It is certainly true that robots like the Mars Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity have shown that a lot of scientific information about a planet’s surface can be gathered by sending robots instead of people. As well, it can be done significantly cheaper. But imagine that you wanted to go to Paris. Would you be satisfied with a robot… taking very good pictures of the Eiffel Tower and chemically sampling the French food? As humans, we are really going into space because of the fundamental human drive to explore and to understand. It’s an intrinsically human thing. It is part of the human experience in the broadest sense and science is just one piece of that experience. Learning about the universe is only part of the equation; learning how the astronauts who participate in this exploration change and evolve is of equal importance. However, before humans can embark on such a voyage, it is necessary to revisit the current concepts of life support systems on board space vehicles.