Leave It To Neil Tyson To Diminish What We've Done in Space
In 1927 Lindbergh flew from NY to Paris. 45 yrs later, in 1972 we last walked on the Moon. 45 yrs later, in 2017 we… we… we…
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 16, 2017
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In 1927 Lindbergh flew from NY to Paris. 45 yrs later, in 1972 we last walked on the Moon. 45 yrs later, in 2017 we… we… we…
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 16, 2017
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I used to admire this guy but he’s fading down the stretch.
Yes, he had a big chance to “sell” space exploration, ala Carl Sagan, but really hasn’t. The tweeters above touch on some of the marvelous accomplishments since 1972, and let’s not forget the Hubble Space Telescope and the Space Shuttle Program. All the Solar System planets (and Pluto) have been flown by and studied. And all have had orbiters in place except Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. This is what we have done in 45 years, Mr. Tyson.
Which isn’t a lot compared to the progress in the early space program, and the progress in aviation before it.
Also, Voyagers came out of the tail of the early space program. IMO, “we” can’t claim credit for the stuff in the ’70s. “They” flew past every planet, except Pluto. We’ve sent a single probe to fly by Pluto, none to Neptune/Uranus. Zero dedicated missions beyond Pluto. One to Saturn. Two to Jupiter. One to Venus (no lander). One to Mercury (no lander). And not a single lunar lander. (Even the Chinese managed that.) Mars is well represented, but even there, there was a gap of more than a decade after the Vikings.
We actually suck at this. I can’t see any real progress in space that isn’t actually just the advancement of electronics.
Cassini and the space telescopes were genuine advances. Kepler in particular has been incredibly valuable considering it was a “low”-cost Discovery Program mission. Dawn was and is a genuine advance as well, both in terms of what it found and in terms of the technology demonstrated (long-term use of electric propulsion).
Funding just hasn’t grown much in real terms in the past two decades, and James Webb has been really expensive and draining funding away from other potential missions.
I agree that we have accomplished quite a bit. (And long-term use of electric propulsion was demonstrated by Deep Space One, not Dawn.) And I agree that budgets are certainly a limit. But I can’t honestly say we’ve done a great job. I think we could have done far more than we actually did. Things like aviation in the first half of the twentieth century or computers in the second half, were truly revolutionary. The space program since 1980 or so has been successful, and sometimes very impressive, but not revolutionary on the same scale.
Compare the 1958 NASA law vs the last 4 decades for HSF.
It matters how you go, although selling (lying) wins.
(1) The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space
— a few folks actually spent a yr in space on ISS
(2) The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aero/and space vehicles;
— The expendable 70s shuttle derived hardware with solids added by Nixon lost out to Titan unless if flew 28x per year and costs $Bs more than alternatives
— Mars architecture is completely expendable
(3) The dev. & op. of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies & living organisms *through space*
–NASA plans on investing on hardware that may be reused to explore BEO….LOL…so much for the VSE.
4) The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aero/space activities for peaceful & scientific purposes.
-60 day study created a 3B/yr 30 yr sole source procurement with zero missions
Click on muomega0 for links….corrections welcome.
You do not have to go back 4 decades.. just 32 years.
The points you posted .. are part D
This comes BEFORE part D
In 1984, the NASA mandate was changed. The Space Act of 1958 was amended to include the following:
“(c) The Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (as established by title II of this Act) seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space.1”
The executive branch also pushed through and signed the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984.
Lets look at part C.
There are two very important words there. “seek” and “encourage”
NASA is not supposed to sit on their collective butts and wait for opportunities to commercialize space. They are to take an active role and SEEK it out.
Once they have did that they are to ENCOURAGE the use of space.
But even on those two words there is a codicil to it.
Not just to seek not to just encourage. But they are mandated to do this to the MAXIMUM EXTENT POSSIBLE.
It is part C where congress has kept NASA constrained. It is taken 32 years and still no domestic commercial passenger services.
The Nation should have had that a decade ago .. or more.
Unfortunately, I’ve met the fellow. All of space is not big enough to contain his ego.
