Why send humans to Mars?
In the end, it is difficult to say who “won” or “lost” the debate. Most people attending the debate already likely had strong opinions one way or another regarding human space exploration, and were not swayed by the arguments of Park and Zubrin. It’s tempting to conclude that Zubrin presented the better argument, but that is based on the bias of many people in the room—this author included—towards human spaceflight. The debate, though, revealed a larger issue: the lack of a coherent, persuasive rationale for human exploration of Mars, or human space exploration in general. Much of the focus of the debate was on the scientific reasons for sending, or not sending, humans to Mars. Yet, in the long run, science will play only a limited role as the basis for human exploration. While Zubrin correctly criticizes the capabilities of robots, they do provide some significant degree of scientific return for a fraction of the cost—and risk—of sending humans. It seems unlikely that the American tax
