Re: Here's a question: How can we sanely discuss going to MARS and

Rumpelstiltskin wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:25:04 -0700 (PDT), GLOBALIST
<free.tuneup@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

...then say that Health Care for our citizens is a bad thing and we
shouldn't do it? PURE INSANITY!



I have always thought and still do think what Nina Totenburg said on "Inside Washington" last week about sending a human to Mars, or another one to the Moon,
"I still don't understand why we should do it". Robotic missions are much cheaper, and much more productive. Maybe eventually we can send people to Mars with controlled and understood danger, and without even more fantastic expense than the robot missions, but for now, there's little profit in it compared to what can be gotten by spending what money we can assign to space exploration on robot missions.

I think the desire to send humans to the Moon or to
Mars is just testosterone thinking.



There was a massive debate before the Apollo program about whether or not we could achieve the same thing with a robotic mission instead of sending humans to the moon, a vastly more expensive proposition. The "humans" option won, simply because it would generate more public interest (and support). The argument was about public relations and not science.

Times have changed and I doubt that the same argument would prevail today.
.

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