Space

Robot Repairmen

I got a comment to this morning’s Hubble column from a “Steve Mickler” at the post announcing it. I thought it would be better to respond in a different post, because it gets into one small aspect of the column in much greater detail:

Just read your article in TCS and while its a fine piece of writing; I must take strong exception to your dismissal of telerobotic technology.

I wasn’t dismissing it in general–I was indicating skepticism for the purpose of this specific mission. A skepticism, for what it’s worth (if you’re into arguments from authority) that the National Academy of Sciences shares.

Firstly, using Skylab as a refutation of telerobots is bizarre and the relevance of the Solar Max repair mission is something of a stretch since it used old technology and did not include anything resembling the two armed, dual camera, anthropomorphic robot using 2000’s tech that was proposed. Since no comparable device has been tested on-orbit and given the absolute confidence expressed by the contractor based on ground tests, your conclusion seems premature.

My invocation of Skylab, and the other successful (some only by the skin of their teeth) repair missions was to point out that something almost always happens that’s unexpected, and difficult to anticipate enough to build in a telerobotic capability to handle it.

I have no doubt that the contractor has “absolute confidence” based on ground tests. So did the contractor who belatedly discovered that objects in zero gee don’t behave the same way that they do in a Weightless Environment Test Facility (because the viscosity of the water has effects that don’t occur in vacuum), or the contractor who designed the grappling mechanism that ended up not grappling the satellite. Such “absolute confidence,” in light of the history of space repair, goes beyond confidence, to hubris.

Also, development of telerobotics on-orbit is an enabling technology which can increase human mediated activity in space by orders of magnitude versus spacewalking astronauts. The flexibility of humans to respond to the unexpected is actually increased if a telerobot is their tool since it is able to do things that would be to risky for the human and since it can stay on station hundreds of times longer. Untill a hard shell type spacesuit with dextrous gloves is developed, humans will be severely limited vs. telerobots. With TR the number and variety of repair and reboost missions will greatly increase while the lead times and costs go way down.

I wrote nothing in my article to dispute this. I expressed no opinion on the general utility of continuing to advance telerobotics, and in fact am all in favor of it. I was simply pointing out that the chances of success in using it on Hubble were very low, in proportion to the costs, and the risks of screwing something up so that perhaps even a later crewed mission might not be able to fix it were non-zero. This is a useful technology, but not, in my opinion, one that’s ready for prime time on a critical system that was designed to be serviced by humans.

Admittedly there are many issues including the variable signal delay time to be solved but at the end of the day a new capability is developed not just a single repair accomplished.

Yes, and that’s not a trivial issue. It’s one of the things that makes the mission risky. I agree that if the mission is successful, it’s a huge step forward. I disagree that we should use a critical mission as a test for such a system, particularly given the high cost. Test it on ISS first. That’s one of the reasons that we supposedly built it.

Remember how long it took to get Hubble up there in the first place? Well that was done when the gov was in far better financial shape than now. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Well, even if things go on schedule, I wouldn’t advise that…

Political Commentary

Weak Argument

Via Instapundit, Joshua Claybourn is cynical and pessimistic about the prospects for cutting farm subsidies. While I’m not optimistic, his pessimism, at least as stated, seems unjustified on two counts.

First, not to use an argument from non-authority, but quoting Atrios is hardly likely to be persuasive to any thinking person….

But more to the point, Atrios’ “argument” (such as it is) is flaccid:

…I predict that the most likely result of this attempt to cut farm spending is precisely what happened in 2002 when Bush also proposed cutting farm subsidies. A bill will pass which significantly increases farm subsidies, at which point Bush will sign it and praise it.

Well, not to sound too trite, but that was then, and this is now. 2002 was an election year, in which Congress was up for grabs, and the president still had a reelection of his own coming up. He also had less support in both houses of Congress than he does today.

