I think what is frustrating is the differences in results of the missions. One would expect that the robots would return only endless piles of dull telemetry, and the manned missions would give us adventure and excitement and drama. Oh yes, there's been danger, and death, but little to show for it.

In reality, it's been just the opposite. The robots have shown us the planets, both their surfaces close up, from above and flybys through their clusters of moons. We've seen close up, Mars, Venus, Titan, and breathtaking views of every world in the system. Manned missions have given us lunar golf. I realize we have to be careful with human life, but the result has been that men have gone to the moon, saluted the flag, picked up some rocks, drove around in the buggy and came home. I can't think of even one fundamental scientific accomplishment from Skylab, Mir or the Space Station.

Only in the Hubble repair misiion did we really get the excitement and the promise of men doing what no machine could do. The mission that almost failed tragically, Apollo XIII, was ironically our finest hour, because these were men, not preprogrammed...well, robots. They flew the bird home, they weren't just passengers.

The scientific return, the exploration men could do never seemed to materialize. It's the robots that really blew our minds. The engineers got us up there and then couldn't figure out what to do. The scientists went there in robots and showed us the universe. When I was fantasizing about space travel as a kid I never would have guessed it would be like this, and if someone would have told me I would have refused to believe them.