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Exploration

Moon and/or Mars: Challenging Human Exploration Orthodoxy

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
June 20, 2016
Filed under , , , , ,
Moon and/or Mars: Challenging Human Exploration Orthodoxy

Do we really need humans to explore Mars?, Ars Technica
“There’s been a myth that there’s some things you can do with robots and some only with people,” Grunsfeld replied. “All exploration is human research. Even when we use robotic spacecraft, it’s still human research. The question is how close are the people to the action? And it’s also about the pace of discovery. When you have people on the scene, especially putting planetary scientists, geologists, astrobiologists on Mars, it’s really going to accelerate the pace at which we can make discoveries.” … After lunch [Chris] Kraft and I drove back to his home, which overlooks a golf course a stone’s throw from Johnson Space Center. As we shook hands in his driveway, he reiterated his closing argument to me: “Oh yes, I’ve heard the argument that we’ve been there before. I know that more than most. But we have unfinished business on the moon.”
#JourneyToMars Via #ReturnToTheMoon, Earlier Post

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

41 responses to “Moon and/or Mars: Challenging Human Exploration Orthodoxy”

  1. JadedObs says:
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    I’m glad this issue is getting attention as we approach a new Administration; its ironic that we have the term “Lunacy” – what we need is the Martian equivalent to explain the insane desire to, as Buzz says, “Get your Ass to Mars”.
    Mars is a tremendously difficult stretch technically with huge costs and risks – the moon is a challenge to be sure but its much cheaper to do a moon program, there are unique things we can do there that have broad scientific value (e.g. the far side radio telescope), there are other nations potentially willing to share the costs and there are resources (He3) and we could potentially make much more progress in the course of an 8 year Administration than we could ever hope to on a Mars mission.

  2. Neil.Verea says:
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    Sound thinking from both quoted people in the article.

  3. Neil.Verea says:
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    Missions to either the Moon or Mars are exceedingly costly. Mars significantly much more so then the Moon. Its clear that shooting for Mars provides a carrot but not to be grasped within the Administration’s tenure so it satisfies the illusion of a goal to the general public as something they can point to and even show pockets of work supporting that notion. But that’s about it there is nothing you can “Grasp” its illusive and there is no plan, just a number of loosely related activities. Building on a Moon mission and outpost would engage the world space agencies and provide a commercial build-up as well. Mars is premature at this time.

    • Neville Chamberlain says:
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      Mars is significantly more than the Moon.

      In real terms, the delta V required to land the same payload on the Moon and Mars – well it is higher for the Moon.

      Depending on your point of view, it might be more expensive to operate a Moon base than a Martian base.

      There are few ISRU opportunities except at the Moons poles so everything must be imported from Earth for a Moon base.

      Although the initial expense of getting there might be slightly higher, there are lots of opportunities for ISRU to minimize the amount of supplies required after a Mars base is established. (Air/Oxygen, Nitrogen, Methalox propellants, Water). It is now believed that water is plentiful even if underground on Mars.

      There is the matter of dust on both. On the Moon, it is an extremely abrasive find silicon mix. On Mars it is a “softer” iron oxide dust. Both pose significant challenges.

  4. Neville Chamberlain says:
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    There is definitely a movement afoot that says man should never set foot on Mars to “protect Martian life”. I believe that even if Earth “infects” Mars with Earth microorganisms it will take decades or centuries for such life to spread in the harsh climate of Mars. Any surviving life on Mars will probably be in isolated niches> if it was everywhere and we should already have observed it.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      I agree. Also modern understanding of DNA has reached the point where it will be easy to tell if any organisms we find on Mars are contamination from Earth or native to Mars. So really its an argument based on very outdated science and beliefs.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      As we see life mutate when it goes to the ISS I am sure we will see our “infestations” of mars will mutate also…

      Life always finds a way as long as there is H2O

  5. ThomasLMatula says:
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    I have come to view these debates about NASA’s future goal as being about as relevant as discussions about how to best arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic while they wait for the rescue ships to arrive.

    Elon Musk is going to Mars. He will use NASA money when its available, and then his own. But if NASA gets in the way he will just go forward without them. If NASA tries to stop him I am sure he will find a way to go offshore to find a “flag of convenience” for his flights.

