Two years ago, I resigned from the scientist‐astronaut program primarily because of NASA's indifference to science in its manned space efforts. Since… - Brian O'Leary

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Two years ago, I resigned from the scientist‐astronaut program primarily because of NASA's indifference to science in its manned space efforts. Since then an impressive array of scientists associated with the Apollo program have also resigned for similar reasons. They include the chief scientist, the director of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, the principal investigator of Apollo lunar surface geology, the curator of the lunar samples, and another scientist-astronaut.<p>It seems utterly incredible that so many well-respected scientists could resign at a time one would suppose to be their finest hour - the return of the first rocks and detailed pictures from the lunar surface. Eugene Shoemaker, now the chairman of Caltech's Division of Geological Sciences, quit his Apollo work “out of deep concern for the direction of the nation's space goal.” He described Apollo as a “poor system for exploring the moon… The same job could have been done with unmanned systems at one-fifth the cost three or four years ago.”<p> […] In these times of conflicting, uncertain goals both inside and outside NASA, I think the unmanned planetary program provides a good example of what can be done. The Mariner 6 and 7 flyby missions gave us remarkable pictures and valuable scientific information, yet each cost less than 15 percent of the price of sending two test pilots to the moon.<p>In the future, probes will be sent to the Martian surface and to the other planets; these relatively inexpensive projects should go far in satisfying our most fundamental reason for going into space: to understand nature and ourselves better by exploring the universe.