Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNorm
Not if you count probes and rovers.
Just think, human space exploration might be undertaken by proxy - by a specially selected team of robots and rodents.
|
Sure, robots are very clever - gerbils are, too - but every piece of information ever sent back by a rover on the surface of Mars could have been determined by a small team of humans in a mobile laboratory within a matter of days.
Given the choice, we should always strive to go ourselves rather than by proxy. If we get too used to the idea that we can allow robots to do all our exploring for us, not only will we slow down our exploration of the universe, we will in all likelihood become even more sedentary and risk-averse than we already are.
A new spirit of adventure is what we need - that and a few billion dollars.
