I agree with Peter59's main point. The government has made it clear (with justification) that there will be no more money for NASA as a whole than there is now, which means that what it's getting should be spent as productively as possible -- and that means a huge deemphasis of manned flight and an increased share of funding for unmanned missions, whose scientific and economic productvitity has always been tremendously greater and will continue to be for decades to come. Comments on the relatively huge sums spent on defense, Katrina, etc. are irrelevant -- quite apart from the fact that those are usually a hell of a lot more justifiable in sane terms.

This will no doubt open me up once again to the accusation that, if you cut out funding for manned spaceflight, spending for unmanned spaceflight will also be obliterated. I remain skeptical of this. There have always been three reasons for NASA spending: concrete benefits, public enthusiasm, and flat-out pork. The first one will of course continue to be provided by unmanned programs to the same extent it already is -- and, in fact, the total concrete return from NASA will greatly increase once the white elephant of unnecessary manned flight is lifted off its back. As for the second: I've noted before that the public seems to be more interested in the actual results from the more generally interesting unmanned missions (Hubble, the MERs, Voyager) than it is from the manned missions -- and switching over from ISS to a manned lunar program won't change that. (The Moon, let's face it, is a very dull place.) And as for space pork: the Congressmen who want that for their districts will want it no matter what form it's in: manned or unmanned projects. I have no doubt that eliminating NASA's manned programs would lead to a nosedive in overall funding for the agency (which I have no objection to), but I still think that total spending on its unmanned programs would actually go up to some degree.


And, yes, the ISS is a useless atrocity and always has been; every bit of the $100 billion the US actually has spent on it has been flushed right down the toilet -- and the "experiments" that the US actually has conducted on it have been every bit as useless and ridiculous as the Russian Suitsat. The only thing that's keeping it going at this point (as NASA realized and planned from the start, when they deliberately and ridiculously lowballed their initial cost estimates for it) is the fact that legislators don't want to admit that they were wrong in supporting the thing previously and will therefore keep flushing more money down the same toilet until absolute disaster comes or those particular legislators retire, whichever comes first. That's just the way the game is played in any conceivable human system of governance. (Gravity Probe B is seriously questionable on grounds of scientific cost-effectiveness -- which is why it almost got cancelled several times -- but it shines like a nova compared to the ISS, the Shuttle or the Apollo program by that standard.)

I very much doubt that. There's a generation and a half of people who have lived in a time when no one walked on the moon - me included. People of my age +/-10 years (17 - 37) will be watching the first of these new mission, and experiencing something very similar to that of those fortunate enough to have been alive in 1967. This may be ground already covered for many, but for younger people - this is our Apollo and it excites me greatly.

Doug

But that's the point -- they'll be watching the FIRST of those missions. Unless they turn up something interesting to the general public -- which ain't gonna happen on the Moon, unless we're lucky enough to dig up any Black Monoliths -- they won't be watching the second, or the third, or the fourth... Lest we forget, a few minutes before the Apollo 13 accident, the public was griping to the networks about having their soap operas interrupted by the latest broadcast from the Command Module. And they went back to griping about it with Apollo 14. I myself watched every second of lunar surface TV coverage from Apollos 14 and 15 -- about 18 hours of the latter. But we are the rare exceptions. (And after that even I got sufficiently bored to tune out a lot of the time with Apollos 16 and 17 -- although, of course, I made sure to catch the lunar liftoffs.) Since the general public is footing the bill for space, the general public has every right to decide whether it's worth spending that amount of money just for pure entertainment. (And the same thing is true for the unmanned part of the space program.)

Back in the Apollo days, I believe the thought was that those pioneering missions were just the first of what was going to become routine in a matter of years:
Sending humans on a regular basis to the Moon to explore and eventually colonize it. Heck, you could probably have your next vacation there, too!

When I was a kid, I was certain that we'd have bases on the Moon and Mars by the year 2000. And look at the film 2001: A Space Odyssey - a manned expedition to Jupiter by 2001 was not considered a wild idea.

So in addition to a public that then as now was not generally science educated, the thinking may have gone along the lines of watching airplanes take off and land at an airport - kinda neat at first, but after a while it looks like the same old thing.

Of course little did we know what was planned for the US space program, at least until 1972 or so.

Now in the decades after Star Wars and The Matrix and way too many additions to the Star Trek franchise, will the youth of today and the near tomorrow care about real manned expeditions to the Moon and Mars? Or will it be too long and boring for them, full of all that science and engineering stuff?

The big question is, what can WE do about that?

If you're asking Bruce that question, the answer is obviously "Why would you want to do anything about that? There's not ever been a reason for a human being to go into space, not when robots can do it much more cheaply, safely and effectively. Sit on the sidelines and shut up -- when it comes to exploring new worlds, your human presence is less than worthless."

