🚀 go-pugleaf

Someone recently wrote, in the continuing manned/unmanned debate, that
with the amount it would cost to go to Mars, we could build 2000 probes and
check out every cubic centimeter of the solar system (sorry, I think I nuked
the original posting by accident).  This may be true in monetary terms, but
politically, it's far off.  A manned mission generates much more interest, and
therefore will receive much more funding, than any unmanned probe (or 2000
unmanned probes).  Fer cryin' out loud, NASA can barely maintain any unmanned
missions because they don't generate enough noise so that politicians want to
fund them.  On the other hand, there is a very real possibility of our
spending $100 billion+ to go to Mars.  Though hundreds of times less
economically viable, manned missions are politically more appealing, and Dr.
Van Allen's plan of dropping the manned space program might well leave NASA
without enough money to keep the coffee machine running.

   Just out of curiousity, and to keep from offending anyone, is there a
non-sexist term for a "manned" mission?  Here they've taken to calling
first-year students "freshpersons", but a "personned" mission just doesn't
sound right.  Any thoughts?

The Space People will contact us when they  |  Greg Howard
can make money by doing so.  - DAVID BYRNE  |  HOWGREJ at YALEVM