Martha Adams wrote:
I don't see a need for robotic exploration today. It's a side branch, a
dead end. Looking at space requires some *reason* to look at space, and
when we have people there, then everything changes and we have the
reason.


The reason is obvious. It is called

SCIENCE.

Science has emerged as the central activity of mankind. It has taken us
from an agricultural society, the fruit of the neolithicum revolution,
to a space faring society, the fruit of science and her daughter:
technology.

Investigating the solar system with robots can bring us immense
scientific knowledge:

o If we find living beings elsewhere we will at last have a crucial
COMPARISON point. What is specific to life in this planet? What is
universal to life as such?

There are serious hints of living beings in Mars, and there are good
conditions for life in Europa, and Enceladus, around Saturn. There
could be good conditions too in the Uranus or Neptune systems, we know
nothing about those.

o Comparing wheather systems from oither planets to our own increases
our understanding of how whether works in general.

o Exploring the solar system will give us a first view of where it is
possible to go, where we can find enough natural resources to
establish new settlements. We know now, that Europa has an ocean below
the ice. This means that we could establish a submarine settlement in
there (if there is no life or if the life there is not incompatible
with ours). The same in Enceladus.

For long trips (Jupiter, Saturn) we need to build big spaceships, able
to survive unscathed in space for years and years. This technology will
arrive slowly, and will arrive by developing practical applications now.

Pie in the sky dreams of going to Mars NOW will only lead to failures.
We just do not have the technology now, and it will take much more
time to develop it as we thought it would.


But we can have the pleasure of exploring another planet without the
inconvenience and costs associated with going there. We can send robots
and explore from here until we have the technology to go there.


--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32