I grant you, I disagree with that sentiment in the strongest possible terms. But that's basically what he's saying.

-the other Doug

Well, yeah; basically, that IS what I'm saying -- at least for now, and for a long time to come. The thing is simply that when you're exploring or doing anything else in Earth orbit or on the Moon, it's tremendously cheaper and more efficient to it using telepresence -- and when you get farther away, at distance where the radio time lag does start seriously interfering with the ability to control robots from Earth, the difficulty and cost of sending humans out so far also skyrockets compared with the cost of simply putting them into orbit or sending them to the Moon. Even assuming that we never break the lightspeed barrier for a communcations link (which we probably won't), it will be a long time before we find anything out there which is both very difficult to investigate by slow-acting robots and scientifically valuable enough to justify the gigantic costs of manned deep-space travel. Nor am I the only one saying this; Freeman Dyson, for instance, has elaborated on the problem at considerable length.

As for the emotional impact of actually sending humans out there rather than machines: just how big is that? I myself have never thought that the emotional experience of exploring the Solar System was enhanced in the least by having -- in Tom Lehrer's immortal phrase -- "some clown" waving in the foreground. This may just indicate that I'm unusually antisocial (which I am) -- but I don't think I'm THAT unusual. Bruce Sterling did an article for "Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine" about 15 years ago pointing out that the New Generation accepts the idea of telepresence far more casually than previous people do -- touristing with your eyes and mind, without necessarily lugging your entire body along -- and as the quality of telepresence and long-distance communcations steadily improves, this will simply become more prevalent. He concluded that telepresence will be more and more accepted by people as the best way to explore beyond the Earth too, even from the tourist point of view. After all, we'll be able to send our senses of sight and (where there's an atmosphere) hearing there with extreme fidelity; and our senses of smell and touch are simply irrelevant on worlds with no air or poisonous air, and surfaces either too hot or too cold for a human ever to touch with his bare skin. Come to think of it, C.S. Lewis wrote a poem back in the 1950s pointing out precisely that about the experience of manned space travel, and ending:

From prison, in a prison, we fly;
There's no way into the sky.

So: just what does it mean for humans to "go into space"? Do you have to lug your entire fragile, awkward, expensive-to-preserve body along, or can you say that humans have gone into space when they just send their minds and their senses there?

Bruce, it is simply not possible to send more than one basic sense (and that is sight) away from us. We cannot smell the plume of Enceladus; we cannot feel the crunch of Meridiani's blueberry pavement under our feet; we cannot hear the low rumble of the winds as they blow God-knows-what particles into linear dunes on Titan.

All we can do is see. And at that, we can see "something-close-to-maybe-something-like-the-color-you-would-see-with-your-own-eyes-had-we-not-actually-decided-to-leave-green-out-of-all-of-our-images." Sort of.

Maybe only twelve people walked on the Moon. But those people interpreted that experience, however effectively they could, and communicated to the rest of us what it felt like. What the lower gravity did to them as they bounded across the dusty slopes. How the moondust gave them stuffy noses and smelled like burnt gunpowder.

They communicated the realization of their presence on another world.

I had seen pictures from Surveyor and Luna, but as even Neil Armstrong has said, his experience of actually *being* there showed him, in so many myriad ways, how subtly different the surface was from the pictures, how the conditions were replete with their own nuances -- nuances that are completely missed by cameras.

So, OK -- through Surveyor, *one* of my senses was (partially, and not completely effectively) transported to the Moon. So, I was on the Moon.

Not.

Hell, *two* of my senses were transported (quite a bit more effectively) to Detroit today, when I watched the Superbowl on TV. So, I was at the Superbowl.

Not.

On the day that I can hook my brain into a machine that feeds *every* one of my senses (including my internal body sensations) from a *completely* accurate simulacrum located on another world, that can give me *instant* feedback to *exactly* how moving and working on that world feels, sounds, smells, tastes and appears -- on that day, *maybe* "telepresence" will be good enough.

But, then again, maybe not. Because, in the final analysis, when asked if I (or anyone at all) had actually *been* there, I would have to say...

Not.

-the other Doug

You will never be able to know how being on the Moon smells, tastes or feels (except for the low gravity) -- because you will never be able to use any of those senses on it. Nor will you be able to use your ears (although you would at least be able to use those on worlds which have an atmosphere). As for the "visual nuances" of being on the Moon: may I suggest the obvious point that that is because the first robotic TV cameras to land there were rather crappy compared with what we have now? (As the MER photos have shown us in no uncertain terms.) And cameras will go on getting better. I myself have never had any trouble visualizing the experience of being on another world through the medium of a robot rather than another human being -- and while obviously not everyone agrees with me on this, a lot of other people do.

