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An airplane taking off dumps about as much pollution as the average fuel efficient car dumps in a year of daily driving. And we have planes talking off 24/7 all over the world.
A rocket taking off dumps about as much pollution as an airplane taking off daily does in a year.
For one the best machines we can make aren't that good. The Viking lander sent to discover whether or not there was life on Mars couldn't even find life in Utah during its tests. The rovers sent during the 90s weren't capable of climbing anything more than the gentlest of grades which constrained where they could be sent. Even on Mars a machine has to move slow enough that it won't accidentally get itself destroyed in the 40 or so minutes it takes a signal to go to earth and back.
For two, there's no good reason to send machines. Exploration is inherently dependent on having a living participant. A machine can only gather facts, and it is rather limited in that as discussed above. I support space exploration in service of human colonization, and the only way to learn 100% how a person will interact with a place is to send a person. Even if all you want to do is gather facts a lasting or even temporary human presence will greatly magnify what you can learn because humans can move and react faster, travel further, and explore an area more in depth than any robot we will likely be able to build in the near future.
We should have had robots prospecting the Moon for nearly 10 years.
Sending people to Mars is ridiculous.
psik
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