"kT" wrote in message
...
Matt Wiser wrote:

Not just that. Steve Squires, the PI on Spirit and Opportunity, has been on
record advocating Human exploration of Mars. A Human geologist in a rover
could do in days or weeks