The ISS was a bad idea from the start. Even Carl Sagan spoke out against manned space flight because it sapped funding from real science missions. And yet they continue to push the idea. What can the weakest link (i.e. humans) add to our knowledge when our tools can do much better?

Who cares how long the spam can survive in space? It does not help us to glean much sought after knowledge about our celestial neighbours. And who in his right mind would want to suffer the consequences of interplanetary missions? Why risk life and limb when we could risk only hardware?

Have the robotic missions to Mars taught us nothing about the wisdom of sending our tools to do our discovering for us?

Can you imagine the advances if all of NASAs efforts were focused on advancing the state of intelligent robotics?

We humans are the best tool makers ever! This, and our brains, have brought us as far as we have come. We can now extend our reach to the entire solar system without having a real live arm attached to a person on the scene.

In short, it is time to grow up! Spam in the can is now a liability rather than an asset. Even the military is wise to this (note the predator and all the other pilot-less drones).

[Several examples snipped out for brevity]

In general I’d be tempted to assume that military is directly or indirectly implicated in most of the technological and scientific advances. After all, the first spear was propably as effective againts rival tribesmen as it was agains mammoths.

I disagree.

While there will frequently be military applications of new scientific developments, and while military funding will often bring about development of a technology from proof-of-principle to reliably-working device faster than can be achieved in the civilian sector alone, I still contend that military research makes at most a modest contribution to civilian innovations.

Nigel, I’d say that your criteria of what’s a product of military research is pretty narrow.

Perhaps you are right.

I was wondering if someone was going to point out the weaknesses of the arguments I was making.

However, if you consider GPS to be the only truly military achievement, you probably don’t know that internet started as a military ARPAnet project years ago.

Yes, the internet was entirely a military tool. However, not only was the world-wide web that operates on the internet entirely a civilian scientific tool (invented by scientists at CERN), it can equally be argued that the internet was not an invention, but merely the application of existing technology.

An earlier commenter claimed that military research has spun off innovations for use in day-to-day civilian life. While I acknowledge that many technologies have been rapidly developed by military spending, I still maintain that military research does very little in terms of spinning off innovations into civilian sectors.

Heck, even microwave ovens are by-product of radars developped by military in the WWII. Nuclear energy would be certainly delayed several decades hadn’t there be the Manhattan project.

Here you are absolutely right. These are the first two unambiguous examples of military research spinning off innovation into civilian life.

Phew! That took a while.

Okay, but there are several problems. I really disagree with your position, but I can somewhat see it. My biggest issue is that while I agree the ISS is not a pure science institution, it’s wrong to see it as not doing science. The engineering there is fantastic. The ISS was just overly sold as a science platform. I think now that you are going to have double the staff, there’s going to be a lot more results. Still, expect engineering, like the testing of the VASIMR engine and the deep space internet protocols that was reported a few days ago.

Also, his words on the blog, as I read them, were stating that we shouldn’t push towards Mars before the Moon. Why run before we walk? I don’t think it’s a general dismissal of the program (and I hope I’m not putting words into anyone’s mouth).

BTW, NASA doesn’t make the decisions on what it works on. NASA executes the agenda of the President and the Congress, as stated by the NASA Authorization Acts. As such, you aren’t going to see the manned programs go away any time soon. They provide way too many jobs all around the country to contractors and companies, the same one who build the satellites.

Still, I really want a manned person on Mars when we are ready. From personal experience, one field geologist will redefine what we know on the planet. For instance, today’s glacier finding, you could have someone very easily dig to find them and look at it directly.

Military research does have a huge impact on our daily lives. Without it, we would still be flying in propeller planes, e.g. We would have never even broken the sound barrier, even.

I don’t buy this.

When Frank Whittle invented the turbojet engine, he was in the RAF, but his superiors really didn’t want to know.

Jet engine technology, once it had been proven in principle in a civilian context, was then wholeheartedly embraced by the military. According to Wikipaedia, the first plane to fly entirely using turboject power was a Heinkel.

Most of the rocket technology that brings science equipment into space is derived from rockets originally developed for the military (heck, von Braun was working for the German military in WW2 building the V2).

Again, you are at best partly right. Solid-fuel rockets have been around for over 1000 years. Large, liquid-fuelled rockets were indeed a development for military purposes, the V1 and V2 being the obvious examples. So, the technology that permits us to loft large loads into orbit was developed for military purposes initially, but was not invented by any military research programme.

