Is a manned Mars flight worth canceling Hubble and other non-manned programs?

[Angels_Flight]

It seems to me the only excuse for manned missions has been the national pride angle. And since nobody else is in a space race to a manned Mars expedition, we ought to go back to deciding what to fund based on the science questions it will answer, rather than the feel-good value of proclaiming the project.

[Squink]

Deficit Puts Bush’s Plan For Space in Jeopardy

A large deficit in NASA’s troubled shuttle program threatens to seriously delay and possibly cripple President Bush’s space exploration initiative unless the number of planned flights is cut virtually in half or the White House agrees to add billions of dollars to the human spaceflight budget.

Sources familiar with ongoing negotiations between NASA and the White House say the administration has no intention of spending extra money to deal with a shortfall that some space experts say could exceed $6 billion from 2006 to 2010, when NASA plans to retire the shuttle for good.

[Malodorous]

I don’t think there’s too much debate on the fact that as far as gain in scientific knowledge per dollar spent, unmanned probes are the way to go.

Of course many feel that there’s an intrinsic value to sending humans up to plant flags and leave footprints on Martian turf, as well as the national pride thing mentioned by the OP. Being intrinsic, though, these doen’t lend itself well to a factual debate, since people value that sort of thing differently. Some people think that’s worth a hundred billion, some think there are better uses for that cash. Personally I feel that the pay off of the Hubble, Pathfinder and are far greater then that which would be gained by a second set of moon landings.

The other factor to weigh is what Squink brought up, that without the Soviets breathing down our necks the American gov’t is unlikely to have the attention span for the sustained spending of billions of dollars over a long period of time to chase a goal that has no obvious immediate economic or strategic pay off. This would be sort of a worst case scenario which I fear is far from unlikely if we choose to pursue manned space flight at the expense of unmanned: unmanned research is cut to free money for research into manned spaceflight, which spins its weels for a decade or so, sucking up money and having it’s budget and mission fiddled with by congress every year or so until it’s finally given up on.

[SentientMeat]

@Angels'Flight

It seems to me the only excuse for manned missions has been the national pride angle. And since nobody else is in a space race to a manned Mars expedition, we ought to go back to deciding what to fund based on the science questions it will answer, rather than the feel-good value of proclaiming the project.

I agree wholeheartedly.

[Rune]

@Angels'Flight

It seems to me the only excuse for manned missions has been the national pride angle. And since nobody else is in a space race to a manned Mars expedition, we ought to go back to deciding what to fund based on the science questions it will answer, rather than the feel-good value of proclaiming the project.

I suppose it depends on what you think the goal of the space program is. If it’s only about scientific knowledge and nothing else, then unmanned probes will perhaps give you more for your bucks. Personally I think a space program has other and more important aspects too, which can not be handled by unmanned space probes.

There’s also the question if the public in the long run will support an expensive space programs with nothing on its mind, but intangible, and very academic, scientific goals. So if you focus entirely on space probes, you might well not end up with nothing.