The gist of the message is right, yes, space could be so much more. The delivery is that of an asshat. Who probably couldn’t articulate why we are in this bind, either.
Agreed, but when you’re limited to 140 characters or less for a Tweet, coming off as an asshat is more likely than posting a much longer, more in depth, article.
Tyson could have called congress asshats for gutting commercial crew funding
day after day after day .. week after week after week .. month after month after month… year after year after year.
ALL in 140 character tweets telling people to protest their congressional reps.
Robotic missions are nice, but they don’t spark the human spirit the way that actual human space travel. And he is right: After the moon landings we were grounded for years, and then stranded in LEO. Every kid thinks ISS is cool until they grow up a little and realize that they didn’t really go on a camping trip – they just put up a tent in the back yard and slept there for a few days.
He’s talking about human space flight, and on that front is correct.
The fact that he’s a lightening rod is not necessarily a bad thing.
Agreed. And part of the reason people get so upset about what he said is because it is true, but only if you measure manned human spaceflight by how far we’ve gone into space in terms of distance traveled. ISS is a huge achievement, but it disappoints some because “all it does is go around the earth in a low orbit”. If that’s the yardstick someone is using, they need to broaden their thoughts a bit as that’s a very narrow measure.
This critiques is not only just “distance
traveled” but the lack of new vistas explored by humans, as well as lacking advances in 2nd, 3rd or 10th generation spacecraft of ever growing capabilities
(e.g., from the 1910 Wright Model R to the 1935 DC-3: spaceflight can’t even compare). And now we have returned to capsules. The direction in most cases is “not
inspirational” and is not moving forward. And our prospects of doing so, given ever increasing political discord, growing human populations, and climate
changes is only going to diminish future opportunities as humans try to fix age old social and psychological problems. How unfortunate and sad.
The capitalist markets went to capsules not as a “return” to them.. but as a economic market decision. THAT is VERY important to understand.
It’s also worth noting that Lockheed is developing a lighter-than-air (well, hybrid) airship. Like Boeing and SpaceX selecting capsules, that’s not a throwback; it’s just a solution which makes sense for the requirements.
iPhones! We haz iPhones!
“from the 1910 Wright Model R to the 1935 DC-3: spaceflight can’t even compare”
I quite disagree. The spaceflight analog is Mercury carrying a single astronaut in 1961 to the space shuttle in 1981. The space shuttle could carry 7 astronauts, had a huge payload bay, an airlock, OMS, SSRMS, and could be refurbished and reflown.
*We* — humans — have retreated. We haven’t gone anywhere. Yes, a few machines are dong interesting things. But the comparison between progress in human aviation after 1903, or 1927, and 1969, versus 1969-2017 progress in human space exploration is telling and damning.
People should accept reality and not leverage a tweet to bash someone they simply don’t like.
In terms of manned exploration we’re not going much of anywhere in 2017 besides LEO. But, the years of experience on ISS is worth something. All of those same types of systems which have been kept running on ISS for all these years are all going to be needed for manned exploration.
That is, the systems will be needed whenever we get around to finding the money to actually build manned exploration hardware beyond SLS/Orion. Right now, SLS/Orion is sucking up a huge amount of money with little to show for it.
One thing I thought I had heard is that exercise in space may not be enough to counter it’s effects on the body, that artificial gravity might be required. That could be a very significant benefit of ISS regarding spending long periods of time in space. Hopefully propulsion improvements reduces travel time.
” Hopefully propulsion improvements reduces travel time.” Here’s one: IF we could accelerate at 1 G, towards Mars, turn around half way and decelerate at 1G how long would it take to get to Mars? Answer: Less than 2 days (at Mars closest approach). You would have “gravity” all the way there, and the trip is so short, you wouldn’t even need to take food. So you are exactly correct. Quit wasting time & money on long duration spaceflight and get some REAL propulsion for the money.
“Artificial gravity” is a fairly straightforward engineering problem. You split the vehicle in two, connect the two parts with long cables, and spin the whole thing to get 1 G. You really don’t need a gigantic 2001 style “bicycle wheel” station to do this.