Once again, let us look at the polls. The American people consistently say that they would favor a new manned lunar program if its total cost was "less than a billion dollars" -- which is to say they don't favor one. And unless we can come up with some argument for it other than entertainment, they have every right to say that they don't want their taxes used to provide them with that particular kind of entertainment.

What if we could combine the best of humans and machines to allow a presence on other worlds exceeding anything that either alone could accomplish and sense.

There is also the possibility of genetically engineering humans to survive in all sorts of extraterrestrial environments.

Reinventing Humanity

Ray Kurzweil

02/03/2006
*************************

Ray Kurzweil sees a radical
evolution of the human species in
the next 40 years. The merger of man
and machine, coupled with the sudden
explosion in machine intelligence
and rapid innovation in gene
research and nanotechnology, will
result in a world where there is no
distinction between the biological
and the mechanical, or between
physical and virtual reality.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/artRedirec...rtID=635&m=7610


*************************
Technology and Human Enhancement

John Smart

02/03/2006
*************************

Machines are increasingly exceeding
us in the performance of more and
more tasks, from guiding objects
like missiles or satellites to
assembling other machines. They are
merging with us ever more intimately
and are learning how to reconfigure
our biology in new and significantly
faster technological domains.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/artRedirec...rtID=637&m=7610


“Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not destined to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is destined to remain a tadpole.”

- William Burroughs

I entirely agree with this. With a fairly small fraction of the enormous pile of money needed to mounted a manned Mars mission, I am quite sure that we could develop highly capable autonomous robots roughly equal to a human geologist (at least with regards to finding interesting rocks to sample -- the human would likely be ahead in terms of mobility, but the robot would have better multi-spectral vision, not to mention far superior long-term endurance). And once the technology has been developed (at much lower cost than developing the full human-capable system, in my opinion), for the price of a single manned mission, you could send dozens or scores of these robotic prospectors, which could stay operational on site for years or even decades, instead of months for humans.

The big counter-argument that I always hear is that without a manned program, funding for the unmanned program will dry up. I don't buy this. The example that is used is the years between Skylab and the first Shuttle flights, when money for new unmanned starts almost vanished. This is certainly true -- I remember getting very frustrated at the lack of new unmanned spacecraft at the time -- but I think that the primary culprit at the time was the huge amount of money being squandered on Shuttle development, part of which was diverted from the unmanned budget. If NASA had been content with ELVs, there would have been much more unmanned exploration.

The type of projects started near the end of the Apollo/Skylab era (Viking, Voyager, Pioneer Venus), continued over the next decade, would have left us well ahead of where we were when NASA finally started flying unmanned probes again.

Unfortunately, the manned program has always been driven far more by politics than by science, so I fully expect that unmanned exploration will be starved of funds for the forseeable future.

Bill

Well, it certainly has been in today's budget -- the total NASA science budget has been knocked down way below what was expected in order to keep funding the steadily increasing money demands of both Shuttle/ISS and Bush's manned lunar program. The Planetary Society is already raising hell ( http://www.planetary.org/about/press/relea...ty_Charges.html ) -- but what did any of you expect? Ever since the Moon Race ended, the space program's chief reason for existence has been as a pork farm. You are all going to have to decide whether you want that pork to exist in the form of robots that at least do some useful work, or as a bunch of Tom Lehrer's spacesuited "clowns" waving pointlessly from places that could be better explored at 1% of the cost by robots. Those are the only alternatives you have.

Doug, I'm sorry, but my generation (I was 14 years old for Apollo 11) was unique. Those of us 47+ remember when earth was all there was, and all else was science fiction. For those older than 11, who could truly comprehend what was happening, there was an I-can't-believe-this-is-really-happening aspect to it. Those particular feelings are never to be repeated, and are hard to explain to those of you who grew up with manned moon landings as history.

With regards to manned space flight, there is no scientific justification, I agree. However, I think it is justified if the clear goal is to establish permanent, independent, growing, and viable human colonies off the earth. I think the moon is excluded (except as a source of raw material) since the gravity there is unlikely to support even one generation of viable humans.

Now back to DAWN. I got concerned when they dropped the LIDAR, and later thought dropping the magnetometer was close to criminal. Now look at it! Someone on this thread earlier suggested taking it away from the PI's and putting it on the auction block for someone else to use. I'm partial to that idea, even going so far as NASA selling it to some other space agency, as long as it goes to Ceres and Vesta. Maybe a re-funded mission could at least get the magnetometer back, too.

