ecl@mtgzy.UUCP (e.c.leeper) (03/28/86)
I wrote a letter to my Congresspersons (see letter at end of article). The reply I got from Senator Lautenberg may be of interest: > "Thank you for contacting me to express your support for the > continuation of the Space Shuttle program and other NASA programs. > > Our nation has mourned the loss os seven fellow Americans who gave > their lives in the exploration of space. I was deeply saddened by > the Space Shuttle disaster. > > I have strongly supported, and will continue to support, our > nation's space program. Millions of Americans have benefited from > the knowledge and new technologies we have derived from our > exploration of space. However, before the Shuttle program resumes > flights, we must understand the cause of this accident. > > As you probably know, a presidential commission is currently > studying the records of the disaster to determine its cause. Please > be assured that I will keep your views in mind as Congress reviews > the Shuttle accident. > > I hope you will continue to contact me on issues of concern to you. > Having the benefit of your views is important to me." (This is the letter I sent to Lautenberg (if it looks familiar, it's because pieces were shamelessly stolen from net.space): I want to urge you to support, and support fully, the manned space program. While unmanned probes can do preliminary exploration, and robots (or waldos) can do some tasks in space, it is vitally important that we send people into space also. The Challenger accident has raised the manned vs. unmanned debate to new heights. More people than ever are beginning to wonder whether we really should be sending men and women into space. Perhaps, they wonder, we should wait until it is safer. After all, Voyager shows that people don't really need to send people into space. Right? WRONG! Voyager didn't prove anything. All it had to do was sit and watch the greatest show in the solar system. People have done and will be (I hope) doing far more difficult jobs (repairing satellites, producing new medicines, etc.). Now, and for the forseeable future, people are needed in space to repair satellites and to conduct "shotgun" research (conducting a wide variety of experiments where the astronaut is responsible for setting the experiments up). The technology to have waldos (mechanical arms which are controlled from the ground) do any but the simplest of these jobs simply isn't there. Consider: -The best waldos available today have little, if any, feedback. This means that jobs which are easy to do by hand are difficult, if not impossible to do with a waldo. -The best mechanical "hands" available today are crude, not having anywhere near the flexibility of a human hand (even one encased in a heavy glove). -Any waldo used in space will have to be controlled by a radio link. But, NASA no longer has world-wide radio coverage. This means that either: -The waldo is used for only the 15-30 minutes out of each orbit it is in radio contact. -The commands to the waldo are relayed through a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. This may not be practical, since it means that there will be a 1/2 second delay due to speed of light lag. Using robots to do repair work is even farther in the future than using waldos. With the technology available today, it is considered a major accomplishment to just have a robot pick up the right tool, much less use it correctly. "Shotgun" research is just as, if not more, valuable than repairing satellites. Consider how expensive it would be to send design a payload that will take a picture of Halley's comet. It was much less expensive to simply hand a camera to one of the astronauts and ask him or her to take the picture. A lot of important research that has been done on the space shuttle would have simply been too expensive to do before we began routinely sending people into orbit. Cost has always been the bottom line. Having people in orbit has allowed us to recover two satellites, repair two satellites and perform an incredible amount of research. Without people in orbit, these missions would either have been impossible, or far more expensive. In the long run, because of their ability to perform research cheaply and their ability to fix things when they go wrong, manned launches will be cheaper than unmanned ones. As for waiting until space travel is safer...space travel will never be perfectly safe (but, neither will driving to work, or flying in an airplane, or...). Obviously we should try to make it as safe as possible. But when is it safe enough? A reasonable answer would be: that it is safe enough when there are people willing to do it. Even following the Challenger accident, there is no shortage of people willing to work in space. And there is a need to go. ) Evelyn C. Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzz!ecl (or ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl)