| > Sure, but there is nothing on Mars. We have no reason to colonize places that lack even the basic resources necessary for life, or some precious resources that are scarce on Earth You don't know what Mars can offer. Not without extensive exploration that can only be done effectively with human presence. We still don't fully understand Earth. Human once couldn't survive on the desert. We might still not if we never explored it in the first place. Technologies or knowledge we take for granted today may never exist either. The same will happen with Mars. I don't know what the future hold thousands years from now. We may have terraformed it, human body may have adapted to Mars environment, or we may have found it indeed not suitable. We'll however have permanent presence on Mars, and we'll make major leap in science and technologies thanks to Mars exploration. > I'm not sure what the article was supposed to show, is spectroscopy a technology invented as part of the space program? You wondered the role of space exploration in the future of humanity. I reckon that our future lies in the advance of science. Spectroscopy would be much less developed without its application in astronomy. > Teh most valuable results of the space programs have been communications satellites and things like the hubble space telescope - which has done far more for scientific space exploration than the entire Apollo program, as have the Voyager probes, Mars rover etc. I'm not sure what points you're trying to make it here? some programs have more short term return than others? We are doing both, right? not only that, investment for something like communication satellite dwarf that for outer space programs. |