You're being downvoted unfairly, because the fact of the matter is that the only science being done in orbit that fundamentally requires humans is research into the effects of microgravity on the human body.
But we know it's bad, and we know the fix: Just simulate gravity by spinning the spacecraft like in 2001: A Space Odyssey, or in Interstellar. Easy.
There's this... thing... with NASA that you can recognise once you see it, because you will see it, over and over: Once they find something that the government is willing to fund, they will never stop researching that thing, because to "solve" the problem is to turn the funding tap off.
My favourite example of this phenomenom is water and/or life on Mars. There's been a ludicrous volume of press releases (like clockwork!) about possible life (or water) on Mars. However, notably, not a single mission to Mars has ever included any instrument that could definitively disprove that there is life or water on Mars. To do so would be an instant off-switch for billions in funding, so "oops" these instruments are always omitted.
Send a microscope! A frigging microscope! One! They're not that big or heavy!
Nope, can't do it. That would be the end, you see? Got to keep sending magnetometers, microphones, cameras, stereo cameras, all sorts of things. Just not anything that would accidentally prove that there's nothing to find.
Of course, this entire conversation is off-topic because the topic is not the merit of funding human spaceflight, but the merit of a president suddenly threatening a specific company with losing their federal contracts for criticizing the president.
But we know it's bad, and we know the fix: Just simulate gravity by spinning the spacecraft like in 2001: A Space Odyssey, or in Interstellar. Easy.
There's this... thing... with NASA that you can recognise once you see it, because you will see it, over and over: Once they find something that the government is willing to fund, they will never stop researching that thing, because to "solve" the problem is to turn the funding tap off.
My favourite example of this phenomenom is water and/or life on Mars. There's been a ludicrous volume of press releases (like clockwork!) about possible life (or water) on Mars. However, notably, not a single mission to Mars has ever included any instrument that could definitively disprove that there is life or water on Mars. To do so would be an instant off-switch for billions in funding, so "oops" these instruments are always omitted.
Send a microscope! A frigging microscope! One! They're not that big or heavy!
Nope, can't do it. That would be the end, you see? Got to keep sending magnetometers, microphones, cameras, stereo cameras, all sorts of things. Just not anything that would accidentally prove that there's nothing to find.