This would serve the purpose of getting the mission accomplished, not wasting the investment already made, and STILL discouraging anyone else from deliberately understating costs in the future. I doubt many researchers will be anxious to blow their cost caps when they know someone will take their baby from them.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0602/06nasabudget/ :

"To make up the projected shuttle shortfall, 'we took a couple of billion out of science and a billion and a half out of the exploration line and made up what we needed to make up,' Griffin said...

" Today, a reporter asked the administrator, 'last September you said that not one thin dime would be taken away from the science programs for human spaceflight and exploration. Is what you just said, that that's exactly what has been done, not just one thin dime but two billion dollars taken away from space science to complete the ISS?'

" 'Yep, that's right,' Griffin said with his usual candor. 'I wish we hadn't had to do it, I didn't want to, but that's what we needed to do.' "

______________________________________

Well, the Washington Post said about a month ago that this was coming -- the White House, after a ferocious internal debate, had decided that they didn't dare offend the Congressional powers in Texas and Florida (the former because of their then-predominance in GOP Congressional leadership posts, the latter because it's a big and politically close state) by making any cuts in Shuttle/ISS. And so it goes... Rationality is usually unlikely in political administrations, and it's even more so than usual in this one.

I think we should just de-annex Texas and give it back to Mexico - Manned Space Program and all. Texan's keep leading us into wars they don't know how to end.

Great minds think alike. I have long thought that when I become Lord Protector of the United States, that will be my very first action during the few years before I end my entirely benevolent dictatorship (having imposed at least a dozen Constitutional reforms that singlehandedly save America), and then retire modestly to my country estate.

I'm still slogging through the 2007 NASA budget -- I haven't read the sections on manned spaceflight at all yet -- but here's what I notice about the space science budget:

(1) The two parts of the science program that really got the hell zapped out of them were the Mars program and non-solar space astronomy. Over $2 billion has been cut out of the Mars program between now and FY 2009 by eliminating not only the Telecom Orbiter but Bush's proposed line of "Mars Testbed" missions to study the environmental and engineering problems associated with manned Mars missions, which are obviously now WAY on the back burner. Mars sample return has also been bumped into the indefinite future -- not surprisingly, since the new mission schedule shows it being delayed from 2016 to 2024.

"Navigator" (the extrasolar planets program) has had $629 million cut out of it during the same period by delaying SIM (the crucial first step in the search for nearby Earthlike planets) at least 3 years into 2015 and delaying Terrestrial Planet Finder indefinitely (sensibly, since its basic design hinges crucially on SIM's findings). SOFIA (the 2.5-meter IR telescope carried on a Boeing 747) is teetering on the brink of cancellation, and the entire "Beyond Einstein" program of major cosmology and high-energy astronomy missions (staring with Constellation-X, LISA, and the Joint Dark Energy Mission) has been cancelled pending major reappraisal. Granted that part of this is to compensate for both the addition of a possible Shuttle Hubble repair mission in Dec. 2007 or later, and the continuing huge cost overruns of the Webb Telescope ($515 million more through FY 2010, with its launch delayed two years into 2013).

(2) There have been surprisingly few cuts in the Earth Sciences and climate-change observation program -- although the Administration's abortive attempt to zap those last year has led to a 1-year launch delay in several climate-change satellites -- and the solar astronomy and magnetosphere program is holding its own quite well. In fact, spending through FY 2010 on ground-based and suborbital Earth-Sun Connection research has been raised by $264 million through FY 2010, possibly due to the influence of Mikulski the Terrible (who sounded quite content with the new NASA budget in her press release today).

(3) Besides the cancellation of any new start for Europa Orbiter, a very big chunk has been cut out of the Discovery program -- and little of this is due to the fact that Dawn is now on hold. I don't know what's going on, although the budget rises again in 2010. (By the way, Kepler's budget has now ballooned to fully $520 million! It would be a dead duck if it hadn't been moved to the Universe Division, which now considers it a mandatory mission.) There has been virtually no change in the New Frontiers budget, although last year's delay of the next AO till 2008 is holding.

Geez, at this rate, New Horizons won't have to worry about whether or not it's exploring a planet or Kupier Belt object named Pluto - it'll have to worry about whether or not it still has any budget money allocated to it by the time it gets there.

Yeah, everyone likes seeing people in space. But then, plenty of people also like getting completely drunk. It seems like fun, but it doesn't really accomplish anything. Robots can do the job, maybe not at the pace we'd like, but the price is right. Send a human to Mars for a half trillion to a trillion dollars to do some tests in person. For that money, you could send a few hundred specialized MERs. (Not feasible, just an illustration.)

I really hope the next administration gives new life to the Terrestrial Planet Finder and especially Europa missions.

Lets just hope that the MSL won't be next. Turn out that 2009 comes and there's no money allocated for the launch because the shuttle needed additional upgrades or something.

