Commission Suggests UK Should End Astronaut Ban

An anonymous reader writes "According to the BBC a British scientific panel has recommended that the British Government should end its ban on human space flight. The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) Commission pursued a 9-month investigation into 'The Scientific Case for Human Space Flight'. Professor Frank Close, Chair of the Commission, said, 'We commenced this study without preconceived views and with no formal connection to planetary exploration. Our personal backgrounds made us lean towards an initial skepticism on the scientific value of human involvement in such research.' The commission concluded that 'profound scientific questions relating to the history of the solar system and the existence of life beyond Earth can best - perhaps only - be achieved by human exploration on the Moon or Mars, supported by appropriate automated systems.'"

Comments

Solving Real Problems

[Dekortage]

My gosh...
if we only knew the origins of the Solar System...
if we could walk on the surface of Mars...
if we had the answers to "many of the questions we want to ask about the origin of the Solar System and the evolution of life within it" (from the article)...

THEN maybe we would be able to eradicate poverty, achieve universal primary education, promote human equality, improve maternal health and child mortality rates, eradicate malaria and much much more!!! Yeah! Someone said $100 billion? Sounds good to me!