Space Exploration

This week's poll on the Hood River Weather site asks what our space exploration priorities should be, given the budget realities.

My opinion? For the immediate future, we should be focusing on the much less expensive option of using unmanned spacecraft to explore the planets, asteroids, and comets. The return on investment in science and exploration that unmanned missions provide is way more than that of manned missions.

In the very long run, if we are to survive as a species, we will eventually need to colonize further out from the Sun, to Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Our Sun, being a type G star, will become warmer at a rate that will make life on Earth impossible after another 300 million years or so.

We have plenty of time. In order to not repeat the Apollo program's short life, it would be better to have robotic missions build permanent bases on Mars and beyond before we send humans there. That way, we can go there to stay, not just do a few missions like Apollo and then quit.