Let's summarize the solar system exploration program:

Discovery missions:
- last new selection 2001/2002! (Dawn and Kepler), the first one is delayed at best, the latter now another program
- 11th AO > no selection (Why?)
- 12th AO pending since when?
- a program that should give us (and did!) about one mission per year has no new mission selected for more than four years now, only MESSENGER is flying right now (I doubt Deep Impact or Stardust will be used again, considering their blurry cameras with limited use)
- Delta II will not be around after about 2009, EELVs more expensive

New Frontiers:
- 1st launched after much, much fighting (New Horizons)
- 2nd (Juno) selected in 2005 for launch in 2009, only to be delayed to 2010 or 2011 or? a few months later
- next selecting 2008 ???

Cornerstone missions:
- last selection Cassini, 1990?
- nothing new, only talk and pretty presentations
- Europa orbiter, Neptune orbiter, Titan lander: forget it for the next 15 years
- this is why I supported, contrary to Bruce, New Horizons 2: better fly that you can get now than waiting for the great Neptune orbiter and Triton lander never to come

Mars exploration:
- extended (cheap) missions of MGS, Odyssey and MER
- MRO launched
- Phoenix and one MSL on track, I hope
- MTO canceled
- no second MSL in 2011 or 2013, only one Scout mission each window at best (nothing clear today), no new orbiter till 2011 at the earliest
- current secured (?) program ends with MSL
- sample return after 2020!, at the time of MPF (1997) it was planned for 2005 (not realistic even then)

Other:
- LRO, launch 2008, I have my doubt about this timeframe

What is ESA doing?
- SMART at the moon
- MEX extended mission, camera can't get the super sesolution images promised (Why?)
- VEX launched
- Rosetta with lander on it's way, the only cornerstone mission after Cassini
- ExoMars in 2011, rover with a little more capability than MER, miles to go
- Beppi Columbo pending, no lander (would be the next cornerstone mission)

It's not as worse (yet) as in the 1980ies (only Voyager 2), but much worse than it was looking only a year ago. The Shuttle ate the budget then, CEV etc. does now and will do more in the future. Trust me.

NASA is not a high priority in Washington. When VSE was announced 2004 I saw this coming because there was no budget increase. All was to be done within the current budget, more efficient etc. As if all the money has been wasted before and we only needed someone to reallocate it. The same time the DoD budget increases by 30b$ next year! So the money is there, the will is lacking.

Btw., space exploration is not a high priority in Europe eighter.

Analyst

Because the super res channel was a last minute botch-job-bolt-on and has suffered bad focus since launch.

The images from it are at the PDS - but they're not great.

http://www.fpk.tu-berlin.de/forschung/mex/...Performance.pdf


One could be negative or positive about the situation - on one side, we've never had it so good....
3 (+1 en route) functional Mars Orbiters, two working mars rovers, a new lander launching in 2 years and another rover in 4.
A spacecraft orbiting Saturn with prospects for a long extended mission.
New twin solar observatory about to be launched
NH on it's way to Pluto
Ulysses and Voyager 1+2 still giving good data
Samples returned from a Comet for study for decades to come
A new Lunar orbiter in early phase planning
Mission en route to land on a comet and orbit mercury
etc etc

BUT - one could also be quite negative...
Nothing on the board for beyond Jupiter in the forseable future
MSR seemingly accelerating it's progress down the calender to the 2020's.
No dedicated Mars comms assets ( but then nothing apart from MSL that might need it on the board )
Little progress with the Discovery program
An asteroid mission on 'rain check' status
Hayabusa in questionable status
etc etc

Basically - consider it this way - it could be better, and indeed Europa deserves serious attention. But it could be SO much worse.

But seing an increase to the US Military budget that is 1875% larger than the total spending for Space Science hurts - a lot. I have no grounds to moan - I don't pay US taxes, this isnt my money - but were I a US citizen, I'd be writing letters.

Doug

Aaaaaaand another bite: This time from the SIM Planetquest and Terrestrial Planet Finder missions. Ok not cancelled, but another delay.
Yahoo news *Sniffles*

Man -- I had hopes for Griffin. Here we *finally* had someone who was both an accomplished aerospace engineer *and* manager, promising that he could successfully keep the manned and unmanned spaceflight arenas separate and free from financially affecting each other.

I guess he's just another politician -- saying what he thinks his bosses want to hear and not worrying overmuch that he's lying through his teeth.

Pardon me, I need to go throw up some more.

-the other Doug

One thing to remember -- the President may propose a budget, but the Congress has to pass it. And Congress is quite famous for making extensive changes to budgets proposed by Presidents.

As long as they're not worried about actually collecting anywhere near as much money as they spend back there in Washington, why don't all of us American members of the forum get in touch with our Congresscritters and tell them that funding for unmanned spaceflight, taken out of the budget by the White House, *must* be restored?

