🚀 go-pugleaf

The current debate surrounding the opinions of Dr. Van Allen et al
points up the fundamental conflict between manned and unmanned space
missions, viz: unmanned missions, by virtue of their current economic
ability to reach places that astronauts (or even cosmonauts) cannot explore,
have more-or-less immediate return on investment.  Even though the ROI
is mostly limited to planetary scientists, it's still much more than the
virtually non-existent return on space colonisation, since any other
value returned from a manned mission has so far been something that
could have been achieved with an unmanned mission (e.g., Skylab observations).

Thus advocates of manned missions often find themselves grasping at straws
(e.g. the zero-g pharmaceutical opportunity arguments).  The ROI for
manned missions qua manned missions is decades away (e.g., asteroid
mining operations), but *that doesn't mean we shouldn't start now*.
After all, we won't get there at all if we don't take the first step.
I'm just not sure that it's a winning strategy for us manned mission
advocates to try and compete with the immediate ROI currently available
to unmanned missions.  Question is, who on earth is prepared to undertake
a venture that won't break even for thirty years?  The classic response
is, "Governments", and they've done similar in the past, so how come it's
so difficult to get them to do it in space?

Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov)