Should Man or Machine Go to Space?

Feb. 7 -- In this week's Cybershake, experts debate if future space exploration efforts should be conducted with humans or robots. Plus, Web sites try to offer parents assistance in finding financial aid for college tuition.

Should We Stay or Should We Go?

At the memorial service for the Columbia astronauts, President Bush promised that humans will once again explore space. "America's space program will go on," he said.

But there are those who feel that kind of thinking is foolish. Among them, former NASA historian professor Alex Roland and now a professor of history at Duke University in Durham, N.C.

"Anything you can identify to do in space you can do more efficiently, more effectively and more safely with machines," says Roland. "When you put humans on a spacecraft, you limit its capabilities to do exploration and research because the primary function of the space craft then becomes getting the humans back alive, not conducting the mission."

Former astronauts, though, don't agree.

"Robotic missions can only do certain things," says Mae Jemison, one of the first astronauts selected after the 1986 Challenger explosion. "They can only do things that you've already thought of, in terms of possibilities. Humans have the ability to be much more flexible, where you can change the possible experiments that are done."

And like other proponents of manned space exploration, Jemison says putting robots in space wouldn't give us the complete picture of the new frontier either.

"To say that humans don't need to go somewhere would be to say that we can send a robot to Hawaii and have the same experience, the same evaluation as having sent a human explorer there," she says.

Besides, humans need to be in space, she says.

"There is a drive for us to explore," she says. "And to set that aside, I think, is not in the best interest of the advancement of mankind, of humanity."

Even some critics such as Roland believe that humans have a place among the stars — but only if it's there is true scientific worth to do so.