you write about science because it is easy for you, and you have something to say

You are quite correct. While I did not choose to follow either of these as my career, my degree is in archaeology and I have done a bit of study in paleontology. I understand and have direct experience with what is needed to locate and understand tiny bits of information lost in vast areas of terrain.

I find the argument that we should spend the huge amount of money to send humans to Mars in order to find fossils to be … quite uncompelling

If this were the only reason to send humans to Mars, I would probably agree with you, but as we appear to agree, it is not. Moreover, we are repeatedly told that the reason we are sending rovers to Mars is to find and understand life. While it is just possible that automated missions could prove that life exists now, and somewhat less likely that they could prove that life existed in the past, there is no way in the universe that they could understand life — its history, distribution, and so on. Even finding it is unlikely the way we are going about it now.

science output per $input issue is still debatable, as humans will be a couple orders of magnitude more expensive to put on Mars than robots

This is the crux of the debate. If you are not willing to pay what it takes to find and understand any life on Mars, why are we spending billions of dollars sending robots that, while it is remotely possible they could identify the signs of existing or (less likely) past life, have no chance at all of really understanding it? If your current solution cannot do the job — and it can’t — it does not matter how “inexpensive” it is. If we want to answer the scientific question, we have to send human scientists and all their infrastructure. If we don’t care that much, why are we wasting what are still vast sums of money on something that cannot provide the answers we are supposedly looking for?

Since there are other compelling reasons to develop the infrastructure for human expeditions to the planets, we should do that, rather than wasting all our money sending automated missions that will provide relatively tiny increments of knowledge. I think we all agree that it would be best to do both; but, if we have to choose, and it looks like we do, we should invest our money in the long-term human infrastructure. We should do that for all the other reasons and because that is the only investment that has any real chance of answering the scientiific questions.

— Donald

I agree with your scientific argument. I am persuaded that humans will be several orders of magnitude better at finding fossils on Mars, compared to the robots. (But the science output per $input issue is still debatable, as humans will be a couple orders of magnitude more expensive to put on Mars than robots.)

At the same time, I find the argument that we should spend the huge amount of money to send humans to Mars in order to find fossils to be … quite uncompelling.

The compelling reason for *me* is to establish the next branch of human civilization. More important than what I think, it also happens to be what compells Elon to write really big checks.

There is something to learn from this. Elon is not writing those big checks so that we can find fossils.

As we separetely have discussed on this site, and agreed, this is a good thing and we should encourage more of it.

Jeff Bezos has a similar passion for space. Based on published sources, his first business (while he was in grade school) was a summer reading program. One of the books that was required reading was Gerard O’Neill’s “The High Frontier”. That book has instilled passion in many, and that passion had nothing to do with science (even though O’Neill was a 1st class scientist).

If we can understand how to communicate this passion effectively to others, and infect them with it, I am convinced this will produce greater results — that both you and I care about — than talking about the “science” we will do.

– Al

PS — Have you ever considered that you write about science because it is easy for you, and you have something to say, not because it is the most persuasive argument?

Doug and Al: I strongly agree that the space program as a whole is, and should be, far wider than science. Even if that is so, that does not invalidate my argument that space science itself justifies investments in human planetary exploration and a higher priority than automated planetary exploration. The latter argument may well be wrong, but the truth of your arguments has no impact one way or the other on the value (or lack thereof) of human planetary science. Either humans on site do better than robots, or they don’t (or more likely, some mix of the two works best), and that judgement is independent of whether human spaceflight should be done for other, wider reasons.

Without question, I am in a minority and my arguments are unpopular amongst those who benefit from the status quo, but I do stand by them.

— Donald

You have a valid point, but it is a narrow point, and you keep missing a larger point. I have to agree with what Doug is saying.

There is a real problem is trying to use “science” as the means to sell “humans in space”. It is a flawed argument, in many respects, which is why it is not very effective.

Lets be honest with ourselves, and everybody will be happier. We should just say “large scale permanent settlement of space is the OBJECTIVE”, and stop trying to justify this as a science objective. Surprisingly, even President Bush got this (read Cowing’s book on the subject.) There will be “science spinoffs”, but very little of this can be justified on science.

Mainstream scientists have a valid argument in that if your real objective is science, then you put your money into agencies which give you more “science output per dollar” than NASA. Put the money into NSF, National Cancer Institute, NIH, NOAA, etc.

Next, space scientists have a right to be skeptical about whether NASA’s huge bloated humans-in-space projects will ever produce real science results. Look at ISS. Many Members of Congress were sold on this as a scientific laboratory. Contrary to common sense, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison still believes it. But the large majority of Members of Congress do not.

Which goes back to what I said earlier — you are communicating a flawed (and inneffective) argument.

Meanwhile, nobody seems to be willing to say what is true. The American people want to see humans in space because … they want to see humans in space. Most probably don’t think about “why”, but it probably has something to do with their self-identity of what it means to be American, and that retreating from space would harm that identity. (This explains why the majority of Americans are so affected by the Shuttle disasters, but 98% of them could not name an existing Shuttle astronaut.)

At the same time, they don’t want to spend more money on it that we currently spend, and are satisfied with the current level of spending.

This means that putting huge amounts of effort into arguing for more money for NASA are spinning their wheels. They have an impact at the margins (at the ~1%/year level, at best). This is mostly wasted effort.

– Al

Space scientists, as well indeed as much of humanity, acknowlege manned space flight as eventual human destiny. A lot of them grew up with Apollo. But when we talk about going back to the Moon to put gloved fingers on rocks and dirt again instead of addressing larger science questions (which could well involve, and even be enabled by human space flight), the science community is understandably skeptical of science value.

Stephen Hawking understands this very well. Rather than making him out as a superior kind of scientist it would seem more appropriate to understand that, on this issue, he’s just a piece of humanity that people happen to listen to.

Well said!

Scientists _are_ automating excellent reconnaissance. But reconnaissance will not answer our questions about life in the universe.

I believe our undoubted successes with robots have actually done great harm to science by letting too many scientists pretend that they are enough, that you don’t need to go beyond that initial step. We’ve done much of the reconnaissance that can be automated at reasonable cost in the inner Solar System. Rather than continue to send relatively inexpensive robots that return extremely limited results for their money, it is time to make the investments to send scientists to the planets.

To the degree that space scientists fight this reallocation of resources for short-term gain in the kind of quick-and-dirty results that robots can obtain, they are shooting themselves in the foot in the long-term effort to truly understand the worlds of the inner Solar System.

Donald

But there seems to be some implied prejudice about scientists and the future of humanity here. Care to elaborate?

After all, it’s not rocket science. Perhaps that’s why we haven’t gone far in space, and why we’re feeding 5 billion people with oil and gas.

That’s sure to get us into the future in great shape.