"Dan DeConinck" wrote in message
...
Hello,

The cost of one manned mission to Mars ($400.00 B ) is equivalent to a
thousand robotic missions.( $0.40 B) We could put dozens of scientific
satellites in ordit around not only all our solar system's planets but
also
all their major moons. In addition we could send dozens of landers to all
latitudes of all planets and their major moons.

snip

It would be a good argument if it was at all correct. NASA is aiming for a
MARS mission development cost of no more than $25Billion, with each new
vehicle costing no more than one to two billion to build and launch.
As the CEV will have already been developed there will be at least some
reduction in this estimate. Also, lunar landing systems would have some
major hardware commonality with mars systems, thus reducing costs there. By
bundling all development costs for all missions into a Human Exploration
Initiative we will not find ourselves re-inventing the wheel time and again.

Plus Humans won't take two weeks to step off the lander. We would have fully
characterised the nearby surrounds by now, perhaps even taken a close look
at the hills on the horizon.

Robots are useful, but they cannot do what humans do.

Besides, the goal is space settlement - to go there and live. A robot colony
is absurd on its own.

Nathan