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From: mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Manned vs. unmanned
Message-ID: <189@v7fs1.UUCP>
Date: 19 Jan 89 18:58:54 GMT
References: <6145@thorin.cs.unc.edu> <1989Jan15.095906.18357@utzoo.uucp> <92@beaver.cs.washington.edu> <1989Jan18.043708.27547@utzoo.uucp> <93@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
Reply-To: mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt)
Organization: Video7, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 36

In article <93@beaver.cs.washington.edu> szabonj@right.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:
>On the other hand, we can spend this $200+ billion sending out probes ...
> ...  With these we can explore every nook and cranny of the 
>solar system, from Pluto to Mercury, with dozens of probes to look at
>each moon and major asteroid, and some comets as well. 
 ...
>This gives the scientist, the prospector, and the space settlement planner
>orders of magnitude more knowledge and flexibility to work with.  The
>choice becomes no longer Moon vs. Mars (an odious debate), but pick a
>spot from any part of the solar system.  

This certainly sounds reasonable.

One little problem, though.

By the time we have spent the next two decades studying the
question to death, all the desirable real estate in the solar
system is likely to have been snapped up by the Soviets, French,
Japanese, Chinese, Israelis, Indians, Canadians, Brazilians,
Australians, and Indonesians.  (Have I missed any country with
a space program?  If so, it's an oversight.)

This is not to say, of course, that scientific probes are a bad
idea.  We should be mass-producing them and sending them out by
the score every year.  But we should not be sitting on our hands
waiting for the results from them, either.  Because the
information such probes send back is only part of the information
we will need to get out there and develop those resources.  The
other vital information is how to live and work in space.  Right
now, only one country has much of this kind of information and it
ain't the U.S.
-- 
Mike Van Pelt                          Here lies a Technophobe,
Video 7                                   No whimper, no blast.
...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp                 His life's goal accomplished,
                                          Zero risk at last.