AES wrote:

But the bottom line here is surely that the whole manned space flight
effort and focus at NASA not only should be terminated as fast as
possible, but should have been terminated several decades ago, for at
least two major reasons.

Well, at this point I think manned spaceflight needs to be saved *from*
NASA, not *by* it.

First of all, manned space flight at this point in time is just too
difficult, dangerous, and expensive to be worth pursuing. It's a matter
of the laws of physics versus the currently available or currently
foreseeable level of technology, not the competence or the culture of
NASA. Maybe some future breakthrough in technology will make manned
space flight a much more reasonable goal; maybe not.

"Future breakthrough[s] in technology" do not fall out of trees. Once
upon a time, flying at FL450 was "difficult, dangerous, and expensive."
But because we kept doing it, failing with often lethal results, it is
now as safe (or safer) as traveling on the ground.

But by far the more compelling reason is that there are really zero
useful things, much less compelling needs, that we can or might want to
accomplish in space that are not better done with unmanned rather than
manned missions.

Perhaps. This is where the argument turns from a matter of reason into
one more like faith. There is little that astronauts could do on the
surface of Mars that we cannot at this time do faster and more cheaply
with robots. BUT...

The challenge of sending a human crew to the surface of Mars, and
bringing it back to Earth intact, would I think serve to spur the
development of many things with more quotidian uses. With a mission
likely to last several years, one problem is healthcare. Many things
can happen, and even if you put a doctor on the crew you have to allow
(a) that he won't know everything and (b) he may get injured himself.
So, you need to provide alternatives: computerized monitors which can
observe the body and render diagnoses, and possibly devices which allow
people with less than an MD to provide meaningful care. Healthcare is
currently 15% of our economy, and growing without bounds. Surely such
research could have revolutionary impact on our lives.

The bureaucracy and legal/financial obstacles to developing such things
in the pure civilian world mean that advancements will come slowly at
best. In wartime, governments, businesses, and people are willing to
take all manner of chances because victory depends upon it. Even Stalin
gave up shooting his political opponents for a few years during WWII
when it was clear that the Nazis might roll them all over.

Similarly, the Apollo program provided an imperative of sufficient
power to justify innovation at all costs. Frontiers are, always have
been, and always will be dangerous places, but behind the pioneers come
settlers.

And then of course there is the point that man does not live by bread
alone. You concede that the Apollo program was the right thing to do at
the time, though it had little direct scientific merit. What about
today? Imagine the whole world, from Shanghai, to Tehran, to Paris, and
Los Angeles watching as an American backed down a ladder onto the
surface of Mars. Now imagine that the astronaut is a Muslim woman, who
came here as an immigrant to be educated in our great universities.
Laugh, shake your head, scream "PC!" or whatever, but don't tell me
this wouldn't cast an amazing shadow across the landscape.

-cwk.