Louis Friedman Says Humans Will Never Venture Beyond Mars (scientificamerican.com)

MarkWhittington writes: Dr. Louis Friedman, one of the co-founders of the Planetary Society, is coming out with a new book, "Human Spaceflight: From Mars to the Stars," an excerpt of which was published in Scientific America. Friedman revives and revises a version of the humans vs. robots controversy that has roiled through aerospace circles for decades. Unlike previous advocates of restricting space travel to robots, such as Robert Park and the late James Van Allen, Friedman admits that humans are going to Mars to settle. But there, human space travel will end. Only robots will ever venture further.

Comments

Re:Heinlein quote.

[taiwanjohn]

Freeman Dyson gave an interesting talk a couple of years ago, speculating about the next few centuries of exploration and settlement. He envisions colonies in the Kuiper Belt in a couple hundred years, but not much beyond Mars for the next 50 or so. And he anticipates an "island hopping" model of interstellar expansion, similar to the Polynesian settlement of the Pacific. Anyway, it's an interesting talk. (34 min)