So what do we actually plan to learn from Pluto?

Nine years, billions of miles, and billions of dollars, later, what have we got? Another frozen wasteland in the back of beyond. One more useless lump of slag and ice with nothing worthwhile for anyone, and a place we will probably never visit again.

Hey, don’t get me wrong, I was an astronomy major, and a close look at another member of the solar family is a real thrill for me. For planetary scientists and geologists the place is yet another laboratory to suggest new theories and test old ones. In general, it further illustrates the incredible variety of the solar system; all the bodies we have visited so far are unique, totally different. No two are the same and the Pluto system is only the nearest member of an infinite horde of Kuiper Belt objects circling the Sun out in the cold and dark. Even with what little we know about them, they all appear to be different–sometimes startlingly so. This fact alone will suggest clues as to how the solar system was formed, and how other planetary systems in general might arise. There are doubtless scientific rewards to be harvested there, and we might even learn something that someday will yield practical benefits. It’s certainly wonderful for those of us with a personal curiosity or a professional interest in these things.

But in another, equally valid, way they are all perfectly identical. Like probably every other world in the solar system but Earth, they are all staggeringly remote wastelands devoid of life or accessible commercial resources; bathed in deadly cosmic radiation and suffering from unimaginable temperature extremes, either airless or cloaked in toxic atmospheres. Whatever practical, or even scientific, value they might have surely cannot justify the colossal commitment of resources to briefly visit them with our robotic probes. And unless we get extrememly fortunate and find something we cannot even guess at now, actually sending men there at our current technological level there seems utterly pointless. The fact remains, even if the most valuable commodities on Earth where heaped up neatly on shipping crates on even the nearest of these bodies, it would still cost too much to go there and get them. There is nothing of commercial value there, only scientific knowledge makes them worthy of a visit. And how much can we learn from yet another methane iceberg or nickle-iron rubble pile? Geologists might have a ball playing there, but its unlikely any new laws of physics will turn up. We’re more likely to find a way around the FTL barrier by studying the spectra and radio emissions of remote galaxies than by bringing back samples from the asteroid belt or drilling into the frozen brines of Europa.

Colonization? A place to retreat to when Earth becomes hostile for us? Nonsense. Cleaning up our planet and keeping it habitable is a lot easier than living in tin cans in orbit, or terraforming Mars or Venus. Colonizing the ocean bottom or Antarctica would be easier and cheaper. Only interstellar travel makes sense in this regard, and regardless, most of humankind won’t earn a berth on those ships, even if they are ever possible to build. And if we have the technology to build habitats in space to flee from impacts, then surely we can use that same technology to divert the impactors.

Oh sure, we might get lucky. I’ve fantasized here before about stumbling across ancient alien artifacts, or non-terrestrial microbes in a handful of distant soil. But do a cost/benefit analysis on that for me. I’ve always supported space exploration because of my own personal interest, and because at one time I had professional ambitions about participating in that effort. I believe I have the background and qualifications to see the value of such explorations, at least as far as I’m concerned. And at one time I really was enthusiastic about the benefits of exploration for its own sake–it’s what makes us human, etcetera (I know you’ve heard the old familiar arguments a thousand times over). But I’m finding it harder and harder to justify the quest for exploration when every place we visit starts looking fundamentally the same as the last. Space travel voyeurism and fantasizing is my hobby for sure, but not everyone else may be willing to pay for it.