Originally posted by no1marauderIt depends what spin you put on it; sending a magnificent scientific instrument to Mars to do serious exploration is a bit different than having something just puttering around. Send robots first, then if there is a need, send humans.
And computers can play chess easier than all but a few mortals, but where's the adventure in that? Surely you can't put a price tag on the human desire to acheive great things - having a little robot putter around Mars trivializes the human race in my view.
Some people say why don't NASA just recreate human landings on other worlds via Hollywood. There is a doco that tries to depict moon landings as having been staged in a film studio on earth.
But the money you would have to pay the actors would be horrendous. Then if you had jurneys to Saturn...going by our technology today, that would take 7-8 years (and what about the supposed setting up of longterm stations!), so the "soapies" would turn out to be a long, expensive programs. And then having to keep it all secret, there is the added expense of getting the CIA to "silence" certain people - no far better (and cheaper) to go through with the real deal- manned flight!