Comment by tomkin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomkin | Hacker News Reader

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When you omit the humans, you omit the humanity of spaceflight. Neil deGrasse Tyson sums it up best:

  Tyson, an astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, 
  agreed with his interviewer in saying that "the manned program is a force 
  of nature on the educational pipeline of America. It is the force that excites 
  people to want to become scientists in the first place." [1]

Plus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi636wl6a1w

[1] http://www.space.com/8184-robots-humans-space-colbert-tyson-...

That sounds like empty rhetoric to me. Is there actually any evidence for the manned space program being "the force that excites people to want to become scientists in the first place"? I am skeptical.

Even if true, there are likely far more cost-effective ways of generating the same interest, either with robots or other educational programs. I don't see why a robotic program can't be inspirational. And anyway we don't have any shortage of scientists right now.

Well this isn't meaningful in any way. But my earliest memory of wanting to be a Engineer was watching the Space Shuttle launch on TV when I was a young lad. Then I went on to destroy our VCR the same day.

I think you're not considering the human condition. I'm not against robots, in fact, I am a huge fan of automation, but I think it's hard to ignore the fact that "astronaut" regularly appears on the top of "when I grow up" achievements. Not a coincidence.

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