Well, seems you are equating Space Age with humans in space. But actually - we've not really had much of a human space program, I'd say, controversially, since the 1970s. We send humans up to the ISS and back - but they are just repeating old things over and over - we already know that humans are unhealthy in zero g. There are simple experiments in artificial gravity which we could have done in the 1970s, that have never yet been done.
These might be the key to long term human occupation in space - to generate artificial gravity.
That plus closed system habitats in space - if we had both of those - artificial gravity and closed system habitats in space - plus also some work on improving cosmic radiation protection - then instead of rotating humans to the ISS every three months they could go up there for years on end, just one crew there for years, if they wanted to. And grow all their own food in space also and generate oxygen from algae.
But - there is no interest in either of those at present by Russia, or the US.
Russia has done more research into artificial gravity than the US. They sent up small centrifuges to MIR which showed that artificial gravity improved the health of rats in zero g. But just stopped after that.
Russia also did more research into closed system habitats than the US, with their series of experiments in generating enough oxygen for astronauts from algae - which they did - on the ground - successfully - but never flew the system into space.
We've had a continuous presense of humans in space yes - but I think the human spaceflight program has been largely political, with not much scientific reason for it. They do some good science in the ISS, but it's not the main motivation for it in my view. If it was designed around science, just to do the zero g experiments there - then you wouldn't need a continuous presence of humans there.
If you arranged things a bit differently you could do most of the experiments ooperated from the ground with occasional visits by humans to the ISS. But you can't do that with the ISS - it's organized around need for humans there all the time. So the design is not optimal for zero g experiments.
And if it was organized around the aim of finding out best ways to keep humans healthy long term in space - and preparing for interplanetary human missions, then they would have done these artificial gravity and closed system habitat experiments in space long ago - and it wouldn't even have cost much at all. Simple inexpensive experiments (inexpensive at least compared with human spaceflight costs) that could have been done in the 1970s.
But instead they just gather more data about zero g - with no data yet at all about human effects of artificial g, whether we need full g or if e.g. lunar g is enough for health, is gravity needed 24/7 or will one hour a day do - how well can humans tolerate spinning motions to generate artificial g - we just don't have any idea about any of those things, never tried to find out.
So - I don't think the current ISS or MIR or Spacelab or any of them were optimized around science - or about human space flight.
Not particularly good for - either experiments in zero g, or experiments finding out how best to keep humans healthy in space and to minimize the number of supply missions needed to keep a mission healthy in space for years on end.
Instead - like Apollo - Apollo was largely political - to get humans to the Moon and the science literally was an add on. Originally in early stages of planning for Apollo, they didn't even plan to return rocks from the Moon until some scientists asked them about it. And first scientist to go to the Moon was on the very last mission Apollo 17.
Except for Apollo 17, all the rocks were collected by jet fighter pilots with no more understanding of geology than you or me, (unless you are a geologist yourself of course).
All they had were a few geology field trips before they went to the Moon, and some basic geology classes. And they were directed by people from Earth who couldn't see what was going on at all well - relying on low res poor quality streaming video.
And the missions were all very short just three days maximum. Politically the safest thing was just to send humans to the Moon for the shortest possible time and return - and the 2 or 3 days was not for practical reasons - but a compromise between the political aims to show that the US could send humans to the Moon - and the scientific aim to study the Moon close up as much as possible. The political aim was best achieved by frequent visits for a short time to send as many humans to the Moon as possible - with each visit as short as possible to minimize hazards on the Moon while achieving as many as possible humans able to set foot on the Moon..
The scientific aims better achieved by - possibly fewer - longer duration missions - and sending scientists there. The actual missions were a compromise between the two.
It's continued like that - the ISS is largely political - to show capability to keep humans in space - and to send many humans into space - and no real work done on finding easier and less expensive ways to have a continual presence of humans in space - if that's what you wanted. And is no preparation at all for interplanetary flight for months on end with no contact with Earth.
On the other hand, the unmanned missions - they are science lead and that's a vibrant on going exciting program with new things happening all the time, breaking new horizons continually. No sign of that slowing down. In near future we have, in a month or two the Rosetta mission to a comet. Next year the fly by of Pluto. In 2018, then ExoMars from the ESA, first mission to another planet with capability of detecting life biosignatures since 1970s.
I think if the human space program was either
But in human space flight - it's the politicians who make the final decisions about what to do - and they leave very little initiative to scientists - and presidents put forward grand goals - often ones that couldn't be achieved - and then everything gets framed around those. And - in my view - the result is - a program that is half of one thing, half of another, and does nothing very well, and is hugely expensive.
Does have benefit of encouraging co-operation inspace, internatiional co-operation, does do a bit of good science. But could be so much better than it is now.
