My impression about this space exploration business (maybe I'm wrong) is that it's not so much the working scientists in the field that have this attitude I criticize; they're the ones advocating the robotic approach. It seems to be the non-scientists in the NASA establishment who are pushing so hard for H. sapiens to get out and roam the universe.
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I don't want to belabor the point because it's clear there are folks who see zero value in this sort of thing and others on the list who do. Balkanization of opinion is as human as kissing a newborn baby it seems. So, this will be it on space tech for me.
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The brother of an old friend works for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the division of NASA responsible for the robotic missions.
I've enjoyed email conversations with this man on the topics we've discussed here - cost, prioritizing of effort, limited resources better used elsewhere and so on.
As you say Jon, scientists are the ones who push for low-cost robotic missions, efforts which produce maxiumum scientifc return without the extreme risk and public relations grandstanding associated with the human space flight program - the official, PC term. It's defense contractors, administrators and politicians who press for putting a 'man in a can.'
Their motivations are obvious.
The present Mars program cost 820 million dollars. Each shuttle mission costs somewhere north of one billion dollars.
Compare and contrast: for under a billion dollars two machines, equipped with an array of sensors for discovery, will provide years of information for scientists and interested non-specialists around the world to enjoy and learn from. For over a billion, an aging space truck orbits the globe, clumsily carrying supplies to a jerry-rigged space station (also a multi-billion dollar drain) then, after a few days of accomplishing essentially nothing, returns to Earth.
The choice for where the money should be spent is clear.
Carl Remick wrote that we should content ourselves with observation via telescope and not support NASA's "deep space boondoggles."
I disagree.
As I'm sure earlier generations, compelled by a lack of the necessary tech to visit via robotic proxy to satisfy themselves with observation, but longing to learn more, would disagree. Seeing Mars or Jupiter or any of the other worlds which are nearby (as the parsec is measured) closely is the logical next step to remote observation. All of the pieces of tech are in place to accomplish this (most of Spirit and Opportunity, as Chuck Grimes pointed out, is based upon off-the-shelf parts).
Why should we gaze from afar and not spend a few hundred million to see what's actually there? Do you think astronomers would find this to be an acceptable argument?
Joanna wrote that this was merely part of Bush's militarization of space program, an indication of Western ownership fetishes and, besides all that, a distraction from more pressing Earthly concerns.
The robotic missions predate the Bushevik's latest fevered dream and should not be confused as part of that effort, which will never bear fruit but only provide a funds transfer conduit from the US Treasury to defense and aerospace contractors.
A larger point; the world is beset by many problems, quite a few of which can be considered civilization killers if left unchecked. Cancelling a 820 million dollar scientific project will not bring us any closer to solving these problems because it does not contribute to them.
As I wrote earlier, I've had the pleasure of corresponding with a JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) robotic probe scientist. I detect no lust for a cosmic land grab, no sense of entitlement. Mars excites because there are clues that it might have been like Earth long ago. Now it's dead. Perhaps we can learn something.
When an earlier probe, Voyager, detected flashes of lightning in Jupiter's atmosphere as broad as the Earth, that was a humbling moment - nature's true power revealed. This is what science can do for us; provide perspective. The robots are a part of this.
Sometimes the left dwells too long in contemplation of darkness and is unable to see what flickers of light there are.
DRM