The first satellites were spy satellites.

Simply not true. Sputnik 1 ended up having nothing more on board than a radio transmitter because the first Soviet rockets could not loft anything heavier than this into orbit. The first US satellite carried a scientific instrument (an X-ray detector), which is how the Van Allen radiation belts were first detected.

Spy satellites, because they were large, came later.

Now we use the same tech for anything from comunications to earth monitoring and surveillance to google maps.

None of which was invented by any military research programme.

Computers… Most of the computer tech comes from code machines and code breaking technology. Later it was advanced for nuclear rocket guidance. Heck 486 CPUs were prohibited to be exported to the USSR until rather recently as they were considered important military tech. No kidding…

The USA’s export bans are not an indication of whether or not the technology was invented in a military research programme. I do not think that Intel has ever been a part of the military-industrial machine. However, this does not prevent the existence of military applications of computer technology.

While the first working prgrammable electronic computer was indeed built at Bletchley Park for military code-breaking purposes, the technology and mathematical logic upon which it was based was largely in existence already. The first programmable computer was Charles Babbage’s difference engine, a mechanical device that he never finished. There is a replica of part of it in the Science Museum in London. Ironically, it took computer-controlled milling machines to make the parts with sufficient precision to make it work smoothly and efficiently.

As for modern computers, they were only made possible by the invention of the transistor, which arguably was invented at Bell labs in the late ’40s – a decidedly civilian research environment.

So my question still stands. Apart from the possible exception of liquid-fuelled rockets (which is arguable, but I’ll allow it here), what military research has spun off innovations that benefit us in our civilian lives?

However, if you consider GPS to be the only truly military achievement, you probably don’t know that internet started as a military ARPAnet project years ago. Heck, even microwave ovens are by-product of radars developped by military in the WWII. Nuclear energy would be certainly delayed several decades hadn’t there be the Manhattan project.

Seatbelts in your car have been invented and researched by certain Murphy (yes, THAT Murphy) who once noticed that more army pilots died in car accidents than in the planes, and set forth to do something about it. He would just prefer having them wear six-fixed-points variety, that is much safer than todays three-fixed-points kind, but it is more difficult to adjust to different persons and therefore didn’t quite make it into the market.

Aviation industry certainly made a big step forward during second world war too, as did, fo example, medicine. Or cryptography. Or computing.

And, speaking about space exploration, first Russian space rockets were based on the infamous V2 that bombed London just a few months earlier; and first American space rockets were designed by their infamous author, von Braun. Yes, there were bright men at the beginning, who wanted to reach for the stars, but they had to turn to military and cajole them into building rockets, satelites and space stations – no one else had the will or resources to do so.

Even Apollo program, run at the height of the cold war, was essentially a political project, not a scientific one. This is, of course, a far stretch, and I’m not crediting the army with that project. But if it were just for the science, we certainly wouldn’t put a man on the Moon in the sixties.

Today there are pilotless planes and driverless cars, funded (if not directly developped) by the army, and these will surely someday appear in our garages. Phil has once blogged about the walking robot, do you remember? It is funded by – guess who? The army. It will certainly be sent into disaster areas one day.

Yes, the price for all these achievements (especially those linked to the world war) was horrible. It probably means we can’t measure the human activities in the terms of technological and scientific advancements only.

In general I’d be tempted to assume that military is directly or indirectly implicated in most of the technological and scientific advances. After all, the first spear was propably as effective againts rival tribesmen as it was agains mammoths.

Not to mention:

- The first iPod was a (relatively) clunky unit with a vulnerable, mechanical hard drive that pretty much just played tunes.

- The latest is a much slimmer unit with solid state memory rivaling the original hard drive, plays videos and can broswe the internet via built in wifi.

The LCD panels and regularity of the backlighting have improved a lot as well. Sometimes it’s the little things.

I’m pretty sure that if I matched up my IQ to Stephen Hawking’s I’d get stomped like a Narc at a biker rally- but that doesn’t mean he’s right in this case. As I remember he thinks we should do that to insure the survival of the species from catastrophes. As though we’re going to spot a comet that is incoming, jump into our millions of anti-matter powered spacecraft, and go set up a new life on Mars.

I’m arguing (rather lamely probably) for more rationality and sound decision-making at NASA. And for them to take the opportunity of a new election cycle to embrace a new direction.

