Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: utzoo!kcarroll
From: kcarroll@utzoo.uucp (Kieran A. Carroll)
Subject: Re: Scientific value of Apollo
Message-ID: <1989Dec20.154407.15068@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1989Dec18.234704.16742@utzoo.uucp> <5729@ncar.ucar.edu>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 89 15:44:07 GMT

steve@groucho.ucar.edu (Steve Emmerson) writes:
> 
> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes [referring to John McKernan's 
> assertion that it is "empirically evident" that the unmanned program 
> is more cost-effective than the manned program]:
> 
> >My point is precisely that it's not.  Remember, I am talking about getting
> >the *same* results -- volume and diversity of samples, surface experiments
> >emplaced, cores drilled, precision landings at pre-chosen sites, etc. --
> >not the far smaller and simpler missions undertaken by all unmanned landers
> >to date.
> 
> ... I believe it would be a mistake to attempt to
> compare (assuming for the moment that one could ;-) manned and unmanned
> exploration using as the judgement criteria the detailed and immediate
> goals and results of the manned activities.  It would be better, in my
> opinion, to refer to a higher level of endevour, such as the quantity
> and quality of the increase in our knowledge, or the potential for
> further advancement in this area.
> 

This is a good point, one that underlies (I think) much of the
manned-vs-unmanned infighting. 

Henry's point is that a set of unmanned missions, 
designed to accomplish the same things that Apollo accomplished,  
might well have cost as much as Apollo did; thus, citing the 
great expense of Apollo when arguing that manned missions are 
inherently much more expensive than unmanned ones makes for 
a poor argument.

Your point is that a less-expensive suite of unmanned missions
might have accomplished the "higher-level" goals of Apollo, just
as well as did the expensive manned ones. Of course, this depends
on the "high-level goals" that are involved.

There are at least three sets of high-level goals that were
satisfied by Apollo. The goals that motivated Kennedy et al. to
pay for Apollo was (to quote a previous poster) "geo-political
muscle-flexing", or striving for national prestige through
highly visible technical accomplishments, in order to win support
for America's ideology over the Soviet one.

The goals that were being pursued by the engineers that "sold"
Apollo to the administration (Von Braun and friends, and their
American proteges) were exploration of the moon, and development
of the infrastructure with which space stations, lunar bases,
manned Mars missions and the like could be supported.

In addition, there were space scientists involved in Apollo
(it's not clear to me whether they were among the original
players, or were enlisted after the program had been "sold",
in order to provide additional justification for the program;
or perhaps just because adding space science wouldn't cost much
more, and so why not allow the scientists aboard?). Their goal was
to carry out research of various forms -- into the nature of the
moon, mostly.

As many have argued, there's no way that an unmanned exploration
program could have satisfied the first set of goals in the same
way that Apollo did. Pictures sent back by robots probes make a
splash, then disappear without a trace (except among the space
addicts, and a few scientists). After all, the USSR was the first
to send robot probes to the moon, but "the-man-in-the-street" sure
doesn't remember it (and wouldn't care, if you told him). How many
people do you think still remember, on the other hand,  that 
"an American was the first person to walk on the moon"?

Today we tend to dismiss the first set of goals as having been
unimportant, a waste of time and money to try to accomplish. However,
they seem to have been pretty significant at the time -- I suppose
that a couple of more decades of lessening international tensions
has changed the outlook of people in the US (not to mention
things like Vietnam). Thus, people these days seem to act as if the
second and third sets of goals were the actual drivers of the program.
Not only that, but the manned-spaceflight enthusiasts (myself included)
judge the second set as being the "truly important" goals, with the
third set being less significant; Van Allen and company, on the other
hand, discount the second set of goals >entirely<, and tend to proclaim
the third set as the only reason for having gone to the moon.

Boy, it's no wonder people are getting nasty in their arguments!
Manned-vs-unmanned is arguing the wrong question; more important
is the question of "What should we be trying to accomplish in space?"
Once we've sorted that out, the areas in which manned and unmanned 
spaceflight can contribute will be quite obvious.
-- 

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     uunet!attcan!utzoo!kcarroll kcarroll@zoo.toronto.edu
