That’s an argument argument that human spaceflight could, at some point in the future, make sense. Though it’s also likely that automation becomes cheaper in the future. When people are claiming that automation is going to replace many tasks for humans on earth, it’s not much of a stretch to think they would continue to perform better than humans in space, where humans are at a severe disadvantage.
We also have to consider what it is that we actually want people to do up there. A lot of people say “A human could do more science on Mars than a rover!” Leaving aside the fact that we could send multiple rovers for the cost and effort of sending a human, and those rovers would be on the planet much longer - “do science” isn’t a goal. Even the current rover missions have questionable usefulness, which is why there’s always a big celebration when they land, or a discussion about how impressive the engineering is, but extremely little discussion about any of the things they’re learning.
For human spaceflight to be ruled out, automation has to be superior for every worthwhile application of human labor in space, not just some of them. Here on Earth, automation is predicted to increase, but few are predicting it makes human labor useless.
I think greatly advanced automation would improve the argument for humans in space, not refute it, by making it easier to support humans in space.
For all of the things we want to do, automation outperforms humans in space. I pointed this out in my earlier post - this wasn’t the case in the 50’s and early 60’s, so these satellites were planned to be manned (and actually were in the USSR’s case). But automation made much more sense, so the plans changed to unmanned satellites.
Perhaps this could change in the future. But at least in the present, unmanned makes more sense, which is why these things are unmanned. And historically, increased automation has lessened the need for something to be manned (which, is to be expected), so it’s likely the same will be true when it comes to space.
Really? Automation outperforms astronauts for (say) Hubble Telescope Repair? Or for that matter for doing maintenace on robots?
Your assertion only makes sense if the set of activities we do in space is sharply circumscribed. It's a mindset that comes from the "space is extremely expensive" environment.
> Automation outperforms astronauts for (say) Hubble Telescope Repair?
The last hubble repair mission was in 2009. Robotics have come a long way since then. And the Hubble was still pretty close to earth. I can guarantee you that no human hand will ever touch the James Webb telescope ever again. If things go wrong at the 2nd lagrange point, its either robots-to-the-rescue, or bye-bye-telescope.
Comparing a short, limited scope mission, close to earth, to the challenges of doing space things on other planets, is a bit far fetched.
> Your assertion only makes sense if the set of activities we do in space is sharply circumscribed
They are. They have to be, because activities that are not sharply circumscribed, have a very high probability to kill people in space.
> It's a mindset that comes from the "space is extremely expensive" environment
No, it's a mindset that comes from the "space is extremely deadly, and humans are surprisingly fragile outside of the habitat they evolved in" environment.
Your assertion can be reality checked by looking at the proposed private mission to service HST. This mission would use crew to do manual maintenance, not develop robots to try to do the servicing.
Yes, HST is close to Earth. It's still in space. This is a demonstration that when costs of getting the people there are low enough, people > robots.
> This is a demonstration that when costs of getting the people there are low enough, people > robots.
Maintenance missions close to Earth and space exploration are 2 very different tasks. This does in no way "reality check" my assertion that trying to make people live long term on other planetary bodies, or even send them there on limited excursions, makes no sense in todays reality.
You want a reality check? Fine, here is a reality check:
[Perseverance Mission cost][1]: 2.725 Billion $, is already up there doing work, and only the lastest in a line of ever more capable robots.
[2014 Projected Manned Mars Mission Cost][2]: 100 Billion $, could take 20 years or more. That was 10 years ago. Today we know it's likely to be even more expensive and take much longer.
This is the reality. Today, Robots outperform people when it comes to going to other planets, by any scientific or economic metric.
> For human spaceflight to be ruled out, automation has to be superior for every worthwhile application of human labor in space, not just some of them.
This is the case right now. There is not a single activity in space exploration right now, that humans can do better than robots.
> Here on Earth, automation is predicted to increase, but few are predicting it makes human labor useless.
Because here on earth, humans can breathe, eat, drink, piss and poop, without millions of dollars of equipment required to do so.
> There is not a single activity in space exploration right now, that humans can do better than robots.
This is clearly false. If you mean "there is no activity for which a robot could be developed at great expense to do that activity", then that's closer to the truth, but that cost is part of the argument why humans might still do the activity if launch costs are much lower.
> there is no activity for which a robot could be developed at great expense to do that activity
That expense is still orders of magnitude lower than sending humans.
And even IF launch costs go lower (and that's a big if), it wouldn't change the equation: If I can send more into space for my money, then sure, I could launch astronauts and their water supply and space toilets...or I could use that capacity to launch more, bigger, and more capable robots.
So, that explains why the private effort to service the HST wants to send up a robot.
Oh wait. That's totally wrong. They're proposing a mission to send up people to do the maintenance. Because that's far cheaper than developing robots to do it would be.
We also have to consider what it is that we actually want people to do up there. A lot of people say “A human could do more science on Mars than a rover!” Leaving aside the fact that we could send multiple rovers for the cost and effort of sending a human, and those rovers would be on the planet much longer - “do science” isn’t a goal. Even the current rover missions have questionable usefulness, which is why there’s always a big celebration when they land, or a discussion about how impressive the engineering is, but extremely little discussion about any of the things they’re learning.