To give that a temporal context:
You’re praising the knowledge we learn in 1957, from struggling to keep operational a single 3-man facility a few nmi off-shore that we started constructing in 1938, proposed and funded in 1926. Which managed to burn $8 billion before the design was agreed on. Eventually built from modules delivered by four of the five prototype aircraft first flown in 1921 and kept flying until 1951, spending thirty years as the only aircraft in the entire country capable of carrying people even those few miles off-shore; seven people, a few miles off-shore, about four times a year.
(Having failed to plan ahead, you now lack even that capacity, and for your manned flights you depend on another country that happens to be still operating a type of aircraft first flown in 1907. Otherwise you couldn’t reach your 3-man facility at all.)
And now, in 1957, the greatest and best funded aviation project in the nation (at a cost of over $3 billion per year), is a proposal to take the actual engines out of the three surviving 1921 aircraft, plus a modified version of their fuel tanks and wing-flaps, in the hope that by the mid-1960’s you can fly two or four people around a nearby island which your country first landed on in 1909, but hasn’t been able to reach since 1912 (let alone go beyond.) This program is popular with funders because it sort-of reminds them of that airplane in 1909, even though it’s much less capable.
In 1957, you are spending $3b/yr developing an aircraft out of thirty year old parts, in the hope that by 1960’s it will sort of look a bit like the kind of aircraft you flew from 1907 to 1913.
Great analogy.
It’s a good analogy, in part. Although there’s no space program equivalent of the Wright Brothers building an airplane in their spare time – space is just so, so much harder than air travel.
Yes it is .. and fortunately our Nation learned a long time ago how deal with things that are hard. We determine that it is important and we funnel our greatest minds AND our capitalist markets at the problem until it becomes easier.
Space transportation is only now in the very beginnings of becoming important enough to start see it happening.
What about Robert H. Goddard? All he got for his efforts was mostly ridicule.
Mostly ridicule? He also got a fair number of military contracts. If memory serves, it included things like jet-assisted takeoff bottles and early concepts for surface-to-air missiles.
NASA has a posting of recollections by Werner Von Braun where he says that the early rocket pioneers were often labeled as “crackpots.” He also talks about Goddard. The URL is:
*
https://history.msfc.nasa.g…
*
The New York Times is infamous for its editorial slamming Goddard. Goddard was very protective of his work and the negative reaction to it made him more so.
I’m certainly not a fan of SLS/Orion. I also think ISS was more expensive than it should be due to the inclusion of Russia (changing orbit inclination reduced shuttle payload requiring many more “assembly” flights). But we have still learned a great deal from ISS.
And let’s not forget how many women, minorities, and foreign nationals have traveled into space in that time…I feel that’s a big accomplishment too…..and I’m not even a liberal. Lol
Tyson’s comparison of two 45 year spans of history of U.S. aerospace is just stupid. For one thing, the progress between Lindbergh and Apollo 17 was fueled by a dynamic aviation industry, by WWII, and by partnerships between NACA and industry… and then 4% of the federal budget on a crash program to go to the Moon, after which spending was slashed. We are only just now beginning to foster the kind of partnerships in space that aviation enjoyed from WWI with NACA’s creation thru 1958 and beyond. Indeed, one could argue that the reason we haven’t made more progress since 1972 is that we continued the approach of Apollo without the money. So why hasn’t Tyson argued for a different approach?
Tut, tut, Herr Professor.
Even in the pre-war era aviation was jumping ahead exponentially. Isn’t this a case of how you graph your beginning and ending points? (at least partly…your point about WW2 and the 4% being correct).
He didn’t say .. those guys .. or them.. he said “we”
well mister Tyson what have YOU did? How many aerospace companies have YOU started to take us somewhere?
I have nothing to be ashamed about. I have advocated on public forums for a different road for over a decade. Congressional Porkonauts have decided on a different path and their is absolutely no negative consequences to their actions. Hell look at the nightmare Griffin did… sheesh
You’ve been complaining about the long-standing lack of progress, to our little club of enthusiasts.
