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Martian Republic's statement "That we have killed 200,000 Iraqi's in this war" Prove that statement!
Sorry to disaapoint you on the heated debate. But I guess the reason I still favor robotic exploration is not so much as my belief in their superiority to men but in NASA's dismal record when it comes to manned spaceflight. We are I believe wasting time and resources with the shuttle and ISS for what? Just another delay, on the road to doing real exploration.
Course if China avoids wasting money on a space station and a reusable shuttle, they should end up nicely ahead of the the US in space.
Yes I know the astronauts are willing to take the risk. My point is NASA has not really changed in their thinking. I believe that a RTF should include an ISS stop. However, there will be considerable pressure to return the shuttle to earth even if marginal conditions exist with the heat shield. Cancelling the shuttle at this point would be a better solution. Let the Russians service the damn thing and let's move on. I know this won't happen but Mars awaits.
I would like to thank the forum members for their constructive comments. By the way, my science background in geology ended with me getting the degree in it. I decided to be a land surveyor instead. I do agree that robotic exploration can find areas on Mars that need a closer look. A geologist/paleontologist with a rock hammer could do the work of 6 month rover mission in an afternoon. I will not be that geologist but I sure would like to see one there in my lifetime. It's just a feeling, but with water, of which there is abundant evidence, lifeforms primitive perhaps is just one turnover of a rock away. Perhaps when I'm 70 or so I'll see that first geologist find it on Mars. Thanks again.
Let's suppose that when we RTF that a minor crack in some tiles is discovered after docking with ISS. What NASA executive is going to make the decision that its not too bad to return to earth? And who would want to pilot a ship with untested patching that might be attempted? The whole affair reminds me of Challenger. Safety decisions should be left to the shuttle commander in such a case after being briefed thoroughly briefed by the ground.
Course at the rate that we are losing shuttles, there probably won't be any left by 2010.
I hope that you are right. I watched the first moon landing when I was 12. It seemed that nothing was outside the grasp of those NASA pioneers and us as humans. Its seems though except for some spectacular successes in robotic exploration that NASA has gotten into a position of bailing out a sinking ship. I'm not confident that we will really abandon the shuttle in 2010. I also think a lot of resources that should go towards manned and unmanned exploration will be sucked up by the ISS. I can hear the politicians already. "We have spent so much money on the ISS, we can't let it fail now. " Excuse my pessimism, but NASA has not inspired me much lately.
It's difficult for me to understand how we are ever going to have a manned mission to Mars if we can't even get into LEO.
Ultimately, a nation state like the USA will decide to send an exploration team to Mars. They can not claim it no more than we claimed the moon back in the 60's and 70's when we visited there. Until man on this planet gets beyond killing each other we are trapped on good old planet Earth. A combined effort by mankind to settle Mars will succeed. But we aren't there yet.
In reviewing the posts to the subject at hand, one thing is a common thread. We all want a system, whether land or space based system, to provide astronomers with a tool to conduct science. Clearly the Hubble was never meant to be a tool which would last forever. Its time to move on. Land based systems with adaptive optics can do the job. To risk another shuttle mission to provide another few years of service is clearly not cost-effective. Better to plan on a new Hubble 2 which can have a longer service life and be configured to have periodic robotic replacements.
I would like to introduce myself to the forum members. I am not a space scientist but have a science background(Geology)I was born in 1957 and have followed the US and USSR ventures into space. I am an avid reader of science fiction, (Asimov, Clarke, the list goes on) but read anything fact based on the space program as well. My basic question, that I would like to explore : Should we spend the resources that we have in developing robotic exploration vehicles or should we spend our resources on manned exploration of the solar system? Personally, I lean toward putting on money on robotic systems. However, I am sure there are members here who could enlighten me on the counter-argument. Thanks for your consideration
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