pwokenyaw repeated the old chestnut that if we got rid of manned Space Exploration then the extra money could be spent on unmanned Space Exploration. That sorry story has been going around since Carl Sagan first repeated it decades ago.

Why did we originally go into space? In the beginning it wasn't about scientific couriosity or expanding human frontiers. Originally, Space Exploration was a "cover story" for ICBM and reconnaissance satellite development. Having Sputnik fly over the United States raised serious national security issues which the Space Program was created to address. Yuri Gagarin and Vostok only brought those issues into sharper focus. The Apollo Program was motivated by the need to "beat the Russian" and build up a military infrastructure that was second to none. By the time Apollo 17 landed on the Moon, we had our military infrastructure fully built (we were bristling with ICBMs). There was no longer any national security justification for Space Exploration. President Nixon and many people in the U.S. Congress wanted to kill the Space Program then and there. Unfortunately for them, by creating the Apollo Program and NASA, they had summoned a daemon without knowing the spell of dismissal.

The last 35 years has been a tug-of-war between the people inside the aerospace community trying to keep Space Exploration alive versus cynical politicians and the unwashed masses trying every trick in the book to terminate it. The unmanned versus manned baloney was just one trick from that book.

The hard truth is the science returned from unmanned Space Exploration is unjustified by its cost. Mars Exploration Rover (MER) was a wildly successful spacecraft. MER cost about $820 million. IMHO, MER was worth every penny of that $820 million. However I'm a raving space fanatic. Does John Q. Public think MER was worth $820 million? If you do the "push poll" correctly then you might trick him into saying "yes". However if you tell Mr. Public how much money was spent exploring the oceans or doing earthquake research then he'll probably say the money spent on MER was wasted.

We continue to spend money on Space Exploration mainly because of its romance and not for the scientific return. Much of that romance comes from science fiction derived ideas like people living on Mars (a concept that I strongly support). If you strip away that romance and make Space Exploration a purely prosaic exercise that competes toe-to-toe with oceanography and medical science then Space Exploration is doomed. The manned versus unmanned argument was really only a clever way to terminate Space Exploration altogether.

Gary