Hey, it's worth a shot...

-the other Doug

Don't. That strategy in not working now.

The current US administration will be history in a couple of years and perhaps sanity will return to the US space program.

Hopefully the current productive missions can keep a status quo and the future missions en-route will be OK when they arrive. And griffin will become a phoenix.

Although the Lunar missions were a fantastic accomplishment, they were to a certain extent cold war politics; once we "beat the Russians" some of the drive went out and we drifted to the Space Winnebago program...

Sorry for the rant.

--Bill

Exactly - judging from all the stuff I've been hearing on the radio, this budget proposal isn't going down well, even with some Republicans. This is just a "blueprint" given to congress by the executive branch. The budget that congress eventually passes may be quite different.

With this being an election year, and given the pork factor, those congress people up for re-election won't want to piss off their constituents. So, like dvandorn suggests, it would be a good idea for those of us who live in areas where the unmanned space industry has a big economic presence should write to their representatives and senators and express their concern.

Has the NASA slice of the pie been altered much during 'processing' of the budget in years past? It's such a small slice of 2T$ that I can't imagine it would get that much attention apart from a brief glance from the politicians who have a local interest in each NASA center or major contractor.

Doug

Yes, it does seem like just "noise" at that level, and the social programs getting cuts (or rather, a "decrease in the increase" as I heard one spin doctor put it), will definitely get much more attention in the process. But writing a letter or e-mail to a congress person is still worth it - we're at least trying to do something.

But what we really need is a good lobbyist.

[Gets out rolodex and starts flipping]

Hmmm...where is it....Abramoff, Abramoff...

Well (unmanned) spaceflight may not be a priority in Europe but for the smaller countries the difference in Space budget and Military budget isn't as big as in the USA !

Ray Kurzweil, The Futurist March-April 2006

http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/artRedirec...tID=635&m=13190

The Future of Human-Machine Intelligence

We stand on the threshold of the most profound and transformative event in the
history of humanity, the "Singularity."

What is the Singularity? From my perspective, the Singularity is a future period
during which the pace of technological change will be so fast and far-reaching
that human existence on this planet will be irreversibly altered. We will
combine our brain power-the knowledge, skills, and personality quirks that make
us human-with our computer power in order to think, reason, communicate, and
create in ways we can scarcely even contemplate today.

This merger of man and machine, coupled with the sudden explosion in machine
intelligence and rapid innovation in the fields of gene research as well as
nanotechnology, will result in a world where there is no distinction between the
biological and the mechanical, or between physical and virtual reality. These
technological revolutions will allow us to transcend our frail bodies with all
their limitations. Illness, as we know it, will be eradicated. Through the use
of nanotechnology, we will be able to manufacture almost any physical product
upon demand, world hunger and poverty will be solved, and pollution will vanish.
Human existence will undergo a quantum leap in evolution. We will be able to
live as long as we choose. The coming into being of such a world is, in essence,
the Singularity.

How is it possible we could be so close to this enormous change and not see it?
The answer is the quickening nature of technological innovation. In thinking
about the future, few people take into consideration the fact that human
scientific progress is exponential: It expands by repeatedly multiplying by a
constant (10 to times 10 times 10 and so on) rather than linear; that is,
expanding by repeatedly adding a constant (10 plus 10 plus 10, and so on). I
emphasize the exponential-versus-linear perspective because it's the most
important failure that prognosticators make in considering future trends.

Our forebears expected what lay ahead of them to resemble what they had already
experienced, with few exceptions. Because they lived during a time when the rate
of technological innovation was so slow as to be unnoticeable, their
expectations of an unchanged future were continually fulfilled. Today, we have
witnessed the acceleration of the curve. Therefore, we anticipate continuous
technological progress and the social repercussions that follow. We see the
future as being different from the present. But the future will be far more
surprising than most people realize, because few observers have truly
internalized the implications of the fact that the rate of change is itself
accelerating.

Exponential growth starts out slowly and virtually unnoticeably, but beyond the
knee of the curve it turns explosive and profoundly transformative. My models
show that we are doubling the paradigm-shift rate for technology innovation
every decade. In other words, the twentieth century was gradually speeding up to
today's rate of progress; its achievements, therefore, were equivalent to about
20 years of progress at the rate of 2000. We'll make another "20 years" of
progress in just 14 years (by 2014), and then do the same again in only seven
years. To express this another way, we won't experience 100 years of
technological advance in the twenty-first century; we will witness on the order
of 20,000 years of progress (again, when measured by today's progress rate), or
progress on a level of about 1,000 times greater than what was achieved in the
twentieth century.

