Why Send Man Into Space When We Can Send Robots?

A number of people, including experts and current members of Obama Administration, have been asking this question. Is getting humans onto the Moon, Mars & beyond worth it?

AS LONG as people have looked up at the night sky, they have wondered whether humanity is alone in the universe. Of places close enough for people to visit, Mars is the only one that anybody seriously thinks might support life. The recent confirmation of a five-year-old finding that there is methane in the Martian atmosphere has therefore excited the hopes of exobiologists—particularly as the sources of three large plumes of the gas now seem to have been located. These sources are probably geological but they might, just, prove to be biological.

The possibility of life on Mars is too thrilling for mankind to ignore. But how should we explore such questions—with men, or machines? Since America is the biggest spender in space, its approach will heavily influence the world’s. George Bush’s administration strongly supported manned exploration, but the new administration is likely to have different priorities—and so it should.

More Here

What are your thoughts? should we give up on sending humans into space and just send robots instead?

Yeah we can send robots into space but it's hardly the pioneering spirit! What do we say now?

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for robots"

Not quite the same is it!

I've been warning people about Obama's anti space exploration stance for ages but they seem to foolishly think he is the disclosure president....

Ahem... yeah right!

Imagine if Kennedy thought as Obama did. Where would the US be now? Oh the glory! Vodka anyone?

IRM

Because it is there.

Because the whole universe awaits us. There is an entire universe of floating rocks and every one of them is ours.

Because the thing that made people WALK around the planet, and kill themselves on the seas isn't gone. That thing that makes people want to spread out isn't gone just because there isn't anywhere else to go.

Because we are REQUIRED to ensure that we spread ourselves out in a way that assures that one unfortuneate event doesn't annihilate us all. That means we need to get off this planet, and we need to get out of this solar system. We even need to get out of this galaxy eventually.

As the only thing in the universe aware of the precious and rare thing that is life, and the even rarer thing that is consciousness we must be responsible to that. It is our duty to our genome, our species, our phylum, even to our biosphere to propogate it.

Someone will do it. Someone will eventually do it right. That someone will have advantages above and beyond any other.

Wouldn't you rather that the people who got off, the people who populated the universe, the people who got it right, the people who garnered the advantages....wouldn't you rather it be YOU and yours?

That's why.

Human endevour, the need of life to move into new areas isn't going to go away because some bureaucrat finds it inconvenient.


[edit on 2009/1/30 by Aeons]

[edit on 2009/1/30 by Aeons]

because you can't really program a robot to be ilogical. if something "out of program" happens the robot just becomes obsolete. humans know how to improvise.

but we use "robots" or whatever you mean, they're called probes. for example, we have send them to mars and they have colected those samples you saw on tv which prove there's water on mars. we use machines as scouts, and when we are ready to go, well, we just go.

we have send machines out of the solar system but the point of space exploration is getting a human there. because, how hard is to send a inanimated object into to space? they just need to leave the earth's gravition pull, they do not require oxigen, energy (in the pure sense), and things like, radiation, flares, vacuum hardly affect them. and, besides acting as scouts (providing samples, photos, etc) what do can they really do? build colonies? interact with extraplanetery life forms? no, that's our job.

Because Ferdinan and Izabella didnt send a dove to discover America. Its becasue we didnt send a horse or a pig to explore the western frontier. Its becasue we didnt send a monkey to the Moon the first time.


Its becasue mankind deserves to live outside of the box. Its because mankind deserves to explore that final frontier.

Its because once the USA was the pioneering leader in manned missions into space.

Its becuase we can. And should.



Cheers!!!!

We could comfortably do both with a cut to outrageous wasted defense spending. Space exploration is expensive by everyday terms, but its a drop in a bucket compared with other areas of the budget.

If the USA abandons manned spaceflight then China, India, or maybe even Europe will take the lead on space colonization. The cost of allowing this to happen may not present itself for a half century or more, but should we suddenly find a requirement for a certain resource only found on a distant world within the next decade or less, it would be too late. Robots themselves can never be made to fulfill the same variance of roles and objectives as humans.

We cannot afford to stop exploring.

reply to post by baseball101


I want to send a man into space and not a robot because I am a man and not a robot.
Getting off of this planet and splintering our species into space is the only political issue that matters. We need to quit putting all our eggs into this one planet basket and we need to adaptively radiate into a clade of daughter species.
It'll be great.

Originally posted by RFBurns
Because Ferdinan and Izabella didnt send a dove to discover America.

They did not sent anyone, they only paid for some guy that thought that he was going to India.

On topic, I think that with today's technology we should send robots first to do most of the analysis, then, if it is worth it and feasible (robots can work in environments where a human being can not live), then we can send humans, but human space flight is too expensive for the amount and value of data gathered.

Originally posted by Ridill
We could comfortably do both with a cut to outrageous wasted defense spending. Space exploration is expensive by everyday terms, but its a drop in a bucket compared with other areas of the budget.

I say we cut outrageous spending on social programs instead.

There are two good answers to the OP's question...

1.) If humanity never intends to colonize space then exploring at all is a waste of money

2.) If the human species wants to survive long-term it must colonize other planets.

Stephen Hawking in particular agrees with the second part.

Governments sends human beings to explore the solar system because on the one hand it's the most inefficient method of doing so and on the other these are mostly military program's and the generals wont have much power if they don't have human beings to order around.

If NASA were allowed to keep using the Saturn V type launch platforms we would have been decades ( presuming the official story of a NASA that is now all but shut out of space) ahead of where we are today.

