The End Of Astronauts

Why Robots Are the Future of Exploration

Donald Goldsmith and Martin Rees, 2022, Bvt Lib 629.4

• Donald Goldsmith (1943), author of astronomy books

• Martin Rees (1942), UK Astronomer Royal, [[ https://www.cser.ac.uk/ | Centre for the Study of Existential Risk ]]

This book claims that astronauts are not necessary for the scientific exploration of the solar system. Perhaps this is true if astronauts are programmed as robots, and are not expected to make creative contributions in situations that require iterative hand-eye feedback, or must not be interrupted by solar conjunctions. So the real question is, are astronauts contributors and thinkers, or are they ornery robots?

• p8 astrophysicist David Spergel, "our history as humans has shown that first we screw things up, and then we make some things right"
• p18 "No Buck Rogers, no bucks" - reference to 1984 congressional testimony.

ref. 5.17 Ben Lindberg, Please Sterilize Your Spacecraft

• p102 worries about escape of dust and debris from asteroid mining.
• p103 "Do we have the right to do whatever we choose with the products of 4.6 billion years of cosmic evolution?"

  • do we have the right to confabulate hyperbolic questions when making time- and reality-constrained questions?