Why have manned missions remained confined to Earths low orbit since 1972?
If you have to send a vessel deep into space, you are going to require enormous resources just to manoeuvre your payload. So the kinds of scientific instruments you can put in become significantly limited. On the other hand, near earth missions can be much more intensive in terms of the scientific instruments that can be carried. In fact it is advantageous not to leave the Earth’s orbit because there is a lot of radiation from the sun in the inter-planetary medium which is harmful. The Earth’s protection becomes useful in many of these space missions. That’s why scientists shifted their focus from deep space to near earth space. So then, is human exploration beyond Earth’s orbit worth the huge expenditure and risks it entails? That’s a very seriously debated question. If you go to a scientific conference, you will find 30-40 per cent of the scientists would say no. Robotics has expanded so much that one has to take another look at whether manned missions are required or not. For exampl
