From IAN CRAWFORD
I was disappointed to see your negative editorial on the subject of
the human exploration of Mars (Comment, 22 June). The debate on the relative
merits of human and robotic missions to the planets is an important one,
and it deserves more than the superficial treatment that you chose to give
it. Like you, I have little time for nationalistic arguments for space exploration,
but I would like to respond to two of your other criticisms. First you imply
that there is something wrong with the aerospace industry having a vested
interest in the proposal. It must be borne in mind, however, that the other
great vested interest of the aerospace industry is the making and selling
of high-technology weapons. It is highly desirable, for both social and
economic reasons, that these companies find something else to do, and an
ambitious space programme would be an excellent alternative. It is worth
noting that the estimated cost of the Mars mission, $500 billion spread
over several decades, is only half of what the world spends on weapons every
year.
Secondly, you imply that the educational argument for space exploration
is specious because the money could be spent directly on improving educational
facilities here on Earth. However, no one has ever suggested that space
should be funded at the expense of education, and it must be true that education
would benefit from any project that gets young (and old) minds excited about
scientific and technological issues. Schoolchildren are interested in space,
but those of us who visit schools to talk about it have to rely on slides
of the Apollo project in order to show human beings standing on another
world. Do we really want to teach today’s children that the high point of
space exploration was reached before they were born, and that they won’t
live to see anything comparable?
Ian Crawford University College London
