Robots and Rationality
Why humans are still critical to the exploration of the solar system, and likely always will be.
I’ve recently participated in an online discussion about the relative merits of humans and robots for space exploration. This debate also edges into the discussion of the question of whether or not it is rational for humans to settle the solar system, so I thought it would be useful to talk about both issues here, and how they are related.
There is a common view, held both by laypeople who are skeptical of human space exploration and by some scientists, that robots are just far more cost effective, and humans have no role. A 2012 paper by Ian Crawford that has been circulated recently among space advocates challenges this view. By metrics such as distance traveled, mass of samples returned, and subsequent scientific publications, he shows that the Apollo missions have considerably outperformed robotic missions for planetary exploration, relative to cost.
I tend to agree with this argument. I would recommend reading the paper, but here is an illustrative example of my own working in term…
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