From Neil Seymour
Why the obsession with astronauts (13 February, p 8)?
NASA’s main achievements have been launching, repairing and upgrading satellites such as the Hubble Space Telescope and sending probes to the far reaches of the solar system.
It is true that the Apollo missions told us much about the moon, but this was mainly a cold-war exercise in one-upmanship, with scientific knowledge as a spin-off.
The two Mars rovers and the Mars orbiter have achieved far more than any crewed expedition could have dreamed of. Probes to Jupiter, Saturn and beyond have revealed more than any astronaut could, without the problems of keeping people alive in space for years.
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NASA has a bright future in front of it without sending people to the moon, Mars, an asteroid or indeed any other solar system object. What, apart from razzmatazz and an almost bottomless budget deficit, would such crewed missions accomplish?
Sending ever-smarter probes into space is the sensible approach and will gain us the greatest insights.
Poole, Dorset, UK
