Manned spaceflight at what price?

Hola Kari:

Hope the weather clears up and cools down for you soon!

Though I'm a few years older then you, I can't say I actually "remember" Apollo 11 or Apollo 13. It is one of the phenomena of living in the television era that I'm not certain whether I saw those pictures as it happened or in a documentry later. Given my age during those events, I may well have seen the coverage but I probably don't actually remember it.

I got up before sunrise West Coast time to see the first shuttle launches and I completely relate to your anticipation of various unmanned missions to the planets you mention in your last posting. That post provides a number of possible discussion threads and I'm sitting here thinking which one shall I use to provoke some clamor.

In light of the recently released report on the Columbia accident (Yahoo news special coverage), the question has to be asked: how much life and treasure is manned space flight worth?

You are now President Kari (we will ignore the fact that Constitutionally you are still too young to be President) and the budget team and the science advisor is in your office. The question on the table: shall we continue manned space flight? What should it look like if we do?

Be well,
Rene