    Jeff Bezo is going to implement Dr. Gerald O’Neill’s vision of space
    settlement and lunar industrialization. Again, NASA may hop on for the ride, or be left waving good bye at the station. But he has enough money it doesn’t matter which it is, he is going forward to the future.

    So basically it just doesn’t matter anymore what NASA’s goals are or even if it survives. The space future is no longer in NASA’s hands as space entrepreneurs are moving beyond NASA. Congress critters that want to keep milking NASA for pork better start looking for alternatives, as once Blue Origin reaches the Moon, and SpaceX is on Mars, the rest of Congress will have a hard time supporting its budget as being relevant anymore and will just shut it down. Just imagine NASA coming to Congress to argue for it’s latest and greatest billion dollar Mars rover to look for life when SpaceX has dozens of settlers and hundreds of robots that will be selling their services to do Mars research on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk or similar website 🙂

    • JadedObs says:
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      Oh boy, another “true believer” who thinks NASA is the reason we haven’t conquered the solar system yet.
      NASA is supposed to be advancing our frontiers of human knowledge. If Musk and Bezos do that for LEO and Mars (arguably unlikely), it will only be because they built on what NASA has done and they will free NASA up to do more and new research at different frontiers. NASA is not the space equivalent of the Army Corps. of Engineers nor is it the enemy of humanity going into space and if Congress wants to spend money in certain districts, I’m certain it will find other places to do that.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        NASA was created to show the Soviets we wouldn’t be second in space. The rest was just Cold War rhetoric that too many folks have a blind faith in. However, if you want a historical analogy recall that the U.S. Army had a similar role in the American West, transporting survey parties of scientists to study it. As with NASA that was more for geopolitics than science although, as with space, science made it more respectable. But just as the purpose of Project Apollo was to be first in space the purpose of those expeditions were about staking out our claims to the land against Britain, Russia and Mexico, but science benefited from it. But those expeditions were few and far between because of the cost, resources and political support needed. Again, similar to space exploration today

        Once the transcontinental railroads were built out along the routes the U.S. Army surveyed there was no longer a need for the U.S. Army to transport scientists around. A paradigm shift occurred in terms of exploring the West. Now any college professor, graduate student or amateur scientist could afford the money to buy a passenger ticket and dig for dinosaurs, study rocks or collect insects to their heart’s content during summer vacation. That is the future of space exploration.

        NASA may still be around, but it will probably return to its NACA roots while NOAA and NSF will just replace it for funding science research, something that will be a lot easier to do when all the researchers will need to do is buy the equivalent of “tickets” on commercial systems or hire settlers to collect specimens for them for a few extra dollars. SpaceX and Blue Origin are as much hallmarks to the opening of the Solar System as the B&O, founded in 1828, was to opening the west. You may not see it now but the forces are in motion.

        Paradigm shifts are hard, but we are entering one now in regards to space exploration. And as with all paradigm shifts the change is inevitable as technology, science and society moves into the future. It will be interesting to watch as the space science community, and NASA, tries to adjust to the new world of space while, as with every paradigm shift, many spend their time trying to deny the change is even occurring.

        • P.K. Sink says:
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          Good analogy, Professor.

        • Neville Chamberlain says:
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          What you have not said explicitly is that the exploration of the west was primarily a Military Mission with a thin veil of science. Where the B&O planned or went, military posts were built or established soon thereafter. In reality, it was all about military dominance in the west.

          NASA, in many respects is the fascade for the military domintation of space. I doubt it will return to the NACA roots but will morph continuously to mask the military priorities of space.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Actually the military posts followed the fur trade and wagon trains, not the railroads. The railroads came later and once they arrived the influence of American settlers made the forts unnecessary for defense, both because of the rapid mobility the railroads offered the military and because commercial activity associated with the railroads quickly turned frontier wilderness into a civilized society.

          • Neville Chamberlain says:
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            irrespective, the exploration missions in the west and subsequent activities were primarily military in nature and not altruistic. It was all about control of the West and the natural resources there.

            The same was true of the Apollo missions to the Moon. We didn’t stay to reap the resource wealth but that was a major mistake.

            The first “colonists” or “settlers” on either the Moon or Mars will consist of primarily military or ex-military personnel.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Better look under your bed, Mr. C; could be some Reds hiding.