I have a calculation for the volume of material the shuttle program's funds spent on the Saturn V could have delivered to the moon by now and it's a pretty spectacular number.

Stellar

Robots aren't creative and can't make random decisions that would be required for any type of exploration. Even if structured-decision programs were written for robots, they would never possess the capabilty to compare what they sense with what is known and relay these comparisons to another being, primarily us humans.

To not send humans into space would be extremely detrimental to the progress of the intellect of the humankind. Humans have always been explorers since they could stand up straight.

Just as we covered the Earth from a remote region in Africa in the last million years, we'll expand beyond this "speck of dust" we call Earth in the next million years. As a matter of fact, we're already "in space", we're just stuck in this region and until we "stand up straight" for a second time in our long evolution, we'll remain stuck on this "speck of dust". If we fail to do this, we'll become just a memory in the vastness of the cosmos.

While robots have a purpose and I support the research in robotics, they cannot and will never be able to have first hand joy at observing something that's never been witnessed before.

Lewis and Clark "found" the Northwest Passage and paved the way for Western United States expansion. They undoubtedly knew the Pacific Ocean existed, but to observe it for themselves was worth the risks they faced on their journey.

The same will go for the first humans on Mars and beyond. We know it's there and what it looks like, but to stand on the soil of strange, new world is beyond what words can describe.

Never really thought about sending robots into space,it's a good idea but it still doesn't have that human touch.
The cost would be alot more than sending humans i would have thought though,as soon as we have a continual power source,air supply & food supply we'll live in space for longer periods

When you send robots, you solve robot survival problems, which I suppose makes for better robots.

When you send people, you solve both robot and people survival problems: medical, social and technological breakthroughs occur. Without manned space flight there would be a host of inventions that wouldn't have happened otherwise, from food products to lightweight electronics.

One of the anti-humans in space arguments is that it wastes money in space, something I never understood: every dime was spent here on earth, and supported higher education, created a generation of engineers and technicians unmatched since.

Robots have their uses, but ten robots can't do what one human can: improvise on the spot, and notice that tiny odd thing that nags at the back of the mind until an insight forms.

i think thas a great idea. they keep talking about how the outer planets are too far off for humans to go to because of the time.

so send robots!!! fit them up with cameras and various other equipment and beam the info back. perfect,

venus here we go!!!

Man or robots in space seems to be a problem due to payload
considerations.

I think we should go for getting a good sized rocket into space
and send it off to some star at high acceleration to break the
speed of light.

But the Illuminati are chicken, wooses and all that rots on Earth.

Originally posted by apacheman
When you send people, you solve both robot and people survival problems: medical, social and technological breakthroughs occur.

Not really, sending people does not solve any robot survival problems because robot needs are not the same as human needs.

A robot can be sent to an environment where no human being can live, but the problem is just an investment problem, people will only invest in a more expensive (and dangerous) manned mission if they see they can gain something with it that they can not with a robotic mission.

reply to post by ArMaP


What makes you think a manned mission wouldn't include robots to extend the mission's capabilities? It would be foolish not send robots, either ahead or contemporaneously.

Remember the reason manned missions are more expensive: they are solving tougher problems, with correspondingly higher payoffs.

Sometimes, being societally expensive is a good thing, making progress farther, deeper and broader.

Originally posted by apacheman
What makes you think a manned mission wouldn't include robots to extend the mission's capabilities? It would be foolish not send robots, either ahead or contemporaneously.

I did not understood that you meant that, it makes sense but I think it could only be applied to larger missions.

Also, the only example we have up to now, the Apollo missions, the presence of human beings was not translated in a much more advanced type of mission than those that the Soviet Union probes were doing.

Remember the reason manned missions are more expensive: they are solving tougher problems, with correspondingly higher payoffs.

Sorry, I am not understanding what missions you are talking about, space shuttle missions, for example?

Sometimes, being societally expensive is a good thing, making progress farther, deeper and broader.

Sure, but, as in everything, there must be a weighing of the pros and cons for each situation, I am sure that if there was the need for a more "hands on" mission any space agency would send a manned mission.

reply to post by ArMaP


The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions brought great strides in understanding human physiology, some which might never otherwise have been discovered. We made breakthroughs in food preservation and communications technology.

It is safe to say that the world as we know it would not exist if it were not for those manned missions.

As far as the manned missions vs soviet robots goes, if you don't comprehend the difference, I really don't know what to say. Men brought back something no robot ever could.....a new viewpoint:

Originally posted by apacheman
The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions brought great strides in understanding human physiology, some which might never otherwise have been discovered. We made breakthroughs in food preservation and communications technology.

It wouldn't make any sense to send a robot to study human physiology, the techonology that we (common people) gained from that was just a side effect, a positive side effect that we should not get with unmanned missions, but it was not that the reason for doing those missions.

It is safe to say that the world as we know it would not exist if it were not for those manned missions.

Yes, and that applies to any human achievement.

As far as the manned missions vs soviet robots goes, if you don't comprehend the difference, I really don't know what to say. Men brought back something no robot ever could.....a new viewpoint:

Well, I do not see it that way, but I was only six years old when the "Eagle landed", so I do not know how things were before the Apollo missions.

As for nice photos, here you have one from Zond 7.



PS: I like to make it clear that I am not against manned missions, I just think that they are not the same thing as they were 500 years ago, when the Portuguese sailors went around Africa and up to India in 20 metres long boats, at that time they did not had any other choice, now we have, so we should use it when we can.