While you're correct that manned missions are much more expensive, they sure as hell do a hell of a lot more to inspire people than robotic ones. Consider the impact of the Apollo missions verses the Viking misions, or really any space exploration since Apollo.
Why, don't you agree that Pakistan is more advanced than India? Of course depends on the definition, I used the toilet per capita... I don't think your deletion was needed, we were comparing 2 similar countries, who should spend their money on public health instead of nukes and moonshots... P.S.: If you overmoderated because I mentioned the plague, I understand...
Why can't we have a morale booster for the nation by fixing social security, medicare, or employment? Being healthy and employed makes me happier than fancy rockets.
All you have is IF? That is the crux of your argument? I posted the literacy rates as an indicator or advancement, and you come back with 'If'. Lame, totally lame.
Yes, maned missions are exciting more, but I want to reach the more rational types - the youth that are interested in cost effectiveness, improving technology, rising to technical challenges, especially ones related to makig AI (already a strong area in India) able to be more than just "remote controll" - I.e. independantly capabable to cope with the unexpected. I do not want to excite the same crowed that get equally excited about the latest doings of some Bollywood star (except as they may controll the budgets). Films like 2001 can help with that more cheaply that actually sending men into space - let Bollywood do that on the silver screen. Leave the engineering and AI to the more serious.
That argument might make some sense, if we could get responsible governmental administrations that could once in a while, actually balance a budget. But when wicked, greedy politicians can't ever seem to trim the fat and waste, we get to such a desperate financial destabilizing point, that cuts have to be made practically everywhere, including to gloriously expensive space exploration. There is also the risks of disaster, which are all the more magnified, when human lives are at stake. If an astronaut dies in some manned mission, there's HUGE news headlines, how many years is the space exploration set back, while they do study after study as to what went wrong? But if a robot "dies," who cares, except that that robot probably was somewhat expensive as well? Also, doesn't disasters in which human astronauts die, bring out the kooks or cautionists, who might opine various religious or philosophical luddite or go-slow ideas like, oh I don't know, "If man was meant to fly, he would have wings."
I doubt that Pakistan is more advanced than India, as Pakistan has a smaller population, and more radical and dangerous false religion or religious fanatics (Islam). BTW, I consider a huge human population, quite possibly a potential huge advantage for a nation, especially if they have the wise leadership to more tap that powerful resource. And I have heard of too many U.S. jobs going to India, many people in India speak English, India has computer programmers. But where have I ever seen a product Made in Pakistan? Does Pakistan even much exist in the global economy?
Thats an American outlook IMO. Asians are more geeky about "stuff". Just look at the difference in the way technology is used in the US compared to the way it is used in Japan. I do not see Americans using robots in their home anytime soon, for instance. As long as we're getting the know-how, why should we also need to endanger lives?
Because those items don't as readily make the news headlines, and because as long as government morons run such programs, it may not be long until the medical ripoff industry and other assorted government spending exceed 100% of GDP. But then of course, if we let government morons run space exploration, how long until it also exceeds 100% of GDP?
Sending robots right now, simply gives us more "bang for our buck," in an era of having to cut and limit costs. Now I know, robots aren't good at making "decisions" to unforseen circumstances, like humans can. But robots are far more expendible than a few token human explorers, to represent the rest of the human race's desire to go explore. If a robot crashes and burns, well we can make more to send on the next mission. How many people have any concept just how expensive it is, to bring along all the baggage for human "life support?" Bring humans, and they have to eat in zero-gravity, breathe a pressurized atmosphere, use the toilet, always have the proper temperature, not get sick, always have something to do, always be productive and on track with the mission, get along well with other people in tightly enclosed spaces, deal with emergencies efficiently, don't panic. I would hazard a guess that a cup of coffee, in outer space might cost but a wee $1000 a cup. When you consider how much rocket fuel it takes to lift yet another pound of stuff into orbit, and all the extra stuff you have to bring to make coffee. Containers, stuff to mix it, additives like creamer or sugar, something to heat it in, etc. Robots don't care about such "luxuries" as coffee. BTW, did I mention that I don't even like coffee? Make mine a hot chocolate. Robots do have some advantages, that once they aim their antenna and make contact with Earth, they can be reprogrammed from Earth. The robot computers are a bit better than earth-bound computers, automatically programmed to detect a software crash and trigger a reboot, since there is no human there to press a "Reset" button. There are programming techniques that allow for software crashes to be detected. One method involves setting a timer to a very short time into the future. If the program is working correctly, it will keep advancing the timer, so that it doesn't time out and trigger. But if the software hangs, the timer runs out, concludes the software has frozen or hung up on something, and can log the event and trigger a reboot. Running multiple programs at once, can allow one program to monitor stats upon another program, to make sure that the other software appears to be "responding."
