... or is it better left to the machines?





This month has celebrated 40 years of putting a man on the Moon. But we've also managed to explore much more of our solar system, using robot probes.

But one of the problems with space exploration is it's expensive, the Apollo program used up about 5% of Americas GDP at the time.

This weekend Europes Mars rover has slipped back to 2018, after originally being planned in 2011 ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8168954.stm

Unlike Apollo, unmanned space exploration has very limited budgets. Some supporters of unmanned exploration say that the world is obsessed sometimes with trying to send a man to do a machines job.

Mentally I know we've discovered more of our solar system through sending probes out into space, and in some ways the path forward is better and cleverer robots.

However I think the image of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon is a much more a passionate and stiring one that Voyager around Saturn or Viking on Mars.

Thoughts ...