01-16-2004, 05:07 PM
To encourage inovation and research in areas that are being neglected.
Any time you make yourself a big goal and have to build for it you push research and creativity ahead more than if you build goals to match your technology.
To simply find out data about Mars - yes its cheaper to send robots. But My feeling is that reasearch needed to allow the manned mission will be more valuable than anything we learn about Mars.
That said Im not overly impressed with the idea - and living on the moon seems kind of pointless.
Any time you make yourself a big goal and have to build for it you push research and creativity ahead more than if you build goals to match your technology.
To simply find out data about Mars - yes its cheaper to send robots. But My feeling is that reasearch needed to allow the manned mission will be more valuable than anything we learn about Mars.
That said Im not overly impressed with the idea - and living on the moon seems kind of pointless.