August 17, 2012 — There are very good reasons to stop spending billions of dollars on manned space missions, to explore space in ways that are safer and much less costly, and to grant much higher priority to other scientific and engineering mega-projects, the oceans in particular.
While space travel still gets a lot of attention, not enough attention has been accorded to a major new expedition to the deepest point in the ocean, some 7 miles deep — the recent journey by James Cameron, on behalf of National Geographic.
The cover story of the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs lays out the "Case for Space." "60 Minutes" recently ran a story about the dire effects on Florida's space industry of scaling back our extraterrestrial endeavors. Newt Gingrich gained attention earlier this year by calling for building a permanent base on the moon. And President Obama has talked of preparing to eventually send Americans into orbit around Mars.
Actually, there are very good reasons to stop spending billions of dollars on manned space missions, to explore space in ways that are safer and much less costly, and to grant much higher priority to other scientific and engineering mega-projects, the oceans in particular.
The main costs of space exploration arise from the fact that we are set on sending humans, rather than robots. The reasons such efforts drive up the costs include: A human needs a return ticket, while a robot can go one way. Space vehicles for humans must be made safe, while we can risk a bunch of robots without losing sleep. Robots are much easier to feed, experience little trouble when subject to prolonged weightlessness, and are much easier to shield from radiation. And they can do most tasks humans can.
British astronomer royal Martin Rees writes, "I think that the practical case (for manned flights) gets weaker and weaker with every advance in robotics and miniaturization. It's hard to see any particular reason or purpose in going back to the moon or indeed sending people into space at all." Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg calls manned missions "an incredible waste of money" and argues that "for the cost of putting a few people on a very limited set of locations on Mars we could have dozens of unmanned, robotic missions roving all over Mars."
The main argument for using humans is a public relations one. As Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it in Foreign Affairs, "China's latest space proclamations could conceivably produce another 'Sputnik moment' for the United States, spurring the country into action after a relatively fallow period in its space efforts." Also, astronauts are said to inspire our youth to become scientists and explorers. However, it is far from established that we cannot achieve the same effects by making other R&D projects our main priority.