I have a signed copy of Senator/Astronuat Harrison Schmitts' book "Return to the Moon". We had a fine talk at the 2007 ISDC and know that our future lies in space!
Ad Astra Y'all
Mmm. Big sinkhole for tax dollars, if what government’s done already isn’t enough. If you’re trying to make an economic argument for it (versus a defense argument), it’s no different than any other make work program. Neat to see rockets taking off and stuff (my kids like it), but a lot more space research could be done if you didn’t have to haul those pesky humans up and back. VERY expensive to engineer for and they tend to die when things go wrong.
Just my opinion, but all of the astronauts that died in the shuttle program and before did more to hold back the exploration of space than if we’d used robotic probes. If you lose astronauts it’s a national tragedy and you have to reengineer everything. If you lose a robotic probe, it’s just another robot and a cheap one at that.
You get a bigger bang for you space exploration bucks if you don’t use people. Just sayin’.