Neil Armstrong: Obama is hurting the space effort

[joeydb]

Originally Posted by hi_im_god

joey, i'm at work and don't have time to respond in depth right now. i'll be back in 4-5 hours with something.

but in the meantime can you drop the straw man argument about a critcism of the space program in general? or maybe just show me where i wasn't specific about manned missions?

OK - I don't mean to mischaracterize your position - the manned space program then is a waste of money -- that's your position right? The arguments still hold. In fact I did respond in that vein a few posts above.

Probes and robots are great and for some missions, especially to the outer solar system, they are pretty much the only way to go. But sensors on those probes, landers, and unmanned vehicles only measure what they are designed to measure.

As an analogy, think of it this way: you are the custodian or security guard at a facility, and you are patrolling it. Remote sensors and cameras can tell operators if anything is moving, what the temperature is, humidity, etc. But it would take a security guard walking the halls to say, "I smell something -- there might be a gas leak and we'd better call the gas company and fire department."

Only a human can gain information that we are surprised by -- the same information could not anticipate so as to design an adequate unmanned vehicle.