And an unmanned probe in lunar orbit had photographed the whole planet in low-resolution black-and-white in 1966.

Unmanned probes can be dispatched farther and faster than astronauts, and no one dies when they fail.

Instead, it costs $450 million (283 million) a launch (excluding the $1.7 billion to build each shuttle) that some would prefer was used for unmanned probes.

Unquestionably, it soaked up tens of billions of dollars that could have funded better science with unmanned probes and deeper human forays into the cosmos using cheaper, old-fashioned rockets.

There are updates on the dizzying amount of unmanned probes careering around the solar system.