      • Vladislaw says:
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        Congress is the reason we have not advanced. It was never about exploration for congress, it was about jobs and contracts coming to their districts. The more jobs the more contracts the better, Productivity, actually producing something that was a far away second.

    • gbaikie says:
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      “So basically it just doesn’t matter anymore what NASA’s goals are or even if it survives.”
      The NASA goals are NASA’s leadership goals- and that seems likely to end at end of Jan 2017.

      Elon Musk and Jeff Bezo are making steady progress, it seems that NASA will use them. I think NASA will dust off Bush plans of exploring the Moon and then Mars- which were passed by Congress though they lacked details- and it seems those details are emerging. And it seems Bezo is in better position, because his focus on the Moon- Blue Orgin and it’s LH&LOX engine will be aligned to a future Lunar lander and the sub-orbital hop provides test environment for all things lunar.

      What is needed for commercial lunar water mining is a reusable LH&LOX lunar lander. And the lunar exploration to determine if and where there are minable lunar water deposits.
      NASA can explore the Moon to determine where there are best places to mine lunar water- and NASA has a cheap launcher with SpaceX, and Bezo has way to land and leave the Moon. Though of course Boeing will be involved- they can’t afford not to be. They have to NASA connections- and probably focus on nearer term of doing depots- another critical element of commercial lunar water mining.
      NASA is needed to explore the Moon and is needed to bring all the parts together to make it all happen. And would not underestimate any bureaucracy’s will and ability to survive.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        No, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are the ones using NASA. SpaceX to defer its R&D on Falcon 9 and Dragon. Blue Origins to access old NASA knowledge through Space Act agreements.

        Neither are going to be steered by NASA into a deadend or the boom/bust cycles of NASA various “visions”. That is the old paradigm, that NASA is Space, that ONLY NASA knows the way…

        So no, NASA is not needed to explore the Moon, Mars or bring all the parts together. Both SpaceX and Blue Origins are run by entrepreneurs that have shown the ability to organize and manage tech enterprises. There is a huge gap in capabilities between someone who merely administers an existing enterprise and a leader who builds one from scratch.

        But the last part is true and the biggest danger.

        “would not underestimate any bureaucracy’s will and ability to survive”

        That NASA will use its image as “The Space Agency” to undermine both firms in their goals. That is where space advocates, true space advocates, need to be active, in reminding folks that the NASA of today isn’t the NASA of Apollo and that the future of space exploration has moved beyond NASA.

        • gbaikie says:
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          “Neither are going to be steered by NASA into a deadend or the boom/bust
          cycles of NASA various “visions”. That is the old paradigm, that NASA is
          Space, that ONLY NASA knows the way…”

          SpaceX is company that sells rocket launches and I would assume it will continue selling rocket launches to NASA. If not NASA can buy launches from other companies.
          Musk seems to want to go the Mars before NASA is prepared to go to Mars. I think NASA present goal of manned Mars is dumb, I would have NASA put crew on Mars before 2030, but if Musk somehow gets settlements on Mars by 2030, then I see little reason for NASA to do a Manned Mars program. Or I think NASA should explore Mars in order to enable Mars settlements- so it doesn’t make much sense if there is already settlements on Mars. if that were the case, then I think NASA should explore Mercury. Mercury would be my second choice after the Moon, but lots people think Mars should be explored first- though I think there is some merit to doing this.
          I think NASA should first doing lunar exploration with purpose of finding or determining if there are lunar deposit which are minable. Of course if some party has already started mining lunar water, before NASA gets around to exploring the Moon, then it’s the same situation- NASA would have no reason to explore the Moon to determine if there is minable water, if lunar water is already being mined.

          I don’t think any party will start mining lunar water without exploration, nor do I think Mars settlements will be likely to be viable without first exploring Mars- but I could be wrong.

          But were this to happen while NASA does nothing, that might kill NASA- as it’s stark proof that NASA not doing what it’s suppose to be doing.
          Which would unfortunate because all NASA science goals could then be more easily done- and that would actually be the time to focus on science. Or NASA will proven it has been doing it all backwards [it has been- but it would be glaringly, obvious to all].

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            And SpaceX has the choice to serve other nations and firms that need space launch. That is how a market works. Freedom of choice to engage in exchanges by sellers and buyers, neither dependent entirely on the other.

