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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

That's groovy, I can dig it.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Hey, landing humans on the Moon, with half-baked PR-speak phrases on their lips, is boring.

Sending clever machinery to Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus is clever, especially when you do it with planet-boost energy to supplement your inadequate fuel tanks.

But don't worry about the aliens wanting to eat Earth proteins.
Do aliens prefer left-handed Mozzarella?
It's highly improbable that their genetic code looks anything like ours, or that their amino-acids (if that's what they use) even match ours in right- or left- handedness.

Welcome to BAUT, Albert the Skeptic!

__________________
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Welcome, Albert!

I totally disagree with you on the manned vs. robot issue, by the way. Yes, it's clever, and yes, machines are great, but there's nothing like a real person stepping on a new world for the first time to inspire us. Remember, the whole rest of the Universe that isn't Earth, is Outer Space. I'd hate to think we'll spend our entire future single-planet-bound, it's a very depressing thought.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I would argue that it's at least somewhat pointless and wasteful to put probes on other worlds if we have no intention of ever leaving the nest ourselves.

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[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around

The moon landings might have been boring to you, but not to me. I recently watched a DVD with detailed Apollo 11 footage, and I still found it amazing, wonderful, and exciting. It brought back memories of when I saw it the first time.

Clever, and a great way to scout out the territory for the time when we get out there ourselves.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Agreed, and if I thought we were certain to just sit here on Earth and, eventually, inevitably, die off without ever getting out there ourselves, I'd find all those images of other worlds far too painful to watch.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I agree. I found a vintage book from '73 showing the Mariner images. Even though I'm used to HiRISE images and all that they entail, just to think that this was the first view of these features is amazing!

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

If both our existence AND our first steps into outer space were really boring ET,
that would probably mean our galaxy is absolutely teeming with life.

Wouldn't that be cool?!!