Shuttle disaster revives debate on merits of manned flight

February 5, 2003 | Source: Wall Street Journal

The Columbia crash likely will accelerate the move toward more unmanned space exploration. “Any specific mission you can identify to do in space, you can design and build an unmanned space craft to do it more effectively, more economically and more safely,” said Alex Roland, a professor of history at Duke University and for eight years a historian at NASA.