I have to take exception with your using Phil as the reason why a manned trip to Mars isn’t worth it. Stephen Hawking spoke in April and stated that manned colonization of the Moon and Mars was not only necessary but scientifically important. Since he’s probably one of the smartest men on the planet, does that mean the manned argument wins out?

Hmmm … In what way is the iPhone more useful than a traditional phone?

In the terms of making a phone call, nothing. In terms of having one hand-held device that has a touchscreen, camera, gps, acceleration and orientation components, wifi, music, video and internet, not to mention nearly unlimited software applications, the iPhone is marvel of modern technology. As a software and hardware developer, I know this technology has been around for many years, but until recently, it has been mostly unaffordable by the average person.

What’s a hifi shop?

The last time I went to Best Buy, they had more MP3 players than CD players. Can you tell me what the difference is between the file format on an audio CD and an uncompressed WAV file? Then tell me what the difference is between an uncompressed WAV file, and an encoded MP3 at 320 kbit/s. Remember, most MP3 players, iPods included, can play back uncompressed WAV files. So, with the same headphones, and the same song, one on CD, one as a WAV file on an MP3 player, what’s the difference?

I have to disagree with you here, too. iPods came before iPhones, a direct spin-off.

Hmmm … In what way is the iPhone more useful than a traditional phone? And I’m fairly sure that VOIP existed before iPods had taken off. The iPhone is not a spin-off from the iPod, apart from being marketed by the same company.

Millions of people now have iPhones.

So? Billions have traditional phones, and these were not a spin-off from the iPod.

Because of the economies of scale, that reduces the cost of the individual components (such as accelerometers, touchscreens, wifi adapters, etc.) which directly benefits every other technology industry.

Hey, I never said there wasn’t any benefit, just that the iPod has not spun off any new innovations. Which is true.

And to say that a CD player is better than an MP3 player is just silly.

But nevertheless true.

They’re both digital, the only difference is the bit rate at which you record from CD to MP3. If both players have the same audio playback components, the sound would be indistinguishable.

Not true, if the audio playback components are of sufficient quality – something I did stipulate in my previous comment.

Next time you pass a hifi shop, pop in and see how many CD players they have, and then count how many MP3 players they have. In a recent poll of my 3 nearest hifi shops, it was more than a dozen versus zero.

Now, I’m not going to claim that the two formats aren’t indistinguishable for most people for most of the time (especially using those crappy little earphones that come with most portable players). However, this is different from claiming that MP3 is as good as CD.

A doctor of Astronomy who has more knowledge of all things science and NASA in his little pinky than I have in my entire (little) brain thinks that a manned mission to Mars is something that he doesn’t back.

Have a think on that for second (and then one more, OK one more Mississippi…) and realize what it means.

It confirms that the ISS is not a good investment and a waste of time. Phil supports a manned mission to the moon (I don’t, we did that years ago- epically awesome on our part at the time), and so do many others. The ISS won’t be used for that, and neither will the so-called “science” that comes out of it. We already know how to get astronauts to the moon and what the effects of that short term space travel are.

If we’re not going to send humans to Mars in this decade, the next, or the next thereafter (and we won’t if we’re honest with ourselves) the ISS doesn’t contribute and severely detracts from more noteworthy projects.

Every year that passes by we build more capable robots. Every year that passes by the less sense it makes to send fragile humans up into the skies.

The Air Force has a serious cultural problem with drones. They want Top Gun aviators- they don’t want to be considered XBox players. It’s the same thing with NASA.

Sigh. Take the pain NASA and rip off the band-aid quick. You’re the coolest agency in the US- actually, the world (maybe the universe- but we won’t know until you find us some other civilizations!). With Obama’s win it’s open season for setting a new direction. You guys want to take the lead in giving us the answers to some of the most fundamental questions in this vast cosmic realm? Do you think you could do that better if we transferred money from projects like the latest recyclable pee machine to other ones?

I’m really hoping for new leadership, a new mission statement, and a re-focus on what actually makes sense after this election.

Ever see on television a police chase at night with helicopters and night-vision cameras?

Helicopters and night-vision cameras are not based on technology that was invented in military research. They come from military applications of technology that was developed by civilian research.

There is a difference between a technology (e.g. the detection of infra-red radiation) and the application (IR cameras).

What about lightweight body armor?

OK, I’ll grant you that. This is a military technology that is used in a paramilitary context all over the world. But, aside from the military and paramilitary entities (by which I include special police units such as SWAT), who uses lightweight body armour?

