Robots and Parades
Neil Tyson "we do not have ticker tape parades for robots" Oops. Guess he missed Curiosity in the Inaugural Parade.
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) October 23, 2013
Neil Tyson "we do not have ticker tape parades for robots" Oops. Guess he missed Curiosity in the Inaugural Parade.
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) October 23, 2013
Just to be picky: Ticker tape parades are FOR someone/thing’s accomplishments. Curiosity was IN a parade, but the parade wasn’t for IT. And, to my knowledge, Curiosity won’t be coming back to have a parade in its honor.
I was going to make the same point. You’re not being picky…you’re clarifying poor usage.
Curiosity won’t be coming back to have a parade in its honor.
Not until the machines take over and launch a rescue mission to Mars for their space travelling hero.
I, for one, would like to welcome our new robot overlords…
But I hear Dr. Tyson, having created the remake of the Cosmos series, is now making a sequel to CONTACT called “CONTRACT”. Maybe he is more confused than we thought.
The plot is about a young girl that aspires to grow up and be a NASA contractor. But she falls in love with a civil servant. She incorporates herself and convinces her companion to become her employee No. 1. They together embark on a great journey to expand their NASA contracts, grow and develop whatever the House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee wants. The story ends with the couple fishing for Swordfish off the Brownsville Texas coast as a SpaceX Falcon Heavy is launched.
It will be a VERY long time before there are ‘ticker tape parades” for a NASA crew who landed on or orbited Mars. So nothing for Dr. Tyson to get uppity about. However, making data/imagery from robotic spacecraft widely accessible around the world more than makes up for a lack of parades. It’s really upto the American mainstream news media (for whom Dr. Tyson writes for and is also seen and heard on) as well as politicians to give NASA engineers, operators and scientists their due.
Perhaps it’s just me, but it seems that lately we’ve got a growing rift between Dr. Tyson and some of the NASA Watch participants. I thought we were all on the same side, and all motivated by a better future for mankind.
Note to both sides: We are too few to be split. We are too outnumbered by those who don’t understand what we strive for to be publicly arguing amongst ourselves. Everybody, please take a deep breath and think twice before saying or typing anything that makes it look like our house is not in order and provides fuel for the know-nots.
I agree that this news blog should do less character attacking and more attacking of the big problems NASA faces. NASA is at a major crossroad. This Dr Tyson thingy detracts from following and potentially influencing decisions that need to be made.
HEOMD, the manned program side of NASA is rudderless. We spent 30 years flying Space Shuttle, an incredible flying machine that was also disastrous to the manned program. NASA is about to blow 15 years developing one conventional heavy lifter that will cost 4 times more to fly than Falcon Heavy or whatever LMA/Boeing other startups or international corporations develop to compete.
Exploration and discovery – manned and robotic is what inspires us. And we are permitting our space program to waste billions on a launch vehicle that will waste billions more to finish development and billions each year to maintain the infrastructure and supply chain as well as launch at a 4 times the commercial price.
Are we willing to allow NASA to do this again? We have two choices. Allow the present to go on, the public works program, until there is so much outrage that SLS is shutdown after one or two launches. This is the easy way out. Civil Servants & contractors working SLS have a secure job for 5 or 6 more years but we blow time, skill and money and will face the – what-if. What if we shut it down now and stop another manned program catastrophe like Shuttle was. The money spent on Constellation and SLS at this point is already lost. We could stop the bleeding here. Some percentage of the future SLS funds would have to go to place the displaced skilled workers (the right thing to do). We would come out ahead and NASA would be placed on a much better course.
Rocky,
I don’t work at NASA and I’m not American, but I still have strong views on this subject because I’ve been emotionally tied to NASA for so many decades. What seems unavoidable is that Congress is in control, doing things for their own personal reasons (and gain). The only way to enact the choice you describe would be to basically threaten a significant number of Congress people with loss of their seats if they don’t do what you want. The only (legal) way to do that is through the democratic election process — with a majority voting your way — and that hasn’t happened so far, so I can’t see it happening in the future. Most people don’t share our concerns about NASA; it’s a non-issue to them, not worth worrying about. Even if you could swing an election to “punish” the Congress people who didn’t comply with your wishes, you would have to repeat the threat with the new crop following the election, and they have seemingly short attention spans (perhaps a sign of old age).
While I agree with your logic, the points you make don’t line up with the “issues” as seen from the perspectives of either Congress or the majority of Americans. What I think we need to do (and do all three) is to: 1) make our cause align with the self-interest(s) of a large number of Congress people (both House and Senate); 2) strongly engage the interest of the public for a significant period of time; and 3) have some significant event that creates support, or emotion, for our cause right before a federal election (every 4 years), or at least before a Congressional election (every 2 years). One catch is that it takes 3 elections (5 years) to potentially replace all 100 Senators, and they would appear to be the current problem in terms of NASA specifically and science in general. The Senate, it seems to me, is a major creator and maintainer of the “jobs programs” policy that is defunding so much else. A second catch is that I haven’t a clue how these three things can be accomplished.