Also - I think myself the whole focus on colonizing space is misguided. It can't possibly work as a place to live because space is far harsher than Earth - evne the harshest deserts on Earth - no way will it be easier for humans to live there in near future, except possibly in big habitats like the Sanford Torus
- and no way can they pay for themselves and no government on Earth is going to spend out billions of dollars every year for it for decades on end with no financial return (never mind for centuries on end as envisioned by some of the space colonization enthusiasts) - and private money would soon run out - unless the focus is rather on going to space to
But not colonization - not yet - unless you build in a connection with one of the others. The idea for the Stanford Torus was to have a settlement of 10,000 people who would build solar panels for the Earth and pay for the settlement by selling solar powered electricity to the Earth. That plan if it worked could have meant abundant cheap electricity from space by now, and no global warming, and no energy crisis.
Whether that could still be a motive for doing a big settlement in space I don't know - maybe you wouldn't need humans in space - at least not as many as 10,000 - to make the Stanford planned solar satellites with modern technology - but you need something like that, some reason for humans to be there that directly benefits Earth right away.
Or else the whole thing structured around science goals and designed with that as the aim rather than an "add on" for some political agenda.
Or both.
There are plenty of scientific reasons for sending humans into space - most likely with telerobotics in my view - space is so hazardous for humans - not likely to spend all their time doing space walks - likely to be rare. Instead - living in sheltered habitats - either caves - or orbiting small settlements - and operating the exploration robots by telerobotics - so the humans are there to be closer to the robots to eliminate the light speed delay controlling from Earth - that's a major motivation for humans close at hand.
Even on the Moon - that's enough motivation - to remove the 2 second delay controlling robots there - to have humans in L1 or L2 position - as serious worked out mission plans for the Moon.
For Mars it would make a huge difference, could do entire Curiosity mission to date in a few hours by telepresence.
Something like that could be a vibrant exciting human spaceflight program - and with a reason for the humans to be there in space - either doing something directly of benefit to Earth - or helping with scientific discovery or both.
Otherwise it's just a political dead end - like Apollo, with the interesting stuff as an "add on" - which is a hugely expensive way of doing things for what you achieve. And would probably, like Apollo, falter to a halt just at the point where it begins to enter the most scientifically interesting phase.
I'm not saying that the political value should be ignored - and that in the end Apollo did achieve a lot of course - but can't we have a science lead human spaceflight program that is also of political value?
On the artificial gravity, see
These might be the key to long term human occupation in space - to generate artificial gravity.
That plus closed system habitats in space - if we had both of those - artificial gravity and closed system habitats in space - plus also some work on improving cosmic radiation protection - then instead of rotating humans to the ISS every three months they could go up there for years on end, just one crew there for years, if they wanted to. And grow all their own food in space also and generate oxygen from algae.
But - there is no interest in either of those at present by Russia, or the US.
Russia has done more research into artificial gravity than the US. They sent up small centrifuges to MIR which showed that artificial gravity improved the health of rats in zero g. But just stopped after that.
Russia also did more research into closed system habitats than the US, with their series of experiments in generating enough oxygen for astronauts from algae - which they did - on the ground - successfully - but never flew the system into space.
We've had a continuous presense of humans in space yes - but I think the human spaceflight program has been largely political, with not much scientific reason for it. They do some good science in the ISS, but it's not the main motivation for it in my view. If it was designed around science, just to do the zero g experiments there - then you wouldn't need a continuous presence of humans there.
If you arranged things a bit differently you could do most of the experiments ooperated from the ground with occasional visits by humans to the ISS. But you can't do that with the ISS - it's organized around need for humans there all the time. So the design is not optimal for zero g experiments.
And if it was organized around the aim of finding out best ways to keep humans healthy long term in space - and preparing for interplanetary human missions, then they would have done these artificial gravity and closed system habitat experiments in space long ago - and it wouldn't even have cost much at all. Simple inexpensive experiments (inexpensive at least compared with human spaceflight costs) that could have been done in the 1970s.
But instead they just gather more data about zero g - with no data yet at all about human effects of artificial g, whether we need full g or if e.g. lunar g is enough for health, is gravity needed 24/7 or will one hour a day do - how well can humans tolerate spinning motions to generate artificial g - we just don't have any idea about any of those things, never tried to find out.
So - I don't think the current ISS or MIR or Spacelab or any of them were optimized around science - or about human space flight.
Not particularly good for - either experiments in zero g, or experiments finding out how best to keep humans healthy in space and to minimize the number of supply missions needed to keep a mission healthy in space for years on end.
Instead - like Apollo - Apollo was largely political - to get humans to the Moon and the science literally was an add on. Originally in early stages of planning for Apollo, they didn't even plan to return rocks from the Moon until some scientists asked them about it. And first scientist to go to the Moon was on the very last mission Apollo 17.
