Thousands asked Armstrong, Aldrin et al what was it like actually being there? How did it feel looking back on the Earth? Was it truly prominent in the lunar sky? How did the ground feel and were all those rocks really grey?Undried Plum wrote: ↑Mon Jun 10, 2019 7:03 pmManned space exploration is nuts. Completely unjustifiable.
You can do so much more with unmanned vehicles, either in hydrospace or outer space. Much cheaper; much more effective; much less risky.
Dunno if anyone asked any of the Moon probes the same thing. Don't think they found a 4 billion year old rock neither.
20th July 1969 was a proud day to be a talking monkey. Probably the only day in my lifetime.
Same with the Mars rovers. Don't think we can ask them either. The world didn't pay much attention when they landed on the red planet, but I guarantee it will be rivetted once a bunch of humans set foot on it.
Why? Because we went there. And who knows what benefits they'll find that the Dinky toys didn't? If there is life on Mars men will discover it - not highly sophisticated remote control jeeps.
But yep I suppose if England and Holland had the technology back then, unmanned probes and rovers would've been drone-sailed to that big bloody land mass in the Southern Hemisphere. These vehicles would've discovered it's all a big boring friggin' desert with smatterings of backward darkies so why bother with the expense and risk sending anyone to explore it? Jimmy and Dirk could've put their feet up and simply continued politicking with their respective Admiralties.
It's ingrained in our survival instincts to actually leave our homes and explore. If we cease to travel the Final Frontier I guess water surfing on Titan won't be available as a holiday of choice for my great great great great grandkids then.
I for one would volunteer for a mission to Mars in a heartbeat, preferably assigned to some form of pilotage.