Episode 5: The great space debate

One thing you don't mention is the possibility of contamination of planets by the life brought along by human astronauts. We sterilise all the spacecraft that visit Mars very carefully to avoid contaminating it with Earth life. You can't do that with humans. It's also very necessary, extremophiles can almost certainly survive on the surface of Mars, and bacterial spores, which can be carried by the Mars winds, can survive for hundreds of thousands of years, some even for millions of years - and easily spread to any habitable regions of Mars including underground caves.

Mars particularly may have life already. It's like Australia and Europe (say) the life may be related but any exchange of micro-organisms through meterorites was probably millions of years ago. We don't want to contaminate it with current life-forms at our current level of knowledge about the planet. Also there's the risk of micro-organisms we inadvertently introduce to Mars evolving rapidly as they spread over the planet - possibly in ways harmful for future explorers or ways that make future terraforming of Mars hard to do.

For these reasons, I take an intermediate position myself - Until we know much more, keep human exploration for now to regions of the solar system that are inhospitable to any Earth life we take with us. So, that could include the moon, and asteroids. Humans could visit Mars but only as astronauts in orbit, controlling robots on the surface through telepresence. I write this as an enthusiast for space exploration who would love for there to be more exploration of the space by humans - but just don't feel at this time that it is wise or safe to go to places where Earth life can flourish.

Robots everywhere until we develop the warp engine.

I wonder how things would have worked out if the monarchs of old had explained to their brave explorers that we don't have the technology nor the funds to push the 'human endeavor' towards the unknown. Instead we will throw bottles with notes and experiments into the oceans and await their return to increase our collective scientific knowledge.

I understand all of the constraints to manned exploration. But all too often we seperate the human element from scientific discovery and the thrill to have pushed brave souls beyond the envelope and returned them safely is never experienced. If it isn't worth the risk, and there are brave men and women ready to accept that risk, then the science gained is just academic. That isn't meant to limit the importance of all the marvelous discoveries, but it is too easy forget the importance of the human element in exploring and discovery.

Thank you

This was a very interesting debate and a very interesting video. My heart votes for manned missions, but my head (and my taxpaying pocketbook) votes for robotic missions.

I would prefer un-manned means as our primary method of space exploration - or at least, at our level of technology.
In terms of effort and cost, probes will allow us to explore much faster and more efficiently, in contrast to sending manned missions, though there is nothing stopping us from doing other manned missions simultaneously (but only limited by cost and effort).
Yes, Humans do need to eventually "move homes" as our Earth will eventually get swallowed up by the expanding red giant of our Sun at the final stages of it's life [as a star], so it can also be (obviously) imperative we perfect human spaceflight before such event.

In my opinion, we shouldn't "go for gold" [perfection of spaceflight] too soon. At this point, effort for manned missions [from what I believe] costs just too much to consider over un-manned, considering how much more efficient it is. We may as well be concentrating on our knowledge for the meanwhile until our technology allows manned missions to be efficient enough to consider as our primary mode of exploration.

If effort and cost are negligible, human spaceflight all the way.

It was a noticable 1-sided debate at the end, but most of the first half
was enjoyable.
Am looking forward to future debates/discussions.

Humans in near earth orbit, robots everywhere else.

Great debate; specially the failures at the final. Congratulations.