Space, the painfully expensive frontier

[jeriendhal]

All right, with Atlantis on its final flight and Discovery and Endeavour making their last runs later this year, we're going to have a mumble-mumble years gap in the USA until the next manned spacecraft, either Orion or more likely something else goes into service, leaving us using the Soyuz Taxi Service to the ISS for the foreseeable future.

But the question is, why are we going? What's up there for us that can't be just as easily done with robot probes? Yeah, going to Mars to look at rocks ourselves might produce data more quickly than with remote controlled probes, at an order magnitude greater expense and with the possibility several human being dying very far from home. So why go at all?

[Poll #1565947]

Comments

[chewipaka.livejournal.com]

Go read "Death from the Skies" by Phil Plait, and you too will want space colonies. But mostly a good space program. Because knowing when the next asteroid will hit is important. Because space and the universe are out to kill us.

Also, I want to go to the moon.

[mishalak (from livejournal.com)]

Knowing when the next rock might hit and being able to do something about it does not imply a manned space program. In fact, rather the opposite, because despite what Hollywood has told you the best response is not to send plucky astronauts with nukes.

[chewipaka.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not saying it's necessary to have a manned space program (though I guess I did imply that), I just want to make sure that we give space programs lots of money to be able to research these things.

And we should re-man the space program when we have a viable way to get to mars or something. Because space colonies=totally cool.