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Comment by huthuthike | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you that for the cost we can do more with robotics, and it's safer.

However, we also need to factor in human psychology. It would inspire billions of people worldwide to see a person on Mars. This is not something that can be replicated by sending robotic missions. It's possible that this could increase public support for funding space exploration, and drive more people to go into careers in science.

It's hard to predict the benefits of human exploration of space because we don't know how the world will react. But it's a lot more significant than just measuring the scientific output of the mission.

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It’s been over 50 years since a human was on the moon. The need to replicate that psychological success has not been there for humanity given the costs and better use of resources. Mars is exponentially more expensive.

Doing something we've never done before is a lot more exciting to people than repeating our previous success.

Think about it this way: who were the astronauts on the first lunar landing mission? Who were the astronauts on the last? Why do you think that we remember the first ones to do it better?

Who were the astronauts that died with Challenger? Notoriety is hardly an index worth investing in.

A colony on the moon is technically possible, albeit very expensive. Many nations could create one today. People are choosing to spend their limited resources on better forms of progress.

To your first point, I think success at doing something that no human has done before is going to be more memorable to the masses than failure to do something that many people have done before. Hence we remember the first people to land on the moon but we don't remember the 200th astronaut that didn't make it into space cause they died. Regardless, referring back to my original point, it's not the fame of a specific individual that should be the goal in a human mission to Mars. Instead it's a combination of the scientific yields as well as the increased public enthusiasm for science that could make a human mission more valuable than robotic ones. It's very hard to measure the latter but it should not be discounted when considering the value of a human mission.

Regarding your second point, you were the one that said we should spend the same resources of a manned mission on robotic missions. So if it is going to cost $2 trillion dollars for a manned mission we should spend $2 trillion instead on robotic missions. Now it seems you are arguing that we should spend the money elsewhere. If that's your point it is a different discussion.

Also the whole... "they're very probably not coming back from Mars alive" thing :)

> I agree with you that for the cost we can do more with robotics, and it's safer.

I don't see much that's safe about robotics in our future. In space they'll be great (until they turn on us), but on Earth it seems like they'll mostly be used to kill people and if we ever do get robot butlers and maids you can bet that they'll be sending a continuous stream of audio and video of our homes, conversations, and sex lives back to at least one remote server as "telemetry" that will be sold off to data brokers and our government.

Robots on earth are mostly used in manufacturing and to clean floors. Millions of them, today.

That's the case today only because they have such limited capability. Our lowly roombas already want to spy on us.

https://gizmodo.com/roombas-next-big-step-is-selling-maps-of...

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-i...

https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/19/robot-vacuums-can-be-hacked-a...

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