Except for Apollo 17, all the rocks were collected by jet fighter pilots with no more understanding of geology than you or me, (unless you are a geologist yourself of course).
All they had were a few geology field trips before they went to the Moon, and some basic geology classes. And they were directed by people from Earth who couldn't see what was going on at all well - relying on low res poor quality streaming video.
And the missions were all very short just three days maximum. Politically the safest thing was just to send humans to the Moon for the shortest possible time and return - and the 2 or 3 days was not for practical reasons - but a compromise between the political aims to show that the US could send humans to the Moon - and the scientific aim to study the Moon close up as much as possible. The political aim was best achieved by frequent visits for a short time to send as many humans to the Moon as possible - with each visit as short as possible to minimize hazards on the Moon while achieving as many as possible humans able to set foot on the Moon..
The scientific aims better achieved by - possibly fewer - longer duration missions - and sending scientists there. The actual missions were a compromise between the two.
It's continued like that - the ISS is largely political - to show capability to keep humans in space - and to send many humans into space - and no real work done on finding easier and less expensive ways to have a continual presence of humans in space - if that's what you wanted. And is no preparation at all for interplanetary flight for months on end with no contact with Earth.
On the other hand, the unmanned missions - they are science lead and that's a vibrant on going exciting program with new things happening all the time, breaking new horizons continually. No sign of that slowing down. In near future we have, in a month or two the Rosetta mission to a comet. Next year the fly by of Pluto. In 2018, then ExoMars from the ESA, first mission to another planet with capability of detecting life biosignatures since 1970s.
I think if the human space program was either
- More science lead, with science as the design criteria for the missions and any space stations rather than an "add on", or
- More clearly focused on finding ways for humans to live long term in space habitats with less dependence on Earth - so they can spend years, not just months, without supply from Earth, and in good health - or
- Both of those
But in human space flight - it's the politicians who make the final decisions about what to do - and they leave very little initiative to scientists - and presidents put forward grand goals - often ones that couldn't be achieved - and then everything gets framed around those. And - in my view - the result is - a program that is half of one thing, half of another, and does nothing very well, and is hugely expensive.
Does have benefit of encouraging co-operation inspace, internatiional co-operation, does do a bit of good science. But could be so much better than it is now.
Also - I think myself the whole focus on colonizing space is misguided. It can't possibly work as a place to live because space is far harsher than Earth - evne the harshest deserts on Earth - no way will it be easier for humans to live there in near future, except possibly in big habitats like the Sanford Torus
- and no way can they pay for themselves and no government on Earth is going to spend out billions of dollars every year for it for decades on end with no financial return (never mind for centuries on end as envisioned by some of the space colonization enthusiasts) - and private money would soon run out - unless the focus is rather on going to space to
- Help the Earth - e.g. to build solar panels or for space mining
- Tourism
- Exploration and discovery
But not colonization - not yet - unless you build in a connection with one of the others. The idea for the Stanford Torus was to have a settlement of 10,000 people who would build solar panels for the Earth and pay for the settlement by selling solar powered electricity to the Earth. That plan if it worked could have meant abundant cheap electricity from space by now, and no global warming, and no energy crisis.
Whether that could still be a motive for doing a big settlement in space I don't know - maybe you wouldn't need humans in space - at least not as many as 10,000 - to make the Stanford planned solar satellites with modern technology - but you need something like that, some reason for humans to be there that directly benefits Earth right away.
Or else the whole thing structured around science goals and designed with that as the aim rather than an "add on" for some political agenda.
Or both.
There are plenty of scientific reasons for sending humans into space - most likely with telerobotics in my view - space is so hazardous for humans - not likely to spend all their time doing space walks - likely to be rare. Instead - living in sheltered habitats - either caves - or orbiting small settlements - and operating the exploration robots by telerobotics - so the humans are there to be closer to the robots to eliminate the light speed delay controlling from Earth - that's a major motivation for humans close at hand.
Even on the Moon - that's enough motivation - to remove the 2 second delay controlling robots there - to have humans in L1 or L2 position - as serious worked out mission plans for the Moon.
For Mars it would make a huge difference, could do entire Curiosity mission to date in a few hours by telepresence.
Something like that could be a vibrant exciting human spaceflight program - and with a reason for the humans to be there in space - either doing something directly of benefit to Earth - or helping with scientific discovery or both.
Otherwise it's just a political dead end - like Apollo, with the interesting stuff as an "add on" - which is a hugely expensive way of doing things for what you achieve. And would probably, like Apollo, falter to a halt just at the point where it begins to enter the most scientifically interesting phase.
I'm not saying that the political value should be ignored - and that in the end Apollo did achieve a lot of course - but can't we have a science lead human spaceflight program that is also of political value?
On the artificial gravity, see
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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