Like his predecessor, Pres. Obama has announced ambitious plans in regards to the exploration of space. As I wrote last summer, I fail to see where any serious attempt at human exploration of Mars, absent other, practical reasons, makes any sense.
Part of the problem with all the talk of human space exploration misses a couple points. While it might be true that humans have always pushed the boundaries of exploration, they did so in the past either to flee various threats (the Huns, Magyars, and other eastern ethnic groups that started settling the eastern Danube basin in the times of the late Roman Empire did so because they were fleeing Mongol and Tartar oppression) or to search for exploitable natural resources (the Portuguese, Spanish, French, and British weren't exactly doing what they did in the 16th and 17th centuries for the good of humanity; they wanted to get rich). We are, slowly, becoming sophisticated enough politically to understand that we cannot flee current threats to human survival on earth, but need to address them politically. While escape certainly might seem an attractive alternative to some should those efforts fail, they still should be a last resort.
As a kid, I remember my older brother - an avid, rabid, science fiction reader - talking about the possibility of mining asteroids, mining other planets. It seems to me if there was money to be made doing that kind of thing, the mining companies and others would either be pressuring the government to get the ball rolling, or designing and building their own, private fleets for doing so. They aren't. Neither the Moon nor Mars (that planet that seems to dominate discussion of human exploration at the moment) have enough mineral wealth that would be exploitable without a serious investment in either terraforming or otherwise making life comfortable enough for those who would do the work.
The natural barriers to human space exploration are multiple. We are, like it or not, bound to earth by biology. The human body barely tolerates the stresses of space flight; zero-gravity leeches bone and muscle mass, and there is as yet no way to counter it. The assaults upon our bodies by unshielded cosmic rays are manifold.
Then, of course, there is the turn-around time involved. Even with improved technology, a trip to Mars takes months. The cost of keeping human beings fit and comfortable for the duration of the trip out and back, it seems to me, outweighs any gain that might come from actually planting our feet on Martia firma.
While I know there is something romantic, dashing, about the prospects of human space travel, I for one just don't see it as a viable policy initiative. Robotic space exploration has been extremely effective and even popular. I say, we should go with our strengths. While every President since the end of the Apollo program has iterated American commitment to human space exploration, the actual investment in it has been minuscule, for a very good reason - it just doesn't make sense.
