What do we even need to be sending people into space for? It seems like a lot of savings could be had if we just completely shut down the entire manned space program. Unless there is some direct business case for it, why do it at all? Don't tell me some vague definition of "science". This isn't some new frontier that needs exploring, its well understood at this point. There needs to be a direct benefit to the american tax payer to justify the cost of putting a person up there. I don't see a reason to send people to space, if something needs to be done, it can be automated and sent as an autonomous payload. Sending people to space feels wasteful in the age of robotics, fast data links and autonomous systems. If we can operate a rover on mars, we can do whatever needs to be done in orbit or the moon or deep space, without human aid.
It feels like a vanity and an anachronism to an era from the past. Manned space travel is risky, expensive, environmentally destructive, and for what? For some human being to manually manipulate scientific instruments in orbit that should have been, or could have been automated and get the same results?
Gone are the days where people actually think we could be living in space. From what we know now, not only is it impractical, dangerous, inefficient, its also unhealthy. This isn't a question of some new technology that needs created to support it, it's a limitation of physics and millions of years of evolution on earth.
Send satellites to orbit? Yes. Collect power from space? Yes. Conduct scientific research? Okay. But we don't need to send people to do that anymore. Manned space travel had its place in time, and it no longer makes sense to do it, so lets have the maturity to move on from the past.
It feels like a vanity and an anachronism to an era from the past. Manned space travel is risky, expensive, environmentally destructive, and for what? For some human being to manually manipulate scientific instruments in orbit that should have been, or could have been automated and get the same results?
Gone are the days where people actually think we could be living in space. From what we know now, not only is it impractical, dangerous, inefficient, its also unhealthy. This isn't a question of some new technology that needs created to support it, it's a limitation of physics and millions of years of evolution on earth.
Send satellites to orbit? Yes. Collect power from space? Yes. Conduct scientific research? Okay. But we don't need to send people to do that anymore. Manned space travel had its place in time, and it no longer makes sense to do it, so lets have the maturity to move on from the past.