Something like 9 years of carefully pre planned route to its destination and... http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33524589 Go #teamEarth!
Pretty amazing. I thinks it's easy to take our space program(s) for granted. Perhaps it's hard for many to relate to and fathom the distances involved, the high level of science, engineering and technology. May be money would be better spend elsewhere dealing with and resolving our more "earthly" problems. I won't get into that discussion here. (IMO, as long as man is man, we're always going to have many of these problems.) After the Apollo program and some of the initial Space Shuttle launches, I'll admit that I did not maintain much interest in our county's space exploration program. Jump ahead 30 years. My oldest daughter who graduated from VA Tech with a degree in Meteorology, is now completing her Master's at the U of Alabama in Huntsville. There is located NASA's Marshall Space & Flight Center. My wife and I spent some time there last November while visiting our daughter. I was so impressed with the science, engineering and technology involved in rocket development and space exploration. Had never appreciated it before. To me it was mind-boggling what we've been able to do. Even the old rocket technology was amazing stuff to me. Now I wanna go to space camp! Pluto and its moon Charon:
True--but I am one who believes NASA should keep humans out of the exploration of space for now, repeat, for now. There is a lot more to do without humans phucking it up.
Humans are a key part of space exploration. We are the most multifunctional research tool you can use. The human element seems to be where we are lacking the most in space.
Too expensive, and it slows everything down dramatically. With robotics, humans in space are PRESENTLY a detriment to the program. But, that is OPINION only; I am no expert in space matters. Just intuition. Humans sucks, as a whole, politics (humans) try to have their little pawns put in etc....just screws it all up. BTW, my eldest brother, a naval aviator, passed all the astronaut tests in mid sixties...then went on to Vietnam and got himself killed. Sucked.
Tell that to Neil Armstrong who had to fly over a boulder field with less than a minute of fuel remain to land on the moon.
Actually, humans tend to speed up the process, if you are looking at getting as much research done as possible in a short visit. The only real benefit of using robots, is that they don't need special conditions to survive, and they can operate in any given environment for a long time. The downfall, is that they are very limited in the amount tasks they can perform, how quickly those tasks can be done, how adaptable they are to new findings, and the amount of development time involved in giving them the ability to perform these tasks. There are going to be pros and cons, no matter what route you take. I just feel like manned missions bring out more public awareness and interest, which can in turn mean more funding and more missions. Here is a cool article discussing this topic: http://www.wired.com/2012/04/space-humans-vs-robots/
Check out the documentary Mars Underground. Some viable reasons for sending people to Mars. Doable with existing tech and not too expensive compared to the overall budget. Personally I think we should be doing both manned and unmanned.
