Park Argues Against Human Space Travel
Writing in the Washington Post, physicist Robert Park recounts the phenomenal scientific
successes attained by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft. From there he launches an argument against
NASA’s insistence on sending humans into space, which, he writes, derives from a political
rather than a scientific motivation: “NASA is convinced the public will not support a space
program that does not involve astronauts.”
Park writes that the successes in space of unmanned satellites and robots are to be
celebrated, and used as a model for further exploration. “Human progress is measured by the
extent to which work that is dangerous or menial is done by machines.” Furthermore, the
engineers who design telerobots and the scientists who remotely control them and interpret
the data they retrieve are, in effect, “virtual astronauts.” In addition, their missions cost far
less. Park points out that the entire Pathfinder mission to Mars cost less than a single shuttle
flight.
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Writing in the Washington Post, physicist Robert Park recounts the phenomenal scientific
successes attained by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft. From there he launches an argument against
NASA’s insistence on sending humans into space, which, he writes, derives from a political
rather than a scientific motivation: “NASA is convinced the public will not support a space
program that does not involve astronauts.”
Park writes that the successes in space of unmanned satellites and robots are to be
celebrated, and used as a model for further exploration. “Human progress is measured by the
extent to which work that is dangerous or menial is done by machines.” Furthermore, the
engineers who design telerobots and the scientists who remotely control them and interpret
the data they retrieve are, in effect, “virtual astronauts.” In addition, their missions cost far
less. Park points out that the entire Pathfinder mission to Mars cost less than a single shuttle
flight.
Next
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