Future Neil Armstrongs
Neil Armstrong’s lasting legacy, Dan Goldin, Washington Post
“This summer I witnessed the landing of Curiosity on Mars from mission control at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. After the “seven minutes of terror” and Curiosity’s successful arrival, I knew that NASA still has the right stuff. NASA is filled with future Neil Armstrongs — outstanding rocket engineers, scientists and dreamers. I can think of no greater testimony to the entire Apollo team than to undertake another audacious activity that, although risky, will raise the American spirit and create opportunities for future generations. This next challenge will be the catalyst for the scientific and engineering breakthroughs central to the future vitality of our nation. We must reach for the stars.”
AIAA Foundation to Establish the Neil A. Armstrong Scholarship Endowment Fund
“The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation (AIAA Foundation), at the request of the family of Neil A. Armstrong, who was the first person to set foot on the Moon, and an AIAA Honorary Fellow, has established the Neil A. Armstrong Scholarship Endowment Fund.”
I know Dan Goldin was trying to be positive here, but Neil Armstrong was an actual, live human -not an automated system. A piloted landing is a special skill. A human is infinitely adaptable. We still don’t have the ability to detect and avoid the boulders like Neil did. Having Neil in the control room when humans returned to the moon would have been incredibly valuable but now that is impossible. Our delays in returning by now have lost so much more than just the long lamented Saturn-V.
While it would be nice to have real-time or near real-time control of a lander, I think Dan Goldin was making the profound point that our technology has taken us to a point that human space exploration in many respects need not involve human space flight anymore. The engineers who created Curiosity, and made it smart enough to land largely autonomously are actual, live humans, and Curiosity is to them what Apollo was to Neil Armstrong.
As to detecting and avoiding the boulders that Neil did, I think you’d be surprised at what we’re able to do now. There are a number of systems being proven, both in NASA and in international space agencies, that could capably do the joysticking that Neil did, using descent imaging in a servo system. That in no way detracts from Armstrong’s skill or heroism, but simply underscores our technological prowess.
Helen
I have been thinking about robot AND humans working in space to build things. Mr. C said in another post that Jwst cost many times what it should because of our inability to work in space, that lead to me thinking that had nasa planned better some of the billions spent on jwst could have gone to creating a construction industry in space. So I suggested using dragons and dragon trunks, and BIgelow habs to make construction teams in space. These woman and men could do all kinds of work in space. build things test things, salvage. I think that this kind of use in of humans and machines in space could lead to all kinds of capablity fastest.
Leading to the settlement of space and the ability to get needed resources for our planet in the future.
Commercial construction crews in the near future could and maybe should be out next space heroes.
Also didn’t the russians put the first country woman in space to prove that they didn’t really need a pilot to fly humans space? They could pretty much fly roboticly back then! So what!
Tick pilot
PS I’m sure there are many people, with the right stuff/heros today that would be ready to hop on a cargo dragon as early as next year, to get the show on the road.
We lose these kinds of people each day!
Challenger. Columbia. Need I say more
Sigh. I am using a public computer. This comment is by me, Charles J. Divine.
Challenger. Columbia. Need I say more?
Nice photos of the memorial on the NASA site: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/…
The indisputable fact is the the Chinese are working to surpass the US
and control space. We ignore this at our peril. Any space policy must
address this and include human and robotic elements.
This comment is getting old.
..and annoying.
The Public Memorial is set for Washington National Cathedral on Sept. 13, 10am.
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hq…