"Let's see where Curiosity can take us," were the words that accompanied the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on the Martian surface (Burch). NASA had docked another robot on the neighbor planet, and although the event created an atmosphere of pride and hope for the future of space exploration, it left a taste of impotence for not touching Martian ground with our own feet. It has been forty-five years since Neil Armstrong last stepped onto extraterrestrial soil, and even though humankind has explored beyond the orbit of the moon via rovers, satellites, and other robots, some still want to see people thrive outside of Earth. Despite opinions about funding, efficiency, and relevance, both the scientific and non-scientific community support and yearn for a future manned mission. Man's dexterity and ability to solve problems, his enormous drive for discovery, adventure and exploration, and his immense power of influence as astronauts on society, present enough reasons to justify the next manned mission to a neighboring planet.
Human potential for critical thinking, freedom of movement, and acuity make people fully adept to accomplish tasks faster and easier than rovers that currently run on Mars. Unlike machines, humans have autonomy to work without being fully controlled by others on a distant planet. Despite being prone to error, man responds quickly to mistakes and to almost any crisis, which includes fixing whatever technological instrument is being used for the task. According to the cosmologist and geologist Lawrence Krauss, also a professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, any of his geologist colleagues could collect and analyze Martian samples in about ten hours compared to the ten days that it takes for a robot to do so. Unlike rovers, people don't need to charge via solar power or fully depend on a command sent from another person back on Earth, making man a better choice for any exploratory mission (SherleyFilms).
