prolific1 said:
Interplanetary, and perhaps more ambitiously, interstellar exploration is better served by robotic missions until such time that we have the fantastic sort of technology described in Star Trek and the like - and I'm not holding my breath on that.
I'm not holding my breath either, which is why I disagree that we should wait. Something like Charles Pellegrino's Valkyrie, or a Ram-Augmented Interstellar Rocket*, would theoretically be able to achieve speeds where time dilation becomes a significant factor. So significant, in fact, that the travel times to stars within 10 light years, as experienced by the crew, would be reduced to little more than, say, Charles Darwin spent on board the Beagle. Another argument for human crews on a starship is signal lag. Send a probe to Proxima Centauri, and if it runs into any kind of problem that its AI can't handle, it'll have to wait 4,5 years for its "What should I do?" to reach Earth, and anoother 4,5 years for the reply to arrive. So: Per Ardua ad Astra, and all that
Regards & all,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
*) Assuming, of course, that these can be made to work. It won't be easy. It might not even be possible. But I think a Bussard Ramjet or a Valkyrie is a damn sight more possible than Starship Enterprise or the Millennium Falcon.
PS: And how come these discussions always seem to polarize into either-or? Of course, if they didn't, there wouldn't be much of a discussion....but seriously, can't we just get along, and agree that for some missions, robots are better, and for others, humans? And for some, of not most (in my opinion), a combination?