The following opinion was provided in a letter to the editor of a national aeronautics magazine:“Manned space flight is costly and dangerous. Moreover, the recent success of a series of unmanned space probes and satellites has demonstrated that a great de

In the past century, Man has set foot outside mother earth and carried out explorations on Moon and even on Mars. NASA and other space research organizations have been consistently sending shuttles and satellites to space to discover new forays of information and enable technological progress. There has been a constant debate on whether these space shuttles should be manned or unmanned.

The crash of space shuttle Columbia sparked a new debate against the sending of manned shuttles to space. Apart from the monetary losses that occurred due to the crash, several precious lives were lost. All the astronauts travelling in the shuttle died and that resulted in a severe loss of intellectual manpower. While this was one of the very few incidents that have taken place which resulted in the loss of lives, several unmanned shuttles have been damaged during or after take-off.

There is also an unprecedented amount of money that has to be spent for sending manned shuttles. The astronauts have to be trained for the expedition. They have to get accustomed to the spatial zero gravity environment which involves preparing zero gravity capsules on earth. Also, the time which astronauts spend in getting trained for the trip is highly valuable and can be used for carrying out other significant research.

There is a team of 2-10 people who are always present in the International Space Station in space and they sacrifice their time and resources for carrying out research. The International Space Station has also drawn a huge amount of investment and critics have been opposing such permanent positioning of astronauts in the space. In this technological age, we can abate the manpower required in space by employing specifically designed robots instead of sending astronauts. That will reduce the risk involved in sending manned shuttles to space.

There is also another side of the coin. Space experiments in which presence of a human element is quintessential for carrying out certain experiments won't be possible if we start investing our resources in unmanned space flight. The robotic technology hasn't been developed enough to exactly imitate human emotions and intelligence. Thus, we may be lacking in significant scientific research which require compulsory human intervention.

On similar lines, the concept of space travel will be eliminated if we don't allow manned space explorations. SpaceX, which is a company started by Elon Musk to promote space travel has planned to send humans to space for entertainment purposes. The human race will lose another adventure experience and the whole space travel industry would suffer if manned space travel is banned. The common man would not be able to dream of going to space for recreational purposes. Though, this would be a secondary issue when compared to the more significant research disadvantage that the proposal presents.

Thus, in conclusion, Man should develop technological prowess in manufacturing high-end robots. This robots, if capable of carrying out scientific research as efficiently as human beings, could be considered for replacing humans on space expeditions.