Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Scientists Warn NASA

8 Comments

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn what scientists have to say about human spaceflight policy. It drives me crazy that we continue to operate under the delusion that NASA sends humans into space for the purpose of science, and that scientists have anything useful to say about the subject. Someone should write a book about that. Oh, wait.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s a better report on the topic.

8 thoughts on “Scientists Warn NASA”

  1. Also, the missions should benefit society while balancing those potential benefits with the risk of harm.

    Astronauts should be able to decide whether they want to participate in the planned missions with full equality of opportunity, and NASA should take full responsibility for the astronauts’ health care during missions and for the rest of their lives.

    It’s gobbledy gook that I could play with it all day.

    Astronauts should be able to decide whether they participate, but can they? We should test them for their abilities to make informed decisions. Then we have to test them to see if they can figure out what the f*** “full equality of opportunity” even means, because I sure can’t. Does it mean we all have an equal shot at going on a Mars mission, or does it mean the crew has to include a transgendered lesbian Hispanic Muslim of African descent with a learning disability?

    And I’d also note that whenever you fly you are exposed to elevated levels of cosmic radiation, so should Delta and United Airlines provide free lifetime health care to all their passengers from now until eternity, including any astronauts who went to Mars and then developed a two-pack a day cigarette habit and a profound addiction to alcohol and prescription pain killers?

    1. test them to see if they can figure out what the f*** “full equality of opportunity” even means, because I sure can’t.

      It’s a reference to NASA’s lifetime radiation-exposure limits, which are lower for women than they are for men (based on higher cancer rates for women). Currently, those limits mean that female astronauts can fly only half as many missions as their male counterparts.

      1. In this case, “equality” would mean NASA getting out of the business of monitoring astronaut’s health and letting them make their own decisions. How innovative!

      2. But that’s medicine and physics. “Equality” doesn’t cut that for spit, unless (and this is truly brilliant), we provide extra radiation protection for women in the form of enormous roles of fat, so that the two sexes have equal cancer risks in an interplanetary environment.

        One day NASA and all of humanity will than me for that one. Meanwhile, I’m headed to Walmart to recruit half of our new Mars crew.

        1. It’s outdated medicine.

          Personalized medicine is able to predict cancer risks for individuals, based on personal genetic makeup, rather than broad groups like “men” or “women” — and that ability will only improve with time.

          NASA’s standards are behind the times.

        2. Well, how about shifting to a personalized standard that focuses on the change in cancer risk, instead of the 3% risk limit?

          So we launch a really fat, chain-smoking woman to Mars, but without lots of sweets or cartons of Marlboros. Then, despite the added risks from radiation, her actual cancer risk will decline.

        3. Fat astronauts? Sign me up!

          …it doesn’t mean that people should just accept whatever risk might be envisioned by the mission.

          You just can’t have informed consent in a nanny state. That would be like… individual liberty. Imagine if someone formed a country based on that idea… total anarchy!!!

  2. The belief that space policy is a simply an extension of science policy is one of the reasons it is has been such a failure for the last several decades….

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