🚀 go-pugleaf

> 
> A question to those who feel that all current space exploration should be
> unmanned: The US and the USSR have both sent out a fair number of unmanned
> scientific probes, but it is my impression that the US is ahead, or at
> least even, on the development and deployment of advanced scientific probes.
> On the other hand, the USSR has placed a much greater emphasis on manned
> missions, and many people claim that the US is "hopelessly behind" in
> space exploration, citing as their chief argument the higher average human
> occupation of space by the Soviets. Is the USSR wasting its money? And if
> manned exploration for its own sake is insignificant, is the US really
> not all that far behind?
>                                    roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov

	Well, I am not one of those who feels that *ALL* current exploration
should be unmanned, but I'll answer you question:  we are dreadfully
far behind in unmanned exploration.  Admittedly the Soviets seem to have
a much higher probe failure rate than we do, but at least they are
moving forward.  Where was the U.S. probe of Halley's comet?  Why are
Galileo and the Space Telescope still on the ground?  When is Cassini
going up?
	Some of these were delayed by the idiotic dependence the Shuttle as
the launcher; some were cancelled due to lack of funds; some are going
to be highly impractical to implement because our lack of big boosters
forces tricks like *double* gravity whips via Jupiter and Venus to get
to the destination.  (This was said by Professor Meese, currently
teaching a course in space flight engineering.  He formerly worked at
JPL.)  Also, funding for unmanned exploration is very hard to get.

-- 
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-Keith Mancus <kpmancus@phoenix.princeton.edu>  <- preferred
              <kpmancus@pucc.BITNET>