An interesting article over at NewScientist.com suggests that maybe NASA’s plan to go to the Moon by 2020 is not as important as going to Mars. 
It is true that many people think that if the Space Shuttle was not developed back in the 70’s it would have freed up money and resources to accomplish just this feat. We could have had a presence on Mars as early as the mid eighties had we not been languishing around in Low Earth Orbit. Now a group of space experts and NASA officials say that NASA should return the focus on getting to the red Planet and scale down the plans for a permanent settlement.
It is true that many people think that if the Space Shuttle was not developed back in the 70’s it would have freed up money and resources to accomplish just this feat. We could have had a presence on Mars as early as the mid eighties had we not been languishing around in Low Earth Orbit. Now a group of space experts and NASA officials say that NASA should return the focus on getting to the red Planet and scale down the plans for a permanent settlement.
2 comments:
What about if they spent all that money on just robotic exploration? Do we really need to be there? Isnt it a more efficient use of resources to pour all that effort into exploration.
Scientists dont need to be where the instrument is to take measurements.
I agree to a certain extent that yes Robots can do a lot of the work. But as far as the bigger picture goes mankind needs to think about where we can goto and explore. This planet will someday soon be too small to support the growing population. We need to expand. Putting people on another planet is the beginning of that.
Post a Comment