Do we need manned space flights?

Space flights are not economically viable

Question: Do we need manned space flights?
Position‹2 of 3›: No the complexity of space flights is too high
Argument1 of 2›: Space flights are not economically viable

It is difficult to think of a economic return with respect to drone expedition

The argument

The viability of large-scale space exploration is currently expected to rest on an economic return: the programme is supposed to pay for itself, and the routes proposed for doing so are importing mineral resources from another planet or implementing factories there to take advantage of the resources in place. Both are plausible in principle. The question is whether either can be made to work as an investment. The difficulty is the gap between outlay and return. Establishing extraction or manufacturing beyond Earth means building the whole chain before any part of it produces anything: the launch capability, the transport, the equipment to operate in conditions nothing on Earth is designed for, and the means of bringing material back or using it where it is. The investment required to initiate a mechanism of that kind is enormous and front-loaded, and the revenue, if it comes, comes much later. Whether it would arrive within any reasonable amount of time is doubtful, and an investment whose payback lies beyond the horizon over which anyone can plan is not one that can be justified. The second doubt is about what a crew adds. If the economic case is marginal even in principle, it becomes harder still once the cost of putting people there is included — life support, safety margins, return capability, and the mass penalty all of it carries. And it is not clear that the operations in question require a crew at all: extraction and processing are the kind of work a fully drone mission might be built to do, at a fraction of the cost and risk. That is the force of the objection for manned flight in particular. Proponents of this position argue that the economics do not support the enterprise, and that whatever part of it might eventually pay for itself is the part that does not need people aboard. The complexity and expense of putting humans into space is not justified by any return it can be expected to produce.

Context

To attract huge investments to fund manned missions it is necessary to provide an economic return

Premises

[P1]Making space exploration viable depends on an economic return, through importing minerals or building factories to exploit planetary resources. [P2] It is doubtful the huge investments required to start such operations would yield a return in reasonable time. [P3] It is also doubtful this could even be achieved with a fully unmanned, drone mission. [C] Therefore, because space flights are not economically viable, the complexity of manned space flights is too high to be worth it.

Counter-arguments

Return on space expedition can not only need to be monetary, but can be scientific advances that can fall-out also on everyday life A classical example is the topic of climate changes. So far the only full model we have is the Earth itself. Studying planets like Mars or Venus could provide other references

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise assumes the case for spaceflight rests on commercial return, which is not how these programmes are justified: their stated purposes are scientific, and returns of that kind — instrumentation, materials, Earth observation, climate models built by comparison with other planets — appear in no resource-import ledger. [Rejecting P2] Doubt is not an argument. No figures, timescales or cost of capital are offered, so the premise asserts that the investment would not repay without showing it. [Rejecting P3] This point tells against the position rather than for it: if the tasks could be done by drone, that is a reason to prefer unmanned missions, not evidence that crewed flight is too complex to be worth attempting.