Reply #15: It *is* true re Hubble [View All]

[pmbryant]

... the advances to knowledge by the Hubble simply dwarf what we learned by going to the moon.

This statement is absolutely correct.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been a giant contribution to the knowledge of our place in the Universe and the history of the Universe over the last decade plus.

(The Hubble does far more than take pictures, by the way. Though of course, it is its pretty pictures that get all the publicity.)

Sending humans to the Moon has contributed relatively little to our overall body of scientific knowledge. The Moon, frankly, is not a very interesting place by itself. And even if it were, we can learn just as much, far more cheaply, by sending robots to do the work for us.

Learning how the Solar System formed is a very interesting scientific question, but if that is your main concern, you should prefer to fund telescopes and unmanned scientific probes rather than a ridiculously expensive manned mission.

--Peter