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Originally Posted by bluesdave
Having said that, we have to accept that there is a strong emotional aspect to the argument. We all cheered when JFK announced the mission to land men on the moon, in that famous speech in 1961. I remember watching Neil Armstrong taking his first steps live on TV in 1969.
It is a trade off between cost - both financial and in people's lives, and benefits - technological and emotional.
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In 1960s, only robots we had were Neil Armstrong, et al. So we sent what we had. The transistor was but less than ten years old. Something extremely rare - a commerical version of a microprocessor that cost about $2000 or something over $15,000 in today’s money (plus support chips). Instruments that could see and remember also did not exist.
Today, instruments routinely see things that man cannot - and record them. Machines measure things that man cannot. Man must visit and leave quickly – machines stay and keep working. By 2010, an army must even have fleets of trucks that drive themselves. Why then is a manned moon base in 2020 so important?
Again, this sounds too much like a decision by those without any grasp of science and without even knowledge of Military Science 101. Political types did not provide facts about going to the moon in 1960. Back then, the president's legacy was not more important than America.
Clearly there will be parts of our space program that require man just as those telescopes on Hawaii and Hubble also require visits from men. But to create a manned moon base only to promote a political agenda or hype emotion - that sounds exactly why we are wasting Americans in Iraq.
If there is a purpose to this manned moon base, then where are those facts - those all so necessary details - the underlying science that will be studied? No details are provided. This is Vietnam, Iraq, and ISS deja vue all over again. Just because Queen Isabella had to send a human to find America means robots still cannot do it better today?
What is the mission? What is the objective? Emotion has no place in such decisions. Emotion creates defeat, death, loss of power, destruction of science, both Vietnam and Iraq, and is even what murdered seven Challenger astronauts and seven Columbia astronauts. Do we call that advancing mankind because we feel good? I smell the legacy of George Jr - America's nominee for worst president - all over this program.
Why did Nixon cancel future space launches? Vietnam war could not be lost on his watch. Logical thought had nothing to do with canceling moon launches. Nixon had priorities that were for his legacy - at the expense of America. But again, first ask why a decision was made.
Do you smell the legacy of a president rather than the advancement of mankind? It happens when we blindly believe a lying president rather than first ask embarrassing questions. For example, what is the science? What is the mission? Questions that both of America's worst presidents ever could not even hope to answer.