No. There are good – even compelling – reasons for a human presence in space. To begin with, robots

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The Obama administration has scrapped NASA s plan to return humans to the Moon by 2020, which was behind schedule because of technical and budgetary problems. Instead, the administration will focus on developing new technologies to make long-distance space travel cheaper and faster, with astronaut trips to the Moon, asteroids and Mars possible in the future.
Is this shift of priorities the right path to take? Why go to the expense, effort and risk of using astronauts when unmanned machines can do so much? Or are there benefits to human space exploration that can t be achieved with robots?
But manned space exploration as a national goal — to be financed from public funds, organized by state or federal philadelphia eagles football tickets employees to promote some general good like stronger defenses, economic dynamism, social stability or public health — is another question altogether.
There is no case for publicly funded human spaceflight in any of those areas. Even in the matter of defense, none of the most useful off-planet projects — G.P.S., earth imaging, antimissile technology — has any requirement philadelphia eagles football tickets for human beings in space.
It is in fact a universal principle of space science — a "prime directive," as it were — that anything a human being does up there could be done by unmanned machinery for one-thousandth philadelphia eagles football tickets the cost. With the ever-increasing intelligence of our machines, the cost gap will only get wider.
There is a strong traditional foundation here. From the beginnings of modern science in the late 17th century, philadelphia eagles football tickets all the major European nations offered state support to societies and academies of pure research. Such support must submit to public audit, however. In a time of cratering public finances, the stupendous costs of manned spaceflight — half a billion dollars per shuttle launch — cannot be justified.
Similarly with "the vision philadelphia eagles football tickets thing." Since the building of the pyramids, governments have carried out non-utilitarian projects, bonding citizens together by appeals to the collective imagination. Here too, though, there is a cost-benefit calculation to be made.
The U.S. is a commercial republic philadelphia eagles football tickets under elected officials, not a despotic empire ruled by infallible God-kings. An occasional presidential speech in the diction of "ceremonial deism," briefly raising our eyes from our everyday chores to things of the spirit, is certainly appropriate. But that costs very little, and that is what publicly funded "vision things" philadelphia eagles football tickets ought to cost.
Asking about what benefits there are to human spaceflight that can't be achieved with robots tilts the argument. Not all benefits from space activity, philadelphia eagles football tickets as is the case in many other areas of human endeavor, are tangible. In fact, I believe the principal benefits from human spaceflight are intangible, but nevertheless substantial.
Think of John F. Kennedy's words in support of Project Apollo: "The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect philadelphia eagles football tickets to stay behind in the race for space"; and "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize philadelphia eagles football tickets and measure the best of our energies and skills."
A report on human spaceflight from M.I.T. in December 2008 put it well in its discussion of exploration as the principal rationale for human space flight, defining exploration as "an expansion of human experience, bringing people into new places, situations and environments, expanding and redefining what it means to be human."
The paper also noted that "human spaceflight is an instrument of soft power — it serves as an example for members of other nations and cultures to follow and emulate. Human spaceflight is a marker of modernity and first-class status."
It is inconceivable to me that the United States would willingly give up an activity that has for the past half-century symbolized its leading role in global affairs. Human spaceflight is part of the American patrimony.
The president wants the space agency to dial back its development of rockets that could sling astronauts philadelphia eagles football tickets into orbit or take them to the cratered landscapes of the Moon. As consequence, you can expect a greater emphasis on robotic exploration of the solar system.
No. There are good – even compelling philadelphia eagles football tickets – reasons for a human presence in space. To begin with, robots can't do everything well. When it comes to looking for life on Mars, it's been said that a human explorer could survey that world's philadelphia eagles football tickets rusty landscape at least 10 times faster than a rover. If we want to know if life is a miracle or merely philadelphia eagles football tickets a cosmic commonplace, human exploration may be essential.
Second, we are living on a world with limited real estate and finite resources. Both are expected to become critically stretched within a century. Frankly, homo sapiens will be a flash in the pan if we don't get some members of our species off the planet. So whether we construct colonies in orbit around Earth or build underground condos on the moon or Mars, our future philadelphia eagles football tickets demands learning how to send people to space.
Third, there's the enormous appeal of space flight to young people. Ask any kid what interests them more: constructing autonomous rovers or going to Mars? The answer is obvious and so is the implication for NASA's future.
And finally, there's this: we need a frontier. Some part of each of us wants to "boldly go," to explore and experience the unknown. The claim that stepping across the threshold of the unknown is too costly or too dangerous wouldn't have impressed Magellan or Lindbergh.
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