Subject: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit?
Newsgroups: sci.space
In article <1992Sep3.142820.19532@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:
>
>The lean/mean planetary projects, like NEAR, MESUR, lunar orbiter, and
>Artemis lander _still_ have difficulty getting funded, because they don't
>use Shuttle or SSF, even after all of the realization of the cost-effectiveness
>of small, quick exploration. Planetary science has plucked out the mite in its own eye, but it is still being destroyed by the mote in the astronaut-world's
>eye. We need the strategy of frequency and simplicity in all of NASA if
>we are to have effective NASA programs.
Well, the lunar orbiters were funded because of the inability of more
complex unmanned systems to deliver the data needed for Apollo, six failed
Rangers in a row and Centaur booster failures left and right. So you could
say that that program got funding solely because of the needs of manned space.
As a side note, most of the data from lunar probes, and some probes of
other bodies, lies rusting away on reels of magnetic tape that no current
machine can read in some musty warehouse. The most cost effective way to
do lunar scientific research would be to mine that warehouse first before
