We return to our Mankind’s Destiny in Space debate origins by collecting responses to this question:

Do you think its important that human beings venture out into space? What does space as a frontier mean to you?

Do you think it likely that the first discovery of extraterrestrial life will be made by a rover?

MT: I’m not properly qualified to answer this question but I will anyways: Yes. There at least I kept my uninformed opinion short.

That Mars vs. Moon debate isn’t new. I’m partial to the Moon myself, partly out of sheer practicality and partial out of temperment. There’s something very appealing to me about a human presence on the moon.

I kick the week off with a short exchange with technology writer Paul Gilster author of Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration on the subject of spaceflight.

Lest you think we’ve forgotten that we blog about speculative fiction as well as speculative politics I bring you an interview with science fiction author Adam Roberts. I asked him a few questions about his latest novel Gradisil and his writing in general.

Just in case anyone suspected that we took this blog too seriously I’m running a whimsical Brain Parade featuring bloggers. Today’s question is:

We give you a coupon redeemable for any spacecraft depicted in a science fiction story (insurance not included). Which ship do you trade it in for and what do you do with it?

If you had the power to resurrect a space program that was cancelled or never got off the ground which one would you choose?

Donald’s answer, included below, floored me and has made me rethink my position on manned vs. unmanned spaceflight:

If you had the power to ressurect a space program that was cancelled or never got off the ground which one would you choose?

My own answer is a bit sheepish and boring. All the space science missions that are currently being rolled back to pay for cost overruns in the manned space program.

It now seems most likely that the red rain particles were algal spores, according to a 2001 paper comissioned by the Indian government a local aerial alga

One of the most interesting treatments I’ve seen regarding extraterrestrial original of genetic and organic material was Fred Hoyle’s 1983 book “The Intelligent Universe.” He draws some intriguing correlations between weather conditions and sudden epidemics of “mutated” microbe strains, and has much to say about bacteria-like structures found in meteorites, that orthodox science (at that time anyway) tended to ignore.

Red rain may be the menstrual flow of the Hindu goddesss of smallpox, who’s had very little to do lately. She enjoys flying over the state of Kerala because of its ancient matriarchal tradition. Prior to the British Raj, land passed matrilineally in Kerala. This was a good idea, because women in pre-Raj Kerala could take many lovers.

Able to pick out objects on the surface the size of a dinner table, in about six months the MRO should start beaming back high resolution images and other data. Thank god they got it right this time considering the 1999 Mars climate orbiter smacked straight into the ground after a mix up over whether they were using metric or imperial measurements when sending course corrections and the Mars polar lander fell silent as it attempted to land in the same year.

curiously the hottest spot on Enceladus is its south pole. This is something of a mystery. Poles as you would expect, usually tend to be the coldest places on a body. Eggheads are being scratched as to what’s generating this heat. And to top it all off Cassini has also detected organic compounds.

I imagine a lot of you have already checked out NASA’s excellent Astronomy Picture of the Day website. If not I’d reccomend remedying that now. Now there’s a fictional version, it’s called Terranova: Planet of the Day.

To round off Jose’s debate with Charlie about whether or not we should be pursuing manned or unmanned expeditions in space I wanted to consider the incentives driving the push outward.

The timing could not have been worse. While the United States suffered repeated pounding by hurricanes, on 19th September 2005 NASA Administrator Dr. Michael Griffin announced the details of President Bush’s plan to return human explorers to Earth’s moon and go on to Mars.

Thanks for the red rain link! Sounds to me that something cooked the contents of the cell-like bodies. It would be fun to see if “disassembled” DNA building blocks and bits and pieces of other cellular denizens could be scraped off the insides of the “cells.”

The last twenty years of spaceflight have been a mix of wonder and frustration. Manned spaceflight, once an inspiring force for all mankind in the heady days of Apollo, has been taken over by white elephants like the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.

Human history has, to a large extent, been the story of our expansion into new environments, and our adaptation of and to those environments. Human expansion, technological change and social change all go hand in hand, driving and drawing momentum from each other.