Space Man of the Future???

Are the days of manned space missions coming to an end??

I think in the not to distant future robots could take over from man, think of the possibilities if (when) technology improves. These guys could be sent out on missions to places much further then man could acheiv (sp?) in a humans lifetime.

they could explore holstile enviroments without risk of radiation or whatever, could be protected from heat and cold better then humans, could stay longer periods of time on planet surfaces


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anyways, whats your views on robotic spacemen

Well technically robots in the form of sattelites and probes and we all know the rovers on mars do the bulk of space exploration already. So I would say yes, in the near future the bulk of space exploration will be done via robots.

In the long run though far down the line manned exploration is a given. Colonization and exploration is the key to the survival of the human race and so man (and woman of course) will eventually travel the stars.

It's inevitable.

At leat that's my opinion on the subject.

Spiderj

[edit on 8/31/2006 by Spiderj]

It has already happened. They're planning to launch a robotic drone to mars and the moon to explore on its own and feed back data. Sorry, no source. But I'm sure robots will never fully replace humans in missions. Humans have a gut sense and creativity, while robots go with what they're programmed to do, which in some situations could end them up stuck in a canyon or beat up by aliens with a spaceball bat or whatever.

Yet no one can deny that robots will always be sent first to explore an unkown environment, but live humans will be mailed to the environment later. The main focus of exploration is for human settlement, always has been. EVentually humans will end up where robots are too, just a few years later.

PS. Robonaut is pretty cool. robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov...

But the robots and machines should only be an exploratory vanguard for the inevitable progression of humanity into the cosmos.

What's the fun of just sending machines if they won't be followed by humans ?

Here's a whacky idea: Send in self-replicating robots into the astetorid belt, and let them break all those useless rocks into iron. Then WE come in, capture them and melt them into useful scrap metal. Of course, this is a recepie for disaster if it screws up, but if it doesn't we now posess enough metal to build another planet, or send the same bots on anything we don't want coming our way, eg another asteroid.