Robots are very good at doing some things, and very bad at doing other things. So far, robots have proved to be very good, at doing highly repetitive and boring tasks. As their "minds" are incredibly simple, they can do very simple tasks, very fast and cost-efficiently, without variation or mistake, great then for doing welds upon mass-assembled cars cranked out, all the same. Since their task is very simple, such robots only have what is needed to do the task. Only an arm and its tools, not the whole body and mind of androids, like in the movies. Of course, one reason why robots and androids appear so smart in movies, is because they often are played by real human actors. In Star Trek, Data is played by Brent Spiner. So much cheaper to wear some off-color makeup, than to get a robot to do all his actions and stunts. Of course, I noticed when the side of Data's head was opened up, releaving circuits and flashing LEDs, great for movie illusion, as real circuit boards likely would lack the flashing LEDs, Data's head was "too wide," as obviously, that stuff was "added" to the side of his face, for that camera shot, as presumably, the actor wouldn't allow flesh to be subtracted from his face, to make room. Oh, yeah, they use makeup and blend the two together, to try to fake the illusion, that the side of his face/head was "opened." Often, if the camera angle is just right, and they don't show it for too many seconds, the illusion looks fairly real. But then, DVD slow motion and freeze-frame, doesn't exactly help the illusion stay so real looking. And I will back up the DVD, and slow-mo, trying to figure out how they did an effect. Robots are also good for working in certain hazardous environments, not so friendly for humans to enter, say like outer space. But so far, robots are generally too stupid to do diverse tasks on the ground, where humans can better do them. I can't see paying big money for a robot vacuum cleaner, that wanders around almost like some confused animal. Why? I already have a vaccuum cleaner with a lot more power, that I can push myself, and compete the task in a few minutes. But if those robots were designed more like humans, with arms and legs and hands, so that they could then be programmed to do most any task that humans can, and had far more sophisticated software, I would love to have a robotic household maid, like on The Jetsons cartoon. I don't think they got it quite right on the cartoon though. I don't think such robots would roll around on little wheels. I think robots would "walk" like humans, so that they can navigate our stairs and go where we can go. Because, think about it. Balancing and walking, is among the "simplest" tasks that humans have to do. Babies learn walking rather early on, compared to other tasks. If a robot can't figure out how to "walk," it likely won't learn how to do much anything else either, other than of course, highly repetitive boring tasks. And I do think robots would have to learn the human world, because we wouldn't want to change our world for the robots. Do we even need a car that can drive itself, if the robot can sit in a car like a human, and drive the car the same way as humans do? But given enough time, I think both methods could become possible. Then humans will have to be banned from driving, and our cars will drive for us, because so many people are such terrible drivers. Distracted, not using turn signals, tailgating, too aggressive, too impulsive, too much in a hurry. I think iRobot got it about right. Cars will drive so much faster, and safer, once the computers take over the driving. BTW, we don't seem to see very many robots in Star Trek. Why is that?
What the hell wrong with you guys??? SIZE has nothing to do with it! Actually, since India has a way bigger population, I could argue that misery is way more common there because of its size...
Then cummulative happiness must also be greater, because of its size, right? Actually, it does help quite a lot to have a massive population, in order to fund space exploration, because space exploration is very expensive. It takes a "huge" population to get the cost, per capita, down to anywhere near a reasonable level. Yet, another reason I am pro-population, as dramatical global population growth, does appear to be quite a necessary prerequisite, towards ever developing the better necessary, if ever to happen, other world colonizing technologies. So go ahead India, keep pushing out your babies, to help us "beam ourselves into the future," or whatever. I believe ultimately, we all benefit from humanity's naturally-growing numbers.
Seem to be veering off from why moonshots are dumb to why individual people are dumb. Let's not bruise feelings here. Topic: India lauches moon probe. Moon Men protest, also curious as to why no Moon Women: is it sexism or racism. Interstellar warfare ensues. Discuss.
You are right Geoff, sorry for going a bit offtopic. Although most of us agreed that India should have concentrate on earthy things instead of spacedreams. I see Phlogo still keep posting after my posts, so I must assume responding to my posts, although he is the one keep saying let it go, but unable to do so. The whole point of my objection was that beside not defining what "advanced" mean (actually I did by WC per citizen) a country being advanced has nothing to do with its size, population or geographic. Going back to topic, but hey, I think this thread has already ran its course...
India isn't undertaking this venture to out-do Pakistan. They are obviously aiming at much bigger targets. For some time, India has seen that the best way to escape their current status as a developing nation is to become a developed nation (duh). They have already developed some world-class schools, have made significant inroads in the arena of technology development, and have developed an ethos that makes intellectual pursuit among the highest of aspirations. That China, India, and even the technology-crazy Japanese are all ramping up their human space programs belies your argument. Perhaps because without a human side to a nation's space program, a nation basically has no space program? There is one nation in the world that formerly had some limited involvement in human spaceflight activities. Thanks to that nation's anti-human spaceflight crowd, led by a bunch of space scientists, that country explicitly banned any government-funded involvement in any human spaceflight programs back in the 1960s. The ban even went to the extent of precluding providing astronauts/cosmonauts to some other country's human spaceflight program. The space scientists got their way in the sense that that country has not funded any human spaceflight activities for 40 years. They did not, however, get their way in the form of a massive space science budget increase. Soon after the ban, that country's unmanned space budget dwindled, and dwindled, and dwindled. Today, Great Britain's space budget is a paltry $350 million per year, most of which is shipped out of the country to ESA. There are very, very few space scientists left in Great Britain. Great Britain is finally coming to its senses and is rethinking its ban on government-funded human spaceflight activities.
Well , I think Pakistan has been making rounds to IMF, China(They denied aid), and some other organizations because they are on the verge of being bankrupt . IMF is ready to talk with demand of reforms . Their reserves are just on the verge of the depletion and that should put a full stop to the debate of who is more advanced . Well, it doesn't even matter to the topic . India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world ( around 8% GDP growth , nearly that of the Dragon China ) . And certainly , the people of the country dream of progress like every American , Chinese or a Brazilian does . And the country is very ambitious . Maybe you know how hard their Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh tried to clear the Nuke deal . This Chandrayaan mission more than being of scientific importance is a kind of signal by India for the world to acknowledge them as the emerging ground for developments in various fields . The point notable about it was that the cost of mission is about 1/3rd or 1/4th that of an average NASA mission . Though I admit that overall development of a country is incomplete without social development , but for India it's necessary that others recogonise it as an emerging global player which in turn will help to get far better understanding and cooperation from others .
