No need for human forays into space

It looks like mankind won’t be going back to the moon … on schedule, at least. According to a recent report by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s inspector general, astronaut suits have been delayed by two years due to an array of technical, funding, and COVIDrelated challenges.

The American people might have reasonably assumed that developing spacesuits is not a problem for NASA. After all, the water cooled, nonflammable Apollo-era suits seemed to pose little problem for pioneers such as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. But recent problems with current spacesuit design first started to surface in 2017 when the IG reported, “despite spending nearly $200 million on extravehicular spacesuit development over the previous 9-year period, the Agency remained years away from having a flightready spacesuit to use on exploration missions.”

Since that report, NASA spent an additional $220 million on developing a new spacesuit. And total spending will wind up costing the agency more than $1 billion.

According to the IG, the nextgeneration suits will, “feature a new design to accommodate a broader range of sizes and improve fit, comfort and mobility,” a response to complaints that existing spacesuits don’t fit all body types. It’s frankly unclear why NASA cares so much about increasing the fit and flexibility of their suits.

Even if NASA has better reasons for designing a new suit, the process would be less expensive if they relied on outside contracting. SpaceX has offered its services, and chances are a privately-designed spacesuit wouldn’t cost $1 billion.

Cost considerations aside, the focus on spacesuit design neglects the bigger picture. Perhaps

it’s time for policymakers to question the wisdom of human exploration missions. Despite bipartisan hype, manned missions to outer space are notoriously overrated. Robotic missions are a far more cost-effective way of discovering the skies above. Cambridge Cosmology and astrophysics professor and astronomer royal Martin Rees rightly points out that, “the practical case (for human spaceflight) gets weaker and weaker with every advance in robotics and miniaturization.”

Regardless of which spacesuits astronauts don in the future, it is time to rethink the Earthly obsession with sending humans to explore other worlds. Naked robots are far better at extraterrestrial endeavors than bundled-up astronauts.