Tyson complains, to a much larger audience, about the same long-standing lack of progress, and you (and others) jump all over him and tell him he’s utterly wrong, we’ve made lots of progress, so there! Also I’m still mad about Pluto, coz I’m retarded apparently.
Really seeing why space advocates don’t ever really get anywhere. Even when we are going in the same direction, we are determined to pull each other down.
With the power in the press that he has.. over the power in the press that I have .. not even a comparison. His big push of his influence was what?
A penny for NASA .. more funding. Not attacking the problem.. IF he attacked the real problem .. congress.. it might upset some rice bowls.
I have a serious problem with his attitude toward private spaceflight companies vis a vis NASA. He derides NASA as not doing anything in 45 years with regard to human spaceflight out of one side of his mouth while also deriding private companies that profess interest in human exploration like SpaceX out of the other side.
OK, so NASA either hasn’t had the Apollo-size budget to accomplish serious human endeavors in space or has to kowtow to Congressional special interests in lieu of spending money efficiently. Along comes a company whose CEO has the vision and possibly the wherewithal to expand human reach to Mars and beyond and Neil calls them delusional. (http://www.theverge.com/201…
Here’s something to wrap your enormous ego around, Neil: You can’t have it both ways. If public spaceflight is at the mercy of politics, you might at least have an open mind towards private spaceflight.
Maybe sending humans to space is not worthwhile. I’m thinking of the 1955 Disney film “Man in Space” where it implies radio relay stations, weather, earth observation stations will all be occupied with people. In reality those are best left unmanned. Exploring the planets is best done with robots (yes, a geologist on Mars is more effective than Curiosity but let’s be honest, it will be decades before we can do that). Sending someone to the Moon is a non-starter (been that way for 40 years). Science missions are interesting and past 40 years has been huge accomplishments. Unless there is a definite political, economic, or military reason maybe there really is no reason to put people into space. There is Paul Spudis and Dennis Wingo advocating economic expansion into space that includes people, and the Moon being essential for that (but then nobody wants to make any lunar goals).
Well. Mssrs. Spudis and Wingo, bright and valuable as they are, are very long on the “how” but very short on the “why”.
Indeed nobody has taken the “why” issue very seriously. While Space Zanies like myself ache to fly into the unknown, in truth expansion across the Earth and human expansion into space are culturally black and white. While comparison is useful, the two activities are far from analogous.
I’ve argued over and over again that there’s really no near-term case for human expansion into space that would be close to comprehensible to a cultural geographer or anthropologist or, indeed, an historian, all of whom would correctly point out that the historical establishment of remote human settlements uniformly have in common attributes not found in, say, a lunar or Mars colony.
This is not to say that neither of those places shouldn’t host some sort of an outpost. But to think a village or town or indeed city requires merely sufficient human mass is just laughably ignorant of the history or requirements of human settlement.
Over to you.
Moon..a non starter…tell the Chinese that..get real….so we will just never go to the moon again, because we sent 12 men long ago…..riiiiiggghhhtttttt
I understand, here is a post of mine from another thread. The legislation was in place, but congress was not being called out on by people who have a pulpit to preach from …. THAT is where I believe Tyson fails. He could HAMMER congress over their inaction
“They did think about it. The Commercial Space Act of 1998 laid the groundwork for allowing NASA to pursue commercial cargo and crew.
“An Act
To encourage the development of a commercial space industry in the United States, and for other purposes.
Oct. 28, 1998 – [H.R. 1702]
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) Short Title.–This Act may be cited as the “Commercial Space Act of 1998”.
(b) Table of Contents.–
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Definitions.
TITLE I–PROMOTION OF COMMERCIAL SPACE OPPORTUNITIES
Sec. 101. Commercialization of Space Station.
Sec. 102. Commercial space launch amendments.
Sec. 103. Launch voucher demonstration program.
Sec. 104. Promotion of United States Global Positioning System standards.
Sec. 105. Acquisition of space science data.
Sec. 106. Administration of Commercial Space Centers.
Sec. 107. Sources of Earth science data.
TITLE II–FEDERAL ACQUISITION OF SPACE TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
Sec. 201. Requirement to procure commercial space transportation services.
