Anyone else remember Billy Blastoff?

@LeopoldBloom Yes, it was, think i was about 6 or 7, was right around the time of the first Moon landing which i was and still am fascinated by. Mom didn't have a lot of money so Billy Blastoff it was and I absolutely loved it!

@spjennifer I remember how exciting the moon landings were, although I don't remember the first one. Since then, I've become a lot more skeptical about the value of manned space travel. The Space Shuttle turned out to be a complete waste at best, and a disaster at worst. We've learned a lot more from space telescopes like Hubble and probes like New Horizons. I think we should be putting our resources into more of those. I am completely opposed to a moon colony and to sending anyone to Mars. If we want to visit those places, we should send robots.

@LeopoldBloom I won't disagree as to the pointlessness of going to the Moon or Mars now, we've been to the Moon and done that. As someone who actually built parts of the ISS, I do believe in that mission though as much is being learned from it, albeit at a huge cost. I'd also agree that robots while less capable than a human are a lot less risky and they can still perform many tasks.

@spjennifer It's bang for the buck. Were there any experiments performed on the ISS that couldn't have been done by remote-controlled equipment?

@LeopoldBloom tbh, I have no idea, I know there are experiments conducted constantly and have been for years but whether they could be conducted by robots or remotely controlled equipment, perhaps some of them but I'm not qualified to say which ones or if any or all? I do know that the fact the thing is up there is a step towards space exploration by Man and I don't think that's a bad thing because we sure as heck aren't doing so well down here right now.