It appears to me that the president, having been reelected and having to worry no more about having to win another election, has decided to cut back on the “compassionate conservatism” (for which read standard liberalism and government growth, but not quite as fast) and try to make up for past sins in his second term (on a number of fronts, not just farm subsidies). I suppose it’s possible that he’ll end up signing and praising an increase in agriwelfare, but the politics of it this year make it seem unlikely. He may not get what he wants, but I’m guessing that he’ll at least threaten a veto to attempt to, and if he doesn’t, he won’t praise it this time.

Political Commentary

Missed Opportunities

Here’s a whiny piece from the LA Daily News, with at least two questions not asked (nor are they ever asked in pieces like this, or if they are, it’s rare):

President George W. Bush’s lean $2.57 trillion budget plan to beef up the U.S. military comes at the expense of Southern California’s ability to hire more cops, help battered women and clean its drinking water.

The proposed 2006 budget slashes programs considered vital by local officials, including Los Angeles’ Community Oriented Policing program, used to hire more police, and community block grants that fund low-income housing and other social services.

Boo.Hoo.

First unasked question: Why is it the responsibility of a taxpayer in Wyoming to provide clean drinking water for Los Angeles residents? Or pay cops’ salaries?

How did this come to be within the purview of the federal government? These are local issues, that should be locally funded.

On to the next:

Getting California’s fair share of federal tax dollars has long been on the agenda of Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders of both parties, with all five of them scheduled to be in Washington on Feb. 17 to meet with the state’s 53 congressional members to see whether the current situation can be improved.

Estimates currently peg the state’s take at 77 cents for every dollar paid to Washington by California taxpayers, and Democratic leaders in Sacramento said Monday that the president’s budget doesn’t bode well for rectifying that imbalance.

Our intrepid reporters report this as though it’s a perfectly sensible notion that each state should get back exactly as much (if not more–though then that would beg the question of which state wasn’t getting back as much to pay for the overage) as it pays in federal taxes, in the form of federal outlays.

The purpose of federal taxes is not to get them back in benefits to the state in proportion to the taxes paid. In fact, that would be impossible, since just the overhead costs of sending them to Washington and back would dictate that the total amount going back to the states would have to be less than that sent to Washington. It also ignores the funding that’s sent overseas (embassies, military activities, foreign aid, etc.) that can’t be spent in any of the fifty states. So when California insists on getting back all one hundred cents of its federal tax dollar, it’s really saying that at least some, if not all other states should get less.

I’ve got an idea. Instead of state officials lobbying to get the gummint to spend money in their states, howzabout they lobby to reduce federal taxes, so that the people who live in the states have more money to spend on their own states, and don’t have to rely on benefactors in Washington to pay for their police departments and womens’ shelters after skimming their umpteen percent off the top?

Science And Society

The ID Wars Rage On

John Derbyshire has been fighting the good fight over at The Corner. He describes why I’m always hesitant to get into this subject, and why the battles never end over at Free Republic:

I like a good knock-down argument as much as the next person, but I must say, ID-ers are low-grade opponents, at least if a bulk of my e-mails are any indication. They are still banging away with the arguments I first heard when the whole thing first surfaced 10-15 yrs ago. “What use is half an eye?” “The odds against this are a trillion to one!” etc. etc. There is nothing new here. I understand why biologists get angry and frustrated with ID-ers. All the ID arguments have been patiently refuted many times over. The ID-ers response is to come back with… the same arguments.

Derbyshire co-blogger Jonah has some thoughts as well.

War Commentary

A New Sheriff In Town

Condi Rice committed the gravest diplomatic sin of ignoring Arafat’s grave:

Unlike a long line of other leaders who paid some kind of homage to Arafat’s grave at the entrance to the Mukata, when visiting PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Rice’s car simply pulled into the compound, passed the grave and Rice got out and walked into the building.

On the way out, she also made no acknowledgment of the grave, unlike other leaders, like EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana who laid a wreath or British Prime Minister Tony Blair who walked by and nodded.

History will record that the major (in fact only) contribution that Yasser Arafat ever made to peace in the Middle East was shuffling off this mortal coil. He didn’t do it willingly, of course, but still, credit where credit’s due.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!