Going Back to the Moon and Mars

An anonymous reader writes "An interesting three-part interview with author Dr. Andrew Chaikin discusses whether humans or machines could best explore the moon or Mars and even whether a crew could get along with each other for three years on an extended mission. His Mars planning draws on Apollo mission transcripts, and he cites mishaps with the Apollo 15 lunar rover almost sliding catastrophically down a mountain, an astronaut argument as to who took the most famous earthrise picture and what after 14 months in space, the Russian record-holder uses to recover his land legs: 'One vodka, one sauna'."

Comments

Re:Humans in space is just PR

[It'sYerMam]

Unfortunately, I reckon 'tis a little early to be setting for other planets.

Think of all the problems we have on this world. Pollution, poverty, terrorism, corporate greed, war, famine... Then think of what the money going into space projects that will likely not provide a great deal of benifit, and how big a dent it could make in world poverty.
We could be using this money to sow crops in third world countries, to re-seed the rainforest and to eliminate AIDS. When compared to these, what, other than PR, is the point in going to mars?
Do you really think that the technology advances will outweigh the fact that we could've solved half of world poverty?

I sure don't.

Re:Humans in space is just PR

[pfdietz]

There's no way the amount NASA gets is going to put a dent in the problem of colonizing Mars, either.