            And if NASA administrators want to justify to Congress why NASA is spending $200 million of taxpayers dollars on a launch that SpaceX is able to provide for $100 million or spend $1 billion on a mission that SpaceX is doing for themselves at $100 million that is their choice as well 🙂

            Actually going to Mars is the ideal goal for a government agency like NASA. Its Visionary. It generates great eye candy for viewgraphs. It sounds like it is moving the nation forward. And best of all, since the goal is decades in the future it ensures a steady flow of taxpayer money to keep everyone working without the need to actually do anything risky or significant, so the danger of failing is near zero. What more could a Washington bureaucrat dream of in a perfect world?

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Largely spot on; I would only point out that NASA’s robotic mission portfolio is deep indeed.

  6. unfunded_dreams says:
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    I don’t like that we phrase policy questions as technical questions, then proceed to debate them as if they are valid. Do we need humans to explore Mars? Well, we need humans to exist (at least on Earth), but we don’t necessarily need the humans to be on Mars. Do we choose to send Humans to Mars to explore? Now that is the debate.

    In the same breath – do we need to explore the moon before we go to Mars? No, we could go straight to Mars. Can we choose to explore the lunar surface first? Yes. Again, it’s a policy decision, not a technical one.
    So we can do any of these items discussed – we CAN build a fuel depot, we CAN mine for minerals on the moon, we CAN put a Bigelow module in a Mars cycler obit. The debate is about what we choose to do, and whether we’re investing in the technologies to support our decision.

    Unfortunately, since we can’t unite behind any sort of coherent policy, we’ll just keep pretending that the decisions in front of us are really technical questions.

    • muomega0 says:
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      This fails to consider is the quality of the decision and technical solutions (not questions)–the engineering economics of the many failed policies forward. Technology selections dictate costs, the economy, create new markets, and distribute pork.

      Mars and beyond dwarfs lunar science–basically a chunk of earth’s crust– + significantly more resources. With a LEO depot, the architecture is LV independent, includes IPs, increases flight rate to reduce launch costs–which will create new markets. 3B/yr to missions and new technology–multiple destinations.

      Forget Mars with no depot technology and shorter trips to mitigate GCR and ug. Rely on one shots, just like lunar–cheaper without SLS/Orion, or spend 3B/yr going nowhere with no opportunity to reduce launch costs and ZERO possibility of new technology or markets. Rather than look for a needle in a haystack, extract resources from their asteroid source ‘in-situ’.

  7. ThomasLMatula says:
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    It is interesting to note that the parameters of this debate haven’t changed since the day of the Spiro Agnew’s Space Task Group. Nor will it as long as government money is driving it. That is because with government funding it is a zero-sum game and neither side is willing to give an inch.

  8. Donald Barker says:
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    Beyond the arguments of which destination is better for what reason (still to be truly answered) and whether or not one destination can be used as an economic training ground for the other, the fact is humans cant afford both, and if you believe the arguments for why we should do this as having to do with human survival, you cant do both. You cant do both simply on grounds of intrinsic science. You cant do both on grounds of intrinsic interest, motivation or inspiration. You cant do both based on how our political systems are going or how our economies and changing climate are going. So, ultimately, if you personally want to see humans on either one in the next 50 years, then an unwavering consensus must be arranged. Maybe not the most economically sustainable or happy consensus, but a consensus none the less. Personally, I am not going to hold my breath.

    • Kenny says:
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      “the fact is humans cant afford both”..
      Wrong. The human species can afford both. The only question is whether they choose to allocate the funds. The SpaceX mission to mars doesn’t seem to be too expensive even for a private entity.
      http://nasawatch.com/archiv

      “an unwavering consensus must be arranged”
      Wrong again. What consensus does Elon Musk require?

    • Vladislaw says:
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      The planet can easily afford both…. the planetary military budgets illustrates how much wasted resources happens here.

  9. Gerald Cecil says:
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    The argument that a field geologist on the Martian surface can do more than one sitting on Deimos tele-operating a multi-spectral, panoramic 3D feed with haptic feedback is short-sighted pessimism. Couple in an assistive AI and those technologies will enable exploration deep into gravity wells throughout the solar system, beyond the endurance of human travelers.

    • P.K. Sink says:
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      True. And yet, some people will want to go there, and some will want to settle there.

