10 years ago the consensus--scientists, engineers, etc--was that self-driving cars would be ubiquitous or on the cusp of ubiquity today. That same common but woefully mistaken wisdom is also behind the preference for remote space exploration and exploitation.
We clearly have issues with underestimating the complexity of these engineering problems and overestimating the pace of technological progress. I'd also argue, albeit more contentiously, that we systematically underestimate the utility of a physical human presence at exploration sites, and the cognitive dissonance of our biases cause us to scale back our ambitions so we don't have to admit to the limitations of the remote-controlled approach.
Exclusively committing to remote-controlled exploration also avoids the thorny issues around deliberately putting explorers into harms way or even actual harm. I think Musk understands, knowingly or at least intuitively, that the debate is basically impossible to have; our culture isn't equipped for it. Necessity will drive us toward human space exploration. Safety will be to some extent needlessly neglected, and then there'll be vigorous finger pointing and "I told you so"s after the fact--after the sacrifices have been made and after the benefits have been secured for all. Basically the same pattern will play out as with any other area where prohibition or abstention is the official choice despite its patent unviability.
Engineering difficulty is often put forward as a limiting factor. But actually I think history suggests that with enough resources we can accomplish things. And in fact it is possible for a project to have astonishingly brilliant engineering and still be disappointing in terms of wider impact (see the space shuttle).
The limiting factor is much more mundane. Getting humans to collaborate selflessly on complex projects is difficult. Effective communication in large groups is a massive unsolved problem. That is what holds us back, not engineering complexity. Perhaps the true genius of SpaceX is using Mars to bring people together. Something the bean counters at Boeing never thought of!
> 10 years ago the consensus--scientists, engineers, etc-
This is only true if you were sampling the people trying to build them (which is mostly what the popular press did). Really there wasn't anything like consensus, but there was a lot of optimism.
We clearly have issues with underestimating the complexity of these engineering problems and overestimating the pace of technological progress. I'd also argue, albeit more contentiously, that we systematically underestimate the utility of a physical human presence at exploration sites, and the cognitive dissonance of our biases cause us to scale back our ambitions so we don't have to admit to the limitations of the remote-controlled approach.
Exclusively committing to remote-controlled exploration also avoids the thorny issues around deliberately putting explorers into harms way or even actual harm. I think Musk understands, knowingly or at least intuitively, that the debate is basically impossible to have; our culture isn't equipped for it. Necessity will drive us toward human space exploration. Safety will be to some extent needlessly neglected, and then there'll be vigorous finger pointing and "I told you so"s after the fact--after the sacrifices have been made and after the benefits have been secured for all. Basically the same pattern will play out as with any other area where prohibition or abstention is the official choice despite its patent unviability.