Comedy gold.

You prefer advocating for a miniscule and useless fraction of humans, while neglecting the other 99.99% of them.

Coastal Ron: “I don’t think our grandparents thought the same”

Sure they did. Ford and Chrysler were building cars, not daydreaming of moon colonies. Bell Labs when they invented the semiconductor was trying to accelerate phone switching times, not give people rides to Mars. Even Goddard was building military devices (e.g. bazookas) and other very small rockets, whatever else he may have been dreaming of. These people were solving the problems they could actually solve with the resources at hand, not demanding that taxpayers pay for economic fantasies. And even the grandiose Roosevelts, while ramping up the scale, pushed forward projects of the kind (canals, hydroelectric dams) that people had already been doing profitably for many decades or even millennial. NASA is with its useless sci-fi-inspired “infrastructure” is a true freak of history.

Of course as I described science is not the main useful thing we get out of space. But it is one of those things. In the case of extrasolar planets, first our culture properly considers the accumulation of scientific knowledge and the goal of solving scientific mysteries (e.g. the origin of life) a good in itself. Second, it properly considers the discovery of new worlds a good in itself. Third, we learn very useful things about our own planet (e.g. about its climate) by comparing it to other planets. Especially useful in this regards are the discovery of planets that differ from earth less than Venus and Mars, the current main points of comparison, do.

“Ah Vladislaw. Everything in space is just a prop for your precious astronauts. Why don’t you take a break for just one week and for that time think only unmanned when you think space — you know, like real commerce and real military activities in space, using for decades of practical utility and profit the very strategy you think is so stupid.

Just one week without astronauts. I don’t think you can do it. The withdrawal symptoms would be too severe.”

Robby the Robot has more than enough advocates, I prefer advocating for humans.

“Um, look, this isn’t what I do, but I’ve got an idea for one of your commercials. You see… a carpenter, making a beautiful chair. And then one of your robots comes in and makes a better chair twice as fast. And then you superimpose on the screen, “USR: Shittin’ on the Little Guy”. That would be the fade-out.” Detective Del Spooner: [to the head of USR]

If you had actually read over the seven years of posts of mine you would know I don’t have a problem with probes doing science or with robotics. I do have a problem with putting robots ahead of humans. I don’t like the idea of humanity relagated to a couch with robots doing everything.

There is only one logical conclusion of replacing humans with artifical people.

@Vladislaw

“Exactly the point. You don’t need humans up there to do that. It can be either done with robots teleoperated from earth or by just sending up a replacement satellite. Either would be much cheaper than sending humans up there to do repairs.”

Exactly, Let’s just send up another 10billion dollar James Webb telescope and wait for 10 – 20 years while it gets built.

Not so fast. Most near-term credible telerobotic systems on the Moon, in most parts of the Moon, will last just a few weeks…

if you are refering to something that last “one” (or maybe two) Lunar days then that notion should be abandoned completely. Anything sent to the Moon should have months/years of operation in it. RGO

Not so fast. Most near-term credible telerobotic systems on the Moon, in most parts of the Moon, will last just a few weeks. That’s all. So your return (science or otherwise) will be proportional to your operational efficiency. In that sense, it’s more about how many telerobotic systems you can put on the Moon for the cost of a human being in orbit there. Also, although it’s a small budgetary effect, control from the Earth is about a lot more than one person.

“We explore (and even more importantly, invent) to enable useful things for people on earth, that’s why.”

In other words, we explore to exploit.

“Useful including scientific knowledge, such as the amazing things we are learning every day about extrasolar planets from our telescopes.”

And what, pray tell, do we get from finding extrasolar planets, if not to eventually use that knowledge to immigrate?

“Let our (grand)children solve the problems that they will be able to solve far better, when their time comes, than we can now.”

I don’t think our grandparents thought the same. What ever happened to “carpe diem”? Instead of making a better tomorrow today, you are advocating making a better tomorrow, tomorrow. Maybe you should consider this…