      • Daniel Woodard says:
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        Great. There are families living in Antarctica (in the Chilean sector, on the Palmer Peninsula, not in the really cold parts). But there aren’t a huge number.

        • P.K. Sink says:
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          Good point. The lure of Mars in our imaginations is far greater than the reality of Antarctica. Also, Mars holds the promise of terraforming sometime in the hazy future. We may end up inadvertently terraforming Antarctica through global warming, but it’s harder to get excited about that. 😉

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Actually the more we learn about Mars the less practical it appears to terraform it. Even Kim Stanley Robinson is questioning if its feasible.

            http://io9.gizmodo.com/kim-

            “Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy filled us all with hope that we could terraform Mars in the 21st century, with its plausible description of terraforming processes. But now, in the face of what we’ve learned about Mars in the past 20 years, he no longer thinks it’ll be that easy.”

          • P.K. Sink says:
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            “It’s no longer a simple matter,” Robinson says.

            Really? He thought that terraforming Mars would be a simple matter? I’m no scientist, but I’ve always figured that we will have about as much chance of killing off Mars’s human population with some colossal blunder as we will successfully terraforming it. But it’s an idea that will never go away because that’s the way humans roll.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            No, but the more knowledge we gain about Mars, and the more we learn about things we take for granted on Earth like soil, the less practical it will look.

          • P.K. Sink says:
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            Agreed. We’ve come a long ways from imagining canals on Mars. I’ve always considered rotating space colonies to be a more practical long-term solution. Planets, moons and asteroids will probably be hardship mining bases. They might also eventually provide underground bunkers as emergency habitats for those colonies in peril.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      and then we can use those same robots and AI to live our lives on earth for us. We can replace every form of labor with them .. won’t that be great?

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        Actually the demand for robots and AI in many industries is rapidly moving far beyond what NASA has been doing.

        Mining for example is increasingly becoming robotic and we are not talking about the golf cart size robots NASA is building, but load haulers and Earth movers the size of a house that are expected to work 24/7 in the harsh environment of a mine. Mobile drillers larger than tanks drill dozens of blast holes a day and fill them full of powder for blasting, all robotically.

        http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2

        Inside Rio Tinto’s Robot Mining Control Room

        “The control room is packed with operators who sit in front of banks of screens controlling everything from earthmoving equipment through to giant trucks at a distance of 1500 kilometres from where it’s actually
        happening.

        Rio Tinto’s remote miners are based in Perth Airport, and they control trucks, diggers, loaders and other equipment for 15 different mining operations.”

        We are talking about real time operations on a scale far beyond what NASA is capable of. Yes, there have been a few accidents that killed workers, but this isn’t NASA where they shut everything down for 3 years to spend endless committee meetings figuring out what went wrong, they just keep moving forward.

        Other firms are experimenting with robots able to work in old flooded mines or in ore seams far too small to be economically worked by humans directly. Progress is galloping forward and will continue without NASA “leading” the way. And this is just the mining industry.

        And yes, folks I talked to from mining see no problem in mining the Moon the same way. They are already working with a satellite delays on Earth. Just deliver the equipment to the Moon and the regolith will fly 🙂

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      Why would the operator have to be on Deimos? If we focus on medium-term (1-2 hour) autonomous operation, we can develop teleoperation procedures that will be equally effective from Earth, and the operator will be able to step out for a Starbucks. The primary need I see is to actually put a radiation-tolerant computer in a rover that is as capable as the average smartphone, whether this is done through more capable intrinsically radiation-hardenedd components or through the (SpaceX) concept of a redundant array of inexpensive CPUs.

  10. jon_downfromthetrees says:
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    Some people want to explore space.

    Some people want to colonize space.

    By definition, you need people to do the latter.

    You can explore with machines. But I’d much rather have a batch of scientists on Mars or the Moon than a batch of machines. Machines aren’t curious.

  11. Daniel Woodard says:
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    Kraft seems to be talking mainly about science. However robotics has come a long way since the 1960s and robots with local autonomy controlled from Earth can do most exploration and analytical tasks. If cost can be reduced colonization may make sense for some hardy souls.

  12. Vladislaw says:
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    Do we really need to get off the couch? Can’t we just have robbie the robot live our lives for us so we can stay comfortable eating our chips on the couch and never leaving that comfort.