Financial Times (December 24)
“The triumph and tragedy of space flight, manned and unmanned, have been on full view over the past year.” Funding both types of space exploration is essential, as each provides benefits. “Space exploration is a worthy activity for our modern industrial civilisation. It is the ‘manifest destiny’ of humanity to move beyond Earth.”
Tags: Benefits, Civilisation, Earth, Exploration, Funding, Humanity, Industrial, Manifest destiny, Manned, Space, Tragedy, Triumph, Unmanned
Washington Post (April 23)
“Budget realities require a modest approach to human space exploration and not an Apollo-style moonshot.” NASA needs to adopt a more practical approach. “Rather than attempting to send people to Mars on the cheap, there’s a compelling argument that we could accomplish more with a less expensive strategy of unmanned exploration.”
Financial Times (December 28)
Manned space flight may be most appealing, but “since the Apollo programme ended 40 years ago unmanned exploration has provided almost all of our extraterrestrial excitement – at a far lower cost than crewed flights.” Beyond 2020, however, there are few plans for unpmanned exploration. “More ambitious proposals are needed….At the very least, Nasa should be planning to visit the giant planets – Jupiter, Saturn and their fascinating moons – to follow on from the successful Galileo and Cassini missions.”
