I have always been a Mars-skeptic so this article reinforced much of that. That said, in reading this article I came to wonder why the author is even proposing we spend the money on more probes. Sooner or later, the probes only make sense if we intend to follow-up with human space travel. I suppose you could make the argument we are a century away from where we ought to consider that, but the author does not broach the subject of what the long term goals ought to be for space exploration and why.
From a science perspective, I am in favor of more things like JWST. More probes probably make sense for similar reasons. From a commercial and human standpoint, we should probably be focusing more on Low Earth applications with maybe some possibility that some of this ought to also focus on establishing a permanent base on the moon. But doing this on the moon assumes some really good reasons materialize for doing so. Whether it is the discovery of ice or minerals, or (maybe also) that there is an area we could setup beneath the surface the is shielded from radiation.
It would be great if we could find a practical reason for establishing a presence on the moon that then also laid the groundwork as an environment where some of these longer term problems could be tested and refined while we were also extracting some value from being there.
I have always been a Mars-skeptic so this article reinforced much of that. That said, in reading this article I came to wonder why the author is even proposing we spend the money on more probes. Sooner or later, the probes only make sense if we intend to follow-up with human space travel. I suppose you could make the argument we are a century away from where we ought to consider that, but the author does not broach the subject of what the long term goals ought to be for space exploration and why.
From a science perspective, I am in favor of more things like JWST. More probes probably make sense for similar reasons. From a commercial and human standpoint, we should probably be focusing more on Low Earth applications with maybe some possibility that some of this ought to also focus on establishing a permanent base on the moon. But doing this on the moon assumes some really good reasons materialize for doing so. Whether it is the discovery of ice or minerals, or (maybe also) that there is an area we could setup beneath the surface the is shielded from radiation.
It would be great if we could find a practical reason for establishing a presence on the moon that then also laid the groundwork as an environment where some of these longer term problems could be tested and refined while we were also extracting some value from being there.