Sec. 202. Acquisition of commercial space transportation services.
Sec. 203. Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990 amendments.
Sec. 204. Shuttle privatization.
Sec. 205. Use of excess intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Sec. 206. National launch capability study.”
https://www.nasa.gov/offices/o…
It sat for six years until the shuttle accident provided an opportunity for the white house to finally pursue it.
In “The Vision for Space Exploration”, from Feb 2004 it reads”
“C. Space Transportation Capabilities Supporting Exploration
• Develop a new crew exploration vehicle to provide crew transportation for missions beyond low Earth orbit;
« Conduct the initial test flight before the end of this decade in order to provide an operational capability to support human exploration missions no later than 2014;
• Separate to the maximum practical extent crew from cargo transportation to the International Space Station and for launching exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit;
« Acquire cargo transportation as soon as practical and affordable to support missions to and from the International Space Station; and
« Acquire crew transportation to and from the International Space Station, as required, after the Space Shuttle is retired from service.”
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55583…
So since 1998 Congress had a green light to fund commercial crew, 18 years … we should have had operational commercial passenger services for over a decade.
The government thought about it, but refused to fight the congressional pork train to space states.”
He is incorrect. The fact that we are OPERATING a multi
crewed system continuously in space for over a decade is a signiifcant
accomplishment if you intend to ever move farther into space. There are
several others that others have noted.
Really this guy is overrated.
His engineering background is nil and he has contributed exactly nothing
technically to the very accomplishements he laments the absence of.
Comparisons to Sagan are laughable.
We? We are operating? Nice rockets you have there, sitting in a museum, or exploding on the launch pad. Oh well, at least the rising bear is taking time out from rebuilding the empire and talking about nuking the USA to provide the rockets you need BECAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE ANY!
We… How arrogant can you be with so little of consequence. And yeah, yeah, I know, SpaceX has made a couple of deliveries to the ISS. Unmanned, around six successful ones from memory, and I’m both including the miss last month and multiple anomalous launches as they ended up working out. You still don’t have a human space program, and Russia is still doing a lot of the work when it comes to the ISS including supply runs and all the work when it comes to crew transport.
And no, I’m not letting you claim SpaceX supply runs as your space program.
Heh. It’s actually kinda funny. At this point you’re about on par with Canada, train an astronaut and send them over to Moscow to beg for a lift, only difference is you’re throwing money at someone who has a bit too much to start with to carry supplies for you and they happen to operate in your country. Still not your program.
Provide a single article he has penned that displays your claim. Arm waving and getting in front of a mic is what he does – rocket propulsion? No. BTW Ares was the rocket – Constellation was the program.
Just one? Ok…. 2005: Fueling Up
{this was the same time NASA O’keefe had selected depot centric prior to the 2005 ESAS return to shuttle derived with manipulated data.
“Why not put a filling station in Earth orbit?”
“Think about it. If you wanted to drive from New York to California and back again, and there were no gas stations along the way, you’d have to drag along a fuel tank as big as a tanker truck. But then you’d need an engine strong enough to pull a tanker, so you’d need to buy a much bigger engine. Then you’d need even more fuel to drive the car. Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation eats your lunch every time.”
“Since 1981, NASA has used the space shuttle for missions in low-Earth orbit—a few hundred miles above our planet. The shuttle has three main parts: a stubby, airplanelike orbiter that holds the crew, the payload, and the three main engines; an immense external fuel tank that holds more than half a million gallons of self-combustible liquid; and two solid rocket boosters, whose two million pounds of rubbery aluminum fuel generate 85 percent of the thrust needed to get the giant off the ground. On the launchpad the shuttle weighs four and a half million pounds. Two minutes after the launch, the boosters have finished their work and drop away into the ocean, to be fished out of the water and reused. Six minutes later, just before the shuttle reaches orbital speed, the now-empty external tank drops off and disintegrates as it reenters Earth’s atmosphere. By the time the shuttle reaches orbit, 90 percent of its launch mass has been left behind.”
http://www.haydenplanetariu…