> Don't discount the value of unmanned missions. Canned primates are easy to relate to, but there's a lot we can accomplish with sensor suites.

The main thing sensor suites can't do, though, and which manned missions are (were, would be) an ongoing proof of concept of, is colonizing space. If we don't want mankind to perish with this ball of mud in just a few billion years (at the very most), we gotta get out there. We, not just our "sensors".