Why Send Man Into Space When We Can Send Robots?

source: http://www.economist.com/opinion/dis...ry_id=12972659

Why NASA should give up its ambitions to send men into space

Illustration by Claudio MunozAS LONG as people have looked up at the
night sky, they have wondered whether humanity is alone in the
universe. Of places close enough for people to visit, Mars is the only
one that anybody seriously thinks might support life. The recent
confirmation of a five-year-old finding that there is methane in the
Martian atmosphere has therefore excited the hopes of exobiologists—
particularly as the sources of three large plumes of the gas now seem
to have been located. These sources are probably geological but they
might, just, prove to be biological.

The possibility of life on Mars is too thrilling for mankind to
ignore. But how should we explore such questions—with men, or
machines? Since America is the biggest spender in space, its approach
will heavily influence the world’s. George Bush’s administration
strongly supported manned exploration, but the new administration is
likely to have different priorities—and so it should.

Bug-eyed monsters

Michael Griffin, the boss of American’s National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), a physicist and aerospace engineer who
supported Mr Bush’s plan to return to the moon and then push on to
Mars, has gone. Mr Obama’s transition team had already been asking
difficult questions of NASA, in particular about the cost of scrapping
parts of the successor to the ageing and obsolete space shuttles that
now form America’s manned space programme. That successor system is
also designed to return humans to the moon by 2020, as a stepping
stone to visiting Mars. Meanwhile, Mr Obama’s administration is
wondering about spending more money on lots of new satellites designed
to look down at the Earth, rather than outward into space.

These are sensible priorities. In space travel, as in politics,
domestic policy should usually trump grandiose foreign adventures.
Moreover, cash is short and space travel costly. Yet it would be a
shame if man were to give up exploring celestial bodies, especially if
there is a possibility of meeting life forms—even ones as lowly as
microbes—as a result.

Luckily, technology means that man can explore both the moon and Mars
more fully without going there himself. Robots are better and cheaper
than they have ever been. They can work tirelessly for years, beaming
back data and images, and returning samples to Earth. They can also be
made sterile, which germ-infested humans, who risk spreading disease
around the solar system, cannot.

Humanity, some will argue, is driven by a yearning to boldly go to
places far beyond its crowded corner of the universe. If so, private
efforts will surely carry people into space (though whether they
should be allowed to, given the risk of contaminating distant
ecosystems, is worth considering). In the meantime, Mr Obama’s promise
in his inauguration speech to “restore science to its rightful place”
sounds like good news for the sort of curiosity-driven research that
will allow us to find out whether those plumes of gas are signs of
life.

On Jan 31, 1:36*am, wrote:
source:http://www.economist.com/opinion/dis...ry_id=12972659

Why NASA should give up its ambitions to send men into space

Illustration by Claudio MunozAS LONG as people have looked up at the
night sky, they have wondered whether humanity is alone in the
universe. Of places close enough for people to visit, Mars is the only
one that anybody seriously thinks might support life. The recent
confirmation of a five-year-old finding that there is methane in the
Martian atmosphere has therefore excited the hopes of exobiologists—
particularly as the sources of three large plumes of the gas now seem
to have been located. These sources are probably geological but they
might, just, prove to be biological.

The possibility of life on Mars is too thrilling for mankind to
ignore. But how should we explore such questions—with men, or
machines? Since America is the biggest spender in space, its approach
will heavily influence the world’s. George Bush’s administration
strongly supported manned exploration, but the new administration is
likely to have different priorities—and so it should.

Bug-eyed monsters

Michael Griffin, the boss of American’s National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), a physicist and aerospace engineer who
supported Mr Bush’s plan to return to the moon and then push on to
Mars, has gone. Mr Obama’s transition team had already been asking
difficult questions of NASA, in particular about the cost of scrapping
parts of the successor to the ageing and obsolete space shuttles that
now form America’s manned space programme. That successor system is
also designed to return humans to the moon by 2020, as a stepping
stone to visiting Mars. Meanwhile, Mr Obama’s administration is
wondering about spending more money on lots of new satellites designed
to look down at the Earth, rather than outward into space.

These are sensible priorities. In space travel, as in politics,
domestic policy should usually trump grandiose foreign adventures.
Moreover, cash is short and space travel costly. Yet it would be a
shame if man were to give up exploring celestial bodies, especially if
there is a possibility of meeting life forms—even ones as lowly as
microbes—as a result.

Luckily, technology means that man can explore both the moon and Mars
more fully without going there himself. Robots are better and cheaper
than they have ever been. They can work tirelessly for years, beaming
back data and images, and returning samples to Earth. They can also be
made sterile, which germ-infested humans, who risk spreading disease
around the solar system, cannot.

Humanity, some will argue, is driven by a yearning to boldly go to
places far beyond its crowded corner of the universe. If so, private
efforts will surely carry people into space (though whether they
should be allowed to, given the risk of contaminating distant
ecosystems, is worth considering). In the meantime, Mr Obama’s promise
in his inauguration speech to “restore science to its rightful place”
sounds like good news for the sort of curiosity-driven research that
will allow us to find out whether those plumes of gas are signs of
life.

Science is kind of worthless if it's continually cloaked in lies upon
lies, and otherwise of need-to-know or having evidence exclusion as
being exactly the same as lies. Public funded science needs to become
100% open/transparent, and unless BHO is some kind of special god,
that just isn't going to happen.

~ Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth BG / “Guth Usenet”