Surveillance equipment

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. Do you mean audio bugs, spy satellites, miniature cameras, or what? And I think you’ll find that, apart from law-enforcement, these have no civilian application at all, and neither have they spawned civilian spin-off technology. And, in fact, these are all military applications of technologies that were initially developed by civilian research.

Erm … not a good example, Greg. Columbus was hoping to get rich by finding a shorter trade route to India and China.

Thanks for making my point, which was that as human beings, we don’t need a scientific reason to explore. Apparently, greed is a good motivator. If the moon had a core of gold, or large deposits of precious metals, you bet we would have been back there sooner.

I have yet to see any of the high-end military tech leading to civvy-street developments.

Ever see on television a police chase at night with helicopters and night-vision cameras? What about lightweight body armor? Surveillance equipment? Those are just a few

But iPod technology doesn’t spin off any other new innovations, whereas space technology does. Also, iPods aren’t getting “better and better”. Instead, manufacturers are adding features that expand the job it does (e.g. videos and games as well as music). Compare an iPod with a personal CD player, and you will find that, given adequate-quality headphones, the CD player always produces better sound quality.

I have to disagree with you here, too. iPods came before iPhones, a direct spin-off. Millions of people now have iPhones. Because of the economies of scale, that reduces the cost of the individual components (such as accelerometers, touchscreens, wifi adapters, etc.) which directly benefits every other technology industry. And to say that a CD player is better than an MP3 player is just silly. They’re both digital, the only difference is the bit rate at which you record from CD to MP3. If both players have the same audio playback components, the sound would be indistinguishable.

Bob park and Steven Weinberg are 100% correct and accurate in advising a scaleback in the manned space program. But of course, there are some who think that Park and Weinberg don’t know what they are talking about.

Well, Park and Weinberg are physicists. When they talk about physics, I’m convinced that they do know what they are talking about. When it comes to money, not so much. Or have you forgotten the financial debacle that was the SSC?

Note – I do not know if Park was involved in the SSC, but Weinberg certainly was.

We are explorers by nature. Columbus didn’t sail across the Atlantic on a geology expedition, or to conduct biology experiments. Regardless of the mission, let’s stop talking about it and GO!

Erm … not a good example, Greg. Columbus was hoping to get rich by finding a shorter trade route to India and China.

although millitary research often ends up in civilian technology down the line as well

Such as what?

I have yet to see any of the high-end military tech leading to civvy-street developments.

GPS is an obvious example, but the US military machine retains the capability to degrade the signal available for civilian use (which is why the US objected so strongly to Europe planning to install a similar system). But this example also falls down because it is not military technology. While it was funded by the military, the technology was already extant, and arises from metrology, which is a civilian science.

What benefits have cruise missile technology (for example) given to the man in the street? How about plastic land mines? What benefit does this technology bring to civilian endeavours?

Sorry BA, but I totally disagree. Manned exploration at this point is not economically feasible. The money should be spent on automated scientific missions. We can do dozens (or hundreds?) of those for the price of one manned mission. We should concentrate our resources on increasing scientific knowledge; along with trying to develop a real (economical) space shuttle. There is no advantage to sending people instead of robots, and there is a huge downside.

It astonishes me how often this argument crops up.

While the robotic missions return good data for a fraction of the cost of a manned mission, and can do so without risk to human life, you have missed the most inmportant factor.

Inspiration.

No amount of robotic probing can inspire ordinary people as much as a single manned mission going (erm … boldly) where no-one has gone before.

The human endeavour of, as the only real example, the Apollo missions inspired people to become scientists and engineers; and it inspired others to support science and technological development. Without this, how much less funding would NASA have today? I have no idea, and we have no way of knowing, but it must be a huge difference.

How is buying a new ipod every 6 months a waste? Apple spends a ton of money on research, buy products from other companies like NVIDIA and makes products that people want which are getting better and better.

But iPod technology doesn’t spin off any other new innovations, whereas space technology does. Also, iPods aren’t getting “better and better”. Instead, manufacturers are adding features that expand the job it does (e.g. videos and games as well as music). Compare an iPod with a personal CD player, and you will find that, given adequate-quality headphones, the CD player always produces better sound quality.

The same goes for military. Because the DoD keeps all of its patents secret (an abuse of the patent system if ever there was one, but that’s a separate debate), no new non-military tech can be spun off from the military R&D.