The Spirit of Discovery

In a speech at NASA headquarters on January 14, 2004, President Bush laid out a new vision for America’s manned space program. The three articles in this collection analyze President Bush’s plan and examine the larger question of whether humans should go into space at all. Adam Keiper discusses the details of the proposal and looks at the objections that have been raised so far. Dr. Robert Park, a leading critic of manned missions in space, argues in favor of sending telerobots instead of humans. Dr. Robert Zubrin explains why the president’s plan is needed, and why humans should head to Mars. These essays are based on remarks delivered at the Ethics and Public Policy Center on February 5, 2004.