Bob Noel wrote:

I guess that depends on your vision. Do you really think we should stay
on this earth? Do you really lack the vision to see humans in space?

Bob, I think humans ought to spread out. But I also think that unmanned missions
might get us to the emigration point sooner. Seems to me that if we can send,
say, ten unmanned missions to Mars for the cost of one manned mission, and it
takes, say, twenty missions (manned or unmanned) to get us enough info to set up
a colony, then unmanned exploration will get us the colony sooner.

Plug in Arcturus for Mars, and I think it still works.

I also have a fear of the sort of stagnation that set in after we got to the
moon. Politically, we seem to be able to convince Congress to keep funding
unmanned missions. After we reached the moon, Congress pretty much shut down
funding for manned missions. I expect that if we sent a team to Mars (the next
logical step), we might get a second mission there, but we wouldn't see a third
one for 100 years.

George Patterson
Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you quarrel with your neighbor.
It makes you shoot at your landlord. And it makes you miss him.