FULL ESSAY at http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/artRedirec...tID=635&m=13190

Sometimes writing letters just seems futile. My sister regularly writes a few Congressman, and I see the letters she gets back - standardized form letters "signed" with a copy of the person's signature, and they usually amount to saying "Gee, it's too bad you feel that way about my policies. Please vote for me anyway."
The military spending is sickening, especially after hearing politicians lying about "Oh no, it won't be expensive, and it won't take very long at all," which they'll say even as they're asking Congress for a few hundred billion dollars more.

No no, good lobbyist. If he's involved in legal scandals....well, I guess that could mean he was doing too good of a job. He just got caught.
I never much cared for lobbyists, or politics in general for that matter.
Besides - Abramoff won't be doing much of anything if he's in jail. (Like that'll ever happen in the real world. Wishful thinking though.)


Edit: Sorry for the extra post. Between going to classes, and having 15 tabs open, I wound up replying to an unrefreshed version of this page. Oops.

Okay. Here are a couple of justifications. I want a *very* large radio telescope array completely shielded from earth noise on the far side. I want an immense optical, UV, NIR and FIR observatory (two actually ... one at each lunar pole) with no atmosphere and a literally rock solid platform for long exposures. *That* would be a space telescope! Give me Keck on the moon. Give me VLA on the moon. There are lot's of reasons for going back.

As a geologist I would love to see robotics that could move as quickly and make sampling decisions as accurately as years of training give a human geologist. We aren't there yet. And before we talk about all the great multi-spectral vision a robotic explorer might I have I say "Fine ... give me the same damn instruments to hold in my hand". We frequently talk about robotic devices as though humans on the scene would not have the same equipment. In fact the argument is one of having the abliity to make immediate decisions on site. The travesty of the Apollo missions was that it wasn't until the last trip that we sent an actual geologist.

I actually agree that our current manned program is a fiasco and utter waster of time but there are a *lot* of things robotic explorers and tele-presence can not do. There are things that humans can, and will continue for a long time, to be able to do better than any robotic stand-in. MER is great ... but how much ground has been covered? How many sites visited? How long would a human geologist have remained stuck in a dune field? The Apollo rovers covered more ground 35 years ago. If we ask the geologists controlling the rovers if they could do a better job if they were there instead of the rovers what answer do your think we would get? I think our robots are absolutely terrific and essential. But it is not enough when we have the ability to do better.

An argument is frequently made that we should use robots because we can take more risk than we might take with humans who end up being little more than publicity stunts because they can't go anywhere 'interesting'. We'll send more because robots cost less and if we lose a few it won't be such a big deal. Run videos, side by side, of Spirit or Opportunity and one of the later Apollo rovers and tell which was pushing the edge of exploration.

That's wrong -- the fact that they'll never admit publicly that they're shaken by your disapproval hardly means that they aren't worried about it. I've heard that it's Standard Operating Procedure among the staffs of Congressmen to assume that as few as five disapproving letters on an issue means it's likely that there is an offended constituency of significant size, which should perhaps be placated.

Looks like SOFIA may never get off the ground, too - and they stopped the KUIPER missions to make way for SOFIA.


Posted on Tue, Feb. 07, 2006

NASA/Ames faces more deep cuts

By Glennda Chui

Mercury News

A $600 million jumbo jet, equipped with a 50,000-pound telescope for studying
black holes and destined for Mountain View's NASA/Ames Research Center, is
threatened with elimination in next year's NASA budget, officials said Monday.

...

And NASA's Astrobiology Institute, a virtual center based at Ames with collaborators at 16 institutions across the country, faces a 40 percent cut, said Ames acting director Chris Christensen.

Full article at:

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/13812757.htm

National Geographic:
NASA Budget Diverts Funds From Science to Spaceships

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...208_nasa_2.html

From the inside cover of the VSE document:

"The NASA Vision
To improve life here,
To extend life to there,
To find life beyond."


http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18943
"The House Science Committee ... will also hold a budget hearing on Thursday, February 16 with Hon. Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator."

Committee members:
http://www.house.gov/science/committeeinfo/members/index.htm

Committee Main Office Phone - 202-225-6371
Committee Main Office Fax - 202-226-0113

It is my understanding that faxes are the most effective means of communication (mail is dealyed because it all must first be irradiated nowadays).

I feel that perhaps the scientific community at large is simply failing to communicate with the present administration in the correct language. Surely, no administration in recent history has shown greater commitment to science, reason, and the advancement of knowledge(particualry when it comes to stamping them out). And assuredly, no administration in history has shown more passion for collecting data(on us). Therefore, it is in that spirit that I propose several talking points for direct communication with Washington on the subject of Europa:

1. Fix the intelligence around the policy:

We know, for example, that Europa most likely possesses subterranean liquid. Also, spectra of Europa show evidence of hydrocarbon contaminants in the surface ice. Just which liquid or which hydrocarbons are unimportant. What is important is to use the words subterranean, liquid, and hydrocarbon repeatedly, preferrably in that order, in the same sentence, without other words in the way. The administation has great interest in and much experience with subterranean liquid hydrocarbons.