Perhaps if the first SLS hardware blew up during testing one night in September-October 2016 (and no one gets hurt), we might get some more people calling for its cancellation, but I suspect we’re going to have to wait until the issue is forced big time into the public awareness that all of these billions are being spent on a big rocket to nowhere, since there’s no money for any mission(s) to use it. The really sad part to that is that it will probably result in a public call to reduce the NASA budget.
I agree with nearly all your comments. Some answers to your how-to questions are posted as a comment under the blog item – NASA’s Technology Program Can’t Explain or Coordinate Itself.
We agree that a grassroots effort is needed. Yes targeting senate and congressional members is needed but specific ones. Those that have control (senior members) or are influenced by the contractors. Its a small group.
I agree that the public interest is in a minority but space exploration enthusiasts have the potential to be a fervent forceful group and their actions could mobilize a much larger group of citizens into effective demonstrations.
The plan I outline, in that other blog comment, would eliminate the yearly battle and chaos of the NASA budget. Separating funding and objectives from congress and the presidency would eliminate the potential battle by congressmen and senators to regain control. There would be a degree of separation that would make returning control back to politicians more difficult to happen.
But I agree that getting politicians to work in the best interest of US citizens rather than the best interest of their political influence and power is a difficult task. Particular politicians on both sides see NASA as a means of protecting jobs and the economy in their respective districts … and therefore there political livelihood.
Well said.
It occurs to me that, in its simplest form, we have three groups — the politicians, the public, and us (the space advocates). I consider NASA and the aerospace companies to be a separate issue; they’ll always simply follow the money.
Standard tactics in dealing with a three-party discrepancy is to either eliminate one of the three or somehow tie one of the other two to yourself in a coalition. The first option is obviously not an option in this case. A coalition with the politicians is most likely not achievable, but some accommodation must be reached with them since they still control the money.
That leaves us with the same single possibility that we’ve had all along — appealing to the general public and getting them on “our” side. The problem I see with this is the same problem that I see with many space-related proposals — it might be made to work for a while, but it’s not sustainable.
There are no doubt plenty of ways to get the public on our side, but how do we keep them on board without having to expend effort and resources out of proportion to the results? I’ve yet to have anyone give me any answer to that question, let alone a practical answer, and I’ve got a hole in my scalp from scratching my head over this.
Yes a difficult problem but what better does the Mars Society, Planetary and other groups have to do? Compete on Dancing with the Stars? 😉 These enthusiasts should consider the challenge like the epic battle to destroy the Death Star otherwise everyone will face implementation of another Shuttle-like wasteful program. I honor the engineers that flew Shuttle but we would have been on Mars by now.
The real question is: How many people watching that parade knew what they were seeing?
I don’t think there are enough space enthusiasts for us to get in fights, except in respectful debate and in good humor.
Is there a recording or transcript of his remarks this morning? I’d rather form an opinion from a full understanding.
Steve, I completely appreciate the sentiment you voice here. I’d have to say that it feels like Tyson has abruptly started to undermine the things I would expect him to advocate. Perhaps I just wasn’t paying attention before, but why would he take pot shots at the most advanced, forward-looking, and forward-moving efforts to support manned space exploration?
Any insight on that question from the assembled brain power and experience here would be welcome.
The NAS does not post things like that. If you were not listening live then you are out of luck.
Todd,
Tyson may be saying things that we don’t follow or don’t agree with, but he’s certainly not a dumb person, so I would imagine that he keeps his personal motivations well hidden. At last count, there were at least six people in North America who were not at least partially motivated by money, so one has to wonder when respected people like Tyson are actually speaking their own minds or conveying the words of a sponsor. I’m not saying that’s the case here (I have no idea), but I think it’s worth considering. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can often do a lot to alleviate unhappiness.
I know the lunar buggy came dead last in President Obama’s first Inaugural Parade…very poignant. I see the sun was setting so I guess Curiosity was the caboose also. How thrilling, I can almost feel the wind beneath our wings. “Wake Up America!” Oh my god, I’m beginning to sound like Red Neckerson…sorry.
Point of record: There were over 1,500 applications for 110 spots in the parade. NASA was the only Federal agency to appear and had two of the 8 floats that were accepted. Members of the Curiosity team from HQ and JPL marched along side the full size rover replica and astronauts were with the Orion mock-up. The spectators gave both exhibits a tremendous round of applause and cheered as they passed by. Both floats were in the first third of parade.
Robots are closing in on human capabilities. Soon we will not only have robots on parade, we will have robots on the reviewing stand watching the parade. The parade will be run by robots, with robots marching to honor robots.
I won’t worry too much until I see a single pair of humans in the robot parade, included as curiosities.