESA has a budget which is three times larger as the spaceflight budget of Russia (estimated to be around 1.5 billion €/year). So, we could expect ESA to also do three times more research (actually, ESA is more competing with NASA in terms of number of active missions and manned spaceflight activity with the EAC).

Also, the ESA budget is, compared to the US NASA, minimal. The EU has a far better economic and financial foundation as the USA currently, and the ESA members alone could afford a space program as large as the US program.

Such small minded opinions like Rees published are mostly the reason why we are "only" second in the world. Politics and lack of a common vision how spaceflight could go on. Or the ability to let another ESA member nation take the lead in a popular project. It is the good old economic paradigma: Gains are privatized, losses socialized.

We have placed us well in the unmanned business, now it is a good time to attempt the manned spaceflight. We just lack motivation to do the next step instead of accepting stagnation.

 

[simonpro]

I think that's a little unfair of an interpretation of his words. The Royal Society is supposed to be for science, not for scientists.

Yes, which is exactly why I am so fed up with his words.
They are not meant for the good of science. They are meant for the good of scientists.
Or, more specifically, the good of his branch of scientists.

Rees is right in saying that the UK budget on space is miniscule compared to even ESA, and ESA's budget is only about a quarter of the NASA's. NASA can afford to build manned spacecraft, but there is a hell of a lot more unmanned research that can and should be done with the limited budget that Europe has.

The majority of NASA's manned spaceflight budget is spent on the shuttle. This has long since been proven to be an overly expensive piece of kit. If you cut that, and then you cut the aeronautics stuff (which isn't within ESA's mandate) then the budgets look much closer in size.
(edit) For FY2008 NASA's budget - minus shuttle and aeronatics - is about 75% larger than ESA's. Big difference from the 400% larger budget if you include the shuttle etc.
You also have to remember that a lot of astronautical research in europe (i.e: research in planetary science, astronomy, earth observation) isn't funded by ESA. It is funded by other bodies. In the USA just about all science in these areas is funded by NASA.

Although I don't have any figures handy, I would say that when all these things are taken into account the budget in Europe for space related activities is comparible, if not larger, than the NASA budget.

 

[Urwumpe]

A part of the aeronautical research in the US is also done by the DARPA.

But for showing how unimportant ESA obviously is for European politicians: the budget for the German public broadcasting stations alone is twice as large as the ESA budget.

And don't get me started on the "How we make sure European farmers can still mass-produce unhealthy stuff without having to fear international competition"-budget.

 

[tl8]

Between you and me, I think that Ares has more chance of being finished early than the ESA sending man into space. In fact if there is anyone in space in 10 years time through a government program I will eat my shorts.