No. You need to be able to present your research without being slaughtered for it. When it comes to opinion, scientists have the same rights and are subject to the same criticisms as anybody else.

Heaps.

Cricket, for instance, is dominated by white guys in Australia and England. On the other hand, India, Pakistan and the West Indies have very strong teams - why? Because cricket favours places where kids can play the game in the street. Genetics don't enter into it.

Another example: Aussie Rules versus Rugby. Aussie Rules has a disproportionate number of Aboriginal players, whereas Rugby (in Australia/NZ) is dominated by Maoris and Islanders (Samoans, Vanuatans etc). Are Aboriginals genetically pre-disposed toward Aussie Rules, or is it actually because they grow up playing and loving Aussies Rules (Whereas Samoans grow up loving and playing rugby)?

I take it from you lack of response that you cannot think of anything?

Here is what you wrote: Deep sea drilling even has divers that go underwater for weeks at a time for critical repairs... doing things that are enormously expensive and even approaching costs for sending astronauts into space. I've highlighted the section that caught my eye. How much does going underwater cost? I couldn't find any figures related to the costs of divers going underwater to repair deep sea drilling rigs. I did uncover the cost of James Camerons DeepSea challenge (http://deepseanews.com/2012/04/shouldnt-we-be-more-skeptical-of-the-deepchallenger-dive/) which works out around 5 million dollars. I'm sure you would agree that 5 million dollars a person would not get you to LEO, let alone beyond LEO (which, thanks to the necessary delta V) starts at a floor 10x that of LEO.

In short, I was being generous.

You don't get to decide.

Building a steam train in the age of bullet trains is not entirely a boast worthy exercise.

I question your beliefs so must somehow have beliefs of my own? YOU said: Presuming that there is something worth doing in space at all, you need eventually to put a crew there.

We have been trying to uncover the reasons behind that assertion ever since.

No, your point was: Presuming that there is something worth doing in space at all, you need eventually to put a crew there.

Describe SPECIFICALLY what it is that humans can do better than robots in the vacuum of space : And I don't mean meaningless tripe, I mean practical tasks to do with the point of going into space: to explore. Show how the need to perform this task justifies the extra expense associated.

There aren't any coal mines in space. On earth, it makes economic sense to use humans to repair robots because, you know, breathing. In space, we would use a robot to perform the repair. Or, just send another probe if the first broke down. No biggy.

So you base your argument on a set of criteria confined to low earth orbit, as if humans in low earth orbit are exploring.

Demonstrate this need using objective criteria.

I'm not interested in you opinion any more than a child's christmas list to santa - unless you can tie that opinion to a hitching post in the world of objectivity.

You said that manned exploration is superior to robotic exploration. This flies in the faces of what we observe in the real world - where robots perform amazing feats and bring great increase to our storehouse of knowledge about the bizarre and beautiful world outside our atmosphere. It flies in the face of logic - what would a fleshy, air breathing body and it's associated bacterial load bring to a cruise to the Oort cloud? You apparently can't tell us.

An opinion that can't be justified in objective terms would be best described as a belief - would you agree? That your opinion that manned space exploration is superior to robotic exploration is in fact a belief?

But once again - noticeably vague about the exact circumstance in which human levels of intelligence (hampered by the limited human body) would provide a noticeably better result than the types of AI that are currently available. Perhaps if you were to describe a specific circumstance in which a typical space probe - say Mars Orbiter, or Cassini, or Rosetta, would maneuver better if ta human was onboard flying it. Taking into account orbital mechanics, momentum and the like.

It seems to me that if these people are the experts and their knowledge of the state of robotic tech is current, that this view should be able to be articulated in detail, rather than referred to in generalities. Can you enlighten us?

We should go to Europa and Titan and Triton and Pluto and Neptune and the Kuiper belt becase they are interesting. We've been to Mars, nothing much happening. We should send robots because they are far more capable and do a far better job than humans do. Sending humans is like sending monkeys or voles or siamangs. Sure, animals are cute and fluffy. But the interesting part is the destination, not the cargo. Why should we continue to hinder science because a vanishingly small number of people cling to some dusty notion about humans in space? We don't spend billions of dollars on medieval re-enactments, or steam train, or gas street lights - better, cheaper technologies have replaced them. Same with manned space flight.

Then by your own criteria, manned spaceflight serves no purpose. We will never have sufficient lift capacity to move significant numbers of people - and if we developed that technology (i.e. an engine with sufficient power to fuel wieght ratio) we would be sufficiently advanced that overpopulation ceases to be an issue.

So it is said - without proof. The point of investigations is to get the outcomes of those investigations back to earth since information stored locally on a hard drive (be it actual hardware or wetware) is useless.

Some people claim (without proof) that human levels of intelligence are required locally for a mission to be successful. The problem is that premise, which needs to be proven before we worry about how long it will take to invent AI.

What were those arguments in detail? Do the arguments generalise beyond Mars (noting that Mars is the most boring place in the solar system)? I'm disinclined to bow because the pope of outer space made a pronouncement.

Apparently he wasn't inspiring enough 40 years ago, otherwise the program he was involved in wouldn't have been cancelled.

No they don't.

What makes you think that?

You've engaged in fallacy. Nobody cares about your feelings. If you can post proof of your numerous assertions, then post it, otherwise your assertions remain in the realm of paranoid delusion. e.g:

So essentially you are saying that in fact, the situation could be MUCH WORSE than what is predicted by current models. And this would motivate us to not take action on climate change why?

Well, you'll never know unless you or one of your buddies actually post some proof, some day.

Apologies.

In my defence I've actually had people use that argument in all seriousness. Satire becomes reality.

I'm using fairly standard criteria - said criteria being based your ability to provide verifiable proof of your assertions. What did you think? That mere rhetoric would convince us?

Thanks. I'm familiar with the geographical location of antarctica during the cretaceous. You will of course be aware that climate conditions in the southern hemisphere below the mid temperate region is mostly driven by the strength of winds circulating around antarctica, but also that this was not the case during the cretaceous because antarctica was not surrounded by open sea at the time. So your remarks are alluding to climatic conditions that we will not see again unless you push another continent into antarctica and disrupt that pattern. Again, what is your plan to do so?

Also please address the rest of my post.

Perhaps you don't. Ignorance on your part doesn't imply the rest of us are ignorant. In any way.