You're right, there's a philosophical disagreement that maybe can never be settled. What I'm seeing is the same debate as "bombers versus missiles". There are things that are done well (better?) unmanned, & things that are done well (better?) manned. I guess I come down on the side of putting men in space when we can afford it & use the robots as pathfinders.RanulfC said:Apollo, like WWII basing, was driven by specific needs and goals which wasn't how it started. Similarly the DoD and NRO requirements were quite focused and goal oriented but with a longer outlook. On the other hand the DoD, (specifically the Air Force) where the ones who "drove" MOL and Blue Gemini in an effort to justify manned space operations and pretty much proved conclusively that there wasn't any ACTUAL reason for manned operations instead
NASA efforts on the other hand started from the premise that man-in-space WAS at least part of the goal in the first place which brings it's own problems to the argument.
In OTL case this lead to the whole "robots-versus-humans" debate and the idea that you did either or rather than a mix of both. "Admitting" that putting people into space is a reason unto itself get the people who want science and exploration as a goal in itself riled up because the "logical" outcome (for either actually) is to use those assets for EVERYTHING as you're going to 'be-there' anyway.
"Robots are cheaper"
"People are more flexible"
"People are more expensive"
"People don't relate to Robots"
Yadda, yadda... The whole song and dance
Key take away is what you can actually "justify" in the end. Pretty much it boils down to access in an economic and regular fashion and that is itself driven by a number of factors with variable assumptions behind them. And even then your going to have needs that spike both price and payload capability and the whole system has to be able to cover that as well.
So far you end up with what we actually have in small, medium and large payload launch vehicles but very different in their usage and operations. At the same time the need to keep costs down mean they have to be flown very regularly (or only when absolutely necessary which means some capacity has to be carried by the rest of the system most of the time) and a whole lot of standardization to bring component costs down as far as possible. Then you attack operations (and overhead) costs and optimize flight rates.
Part of this (and a very hard part I might add) is needing the "customers" to standardize and adjust to the available capacity as well. Modular components and payload standardization lends itself to mass production but not so much as being flexible with customer needs,
All payloads can't be broken down into exact pieces and not all missions can be fulfilled with "standard" parts. (High rate, low capacity launch systems can be shown to be the most cost effective and efficient means of putting mass into orbit. There as some definite issues with breaking people down into individual 20lb chunks in order to utilize said system however. On the other hand getting a probe with camera onto the surface of Venus and not being able to remove the lens cover can be really disappointing)
While this is pretty clear to us now, back in the day its wasn't and therefor finding a way to have someone think of alternative when it wasn't even clear what was needed in the first place is tough. And on the gripping hand of course is the fact that now that we DO know the planning and inertia already in place make changing directions difficult at best.
As for the history of Ranger, that's exactly the kind of program I'm hoping for. Yes, the non-transistor spacecraft would tend to fail more. So be it. I'd far rather have a few failures out of a lot of flights than a few flights. I don't mean to minimize the problems. Nor do I demand "breaking down" spacecraft as much as designing "specialist" types: give them a single task (or a few tasks) rather than ask they do so much. Or land a simple rover in several places.
IMO, when we finally get SPS, it makes manned planetary missions practical. Until then... (And that SPS makes terrestrial problems much less severe is so much the better.
Last edited: