[X] My Assistant

[Katie]

I was discussing the launch of New Horizons with my younger brother since he likes to complain about the whole "Is Pluto a planet controversy?"

Me: Isn't the fact that we're going to Pluto a great thing?
Him: It's not great until we send a human up there. Nothing counts to me unless people are being sent to other planets. Robotic missions are a waste of time and money.

Now my brother is rather uneducated and misinformed about space exploration as you can see by his statement about robotic missions. When the samples from stardust arrived back to earth, he was unimpressed. When Cassini arrived at Saturn all he could say about the 7 year journey it made to get there was that it was a joke because it was unmanned. Whenever he hears anything about man going back to the moon he goes into a rant about it being a waste of time.

It just makes me sad that he does not see the value in robotic missions but it got me thinking. I asked him if he would willingly spend years of his life on a space craft in the interests of sending manned missions on a grand tour of the solar system. He claimed he would happily do it. But would anyone really?

Even if it was financially possible, travel in space especially to the outer planets would at this point in time take huge chunks of time to get there and back with no guaruntee you would live. Even if there wasn't the ethical consideration of sending someone on a mission to somewhere like Pluto, would there be anyone willing to do it? At this point in time I don't think anyone would. Maybe when space travel is faster but maybe I am wrong and there are people who would risk their lives on a mission to Pluto.