The decision to hold on manual space exploration is probably the best decision.   We get 10 times more bang for the buck with robotics in terms of pure scientific discovery.   Keeping people alive and supplying them in places as far away as the moon and Mars is phenomenally expensive and difficult.  I have no doubt we'll one day send someone to Mars to properly search for signs of microbial life there but that can wait until the financial crisis is over.   In the meantime, NASA has explored far more of the solar system with robots and learned far more about the other planets than they could have if they tried to send manned missions.   A single manned mission to Mars would probably cost as much or more than all the robots combined.

by bfaul on 03/11/2010 09:16:23 AM EST