2. Make it really scary not to go to Europa:

Reconnaissanse of the Jovian system shows clear association between Europa and its neighbor Io, which possesses powerful active volcanoes and a lethal radiation environment in clear and willful violation of the UN space weapons ban. Sulphur dust is'nt the only evidence of dangerous dalliances...Europa also is within the sphere of influence of Jupiter, not the United States. Nevertheless, gravity is no less up for debate than climate change or the Big Bang, so it may not stay there...the main point to make is that we need to go to Europa before Europa comes here.

3. Consider the benefits:

Lucrative contracts for certain unnamed consulting firms are a given, especially considering the need for vast quantities of rock salt and blow dryers to mount a successful exploration campaign. And hell, if there is life down there, think of the tax revenue! The outsourcing! The low manufacturing costs!

Simply apply these three steps to your program of choice.


Believing six impossible things before breakfast,
Orion.

Very true. Remember, New Horizons was cancelled in the Bush budget years ago.....

And Bush has reintroduced the insane idea of privatizing social security as an item in the budget - conveniently hidden on page 321. It will only cost $712 billion.

Remember this when they say they don't have the money to explore the Sol system.

http://seniorliving.about.com/od/lawpoliti...ialsecstudy.htm

This is truly hilarious! (Mostly because it's so darn true, so maybe I should be crying instead of LMAO?)

So let's start a rumor that Europa has vast deposits of hydrocarbons on a pristine arctic wilderness. NASA can rename JIMO to the 'Healthy Planet Petroleum Explorer'.

Then, since we all know that gravity is "just a theory", we need to show that Eurpoa is clearly a terrorist threat... a planet-sized WMD!!! The Europa Orbiter can be renamed the 'Preemptive Assault Vehicle', and instead of science objectives, it will have "intelligence gathering capabilities"! Remember, the Europans hate us for our freedoms that we ignore anyways. And heck, what could be a bigger threat than Aliens that don't pay taxes? The Terrestrial Planet Finder should be renamed to the 'Search for Pinko-commie Extremist Aliens'...

Finally, we need to create a few more NASA research centers in key states so Congress will see this all as an exercise in pork. Is it too late to ask Deutsch to come back? He seems to be the right kinda of nepotistic slimeball to help us with this PR problem.

Thanks for a good laugh when I needed it most.

SOFIA Telescope Project Faces Hurdles

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_so...ore_060209.html

On Monday, Feb. 7, NASA Administrator Griffin announced the proposed agency
budget for FY 2007 SOFIA has zero funding from 2007 onward. This is not good
news for SOFIA, nor for the U. S. and German scientific, technological and
educational communities.

Well to hell with all this - we already know that the Death Star orbiting Saturn has destroyed two starships, and its predecessor wiped out an Earth-like planet in another galaxy, so it's clearly a significant threat to us.

And don't forget to mention the outpost packed of TIE fighters concealed inside an asteroid.
The Japanese probe was almost destroyed by one of them just after having revealed the threat.

I can't imagine what Ceres hides inside !

Click to view attachment
Credit: Odave/JAXA/ISAS

-- Rakhir

Shouldn't they irradiate the Congressmen as well? After all, two heads are better than one (especially with some of these guys).

And to do celestial navigation you need to know higher mathematics, so there must be Weapons of Math Instruction...


--Bill

Bill:

You forgot the International Secret Society of Plumbing Operatives and Allied Tradespersons and their similarly secret underwater factories - they're used for wet forms of bath construction.

Not to mention (on a more astronomical theme) all that hoo-ha about the creatures who live just above the event horizon of black holes - you know, life-forms of mass constriction...

I could go on, go on, go on, go on, but hopefully won't be allowed to!

Bob Shaw

Doug, can we revoke Bob S's membership unless he promises to behave?

I second that!

Bob Shaw

http://kgmb9.com/kgmb/display.cfm?storyID=7233&sid=1183

another victim: Keck outrigger telescopes

The editors of Scientific American chime in on the NASA budget proposal:

Pawning NASA's Crown Jewels
http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=pawn...1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Just a thought – might the cancellation of Terrestrial Planet Finder be a sop to the Regime’s fundamentalist base? Finding microbes on Mars or Europa wouldn’t be much of a threat to their worldview, but just imagine the threat that the discovery of some “Terra II” orbiting Epsilon Eridani would pose to them. Why, it could conceivably be inhabited by infidels that need “democratizing”!