🚀 go-pugleaf

In Message: <659@uceng.UC.EDU>  dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny)
says:

>At present, manned ventures are (very roughly, I believe) ten times as
>expensive as unmanned ventures in terms of data and benefits returned.
Don't forget that manned flights provide some data NOT available from
unmanned flights: How Humans can live/work in Space.  This is
important, since EVENTUALLY (hopefully before I'm too old...) There
will be a need for a good amount of human labour in space (cheap &
adaptable, not perfect but it's been pretty economical, and it'de be
cheaper to have a person instead of a bunch of specialized gadgets)


>We might even go so far as to say that a certain manned program almost
>eliminated the US as a spacefaring nation.
I wouldn't go that far, especially since even IF the Challenger
disaster caused public opinion to go against manned space filght
(In actuallity most of the people I talked too felt that NASA was
taking too long to restart the shuttle program ) to the degree that
the shuttle was discontinued.  There would STILL be some sort of
space program (I doubt that the Military would ask the soviets to put
up U.S. spy satellites :-), not to mention that people like haveing
the benifits of satellites (ie Trans-Atlantic Communications. Weather
Fortcasting etc.  TV, what would the news be like without any
satellite photos. (The weather just wouldn't be as real for me ;-)