stella nix

in discussions about spaceflight, human spaceflight and science are often treated as two distinct and mutually exclusive things, which is a fair assumption to make when the two are managed as separate directorates at NASA. robotic science missions are (or at least, were, until the current administration) selected based on the priorities and recommendations of the wider scientific community, while human spaceflight has been governed by the priorities of presidential administrations. this state of affairs has largely come to be viewed as inevitable, that human missions are inherently costly geopolitical stunts while robotic missions are better for science, to the point that many people ask why we bother to send humans to space at all when we can just have robots do the science

but the fact is, humans in space can do incredible things for science when science is prioritized! in the apollo program, after the symbolic goal of landing humans on the moon was achieved and public and political interest drifted away from NASA, apollo 15, 16, and 17 landed on the moon in missions that were, for the most part, purely scientific. astronauts spent days on the moon at landing sites selected for their scientific potential, deploying instruments, collecting samples, and conducting geological fieldwork. decades later we're still discovering new things about the moon thanks to the work done by those astronauts, they were hugely productive in terms of science. the hubble space telescope has had its lifetime and scientific output greatly improved thanks to the space shuttle missions that maintained and upgraded it, and the international space station has hosted countless experiments and instruments addressing questions across many different fields. it's true that human missions are expensive, but a well-managed human mission can have a high enough scientific output to be cost-effective even compared to robotic missions

the critics of human spaceflight are right about one thing, though: sending astronauts to achieve symbolic political stunts is a massive waste. the fact that robotic missions are designed around scientific priorities means that they build upon each other in a natural way. answering one question leads to follow-up questions, demanding follow-up missions, and the need to deepen our understanding leads to new technologies building upon previous missions to enable new science. meanwhile, in human spaceflight, entire infrastructures costing tens (or hundreds) of billions of dollars can be thrown away if the new president wants something else

twilight on mars over the hills of nili planum just outside jezero crater, as seen by the perseverance rover after sunset on sol 1907. dust suspended in the atmosphere scatters reddish light, giving the planet its warm-toned skies, leaving the light near the sun on the horizon a pale blue as its red light has been scattered away on its longer path through the atmosphere. some of the subtle brightness variations in this image might be from the very thin, high-altitude clouds that are common on mars