Landing humans places doesn't do much to inspire science spending either. Congress lost interest in manned spaceflight after Apollo 11 landed. The public at lar

Landing humans places doesn't do much to inspire science spending either. Congress lost interest in manned spaceflight after Apollo 11 landed. The public at large lost interest until the drama around Apollo 13 and then lost it again after they landed successfully. In the eyes of Congress the Space Shuttle was a multi-state jobs program and the public at large mostly ignored it unless some astronauts died. I'm not against manned spaceflight at all but I think it's important to recognize it is very expensive per quanta of scientific data. In a world where money for pure science can be hard to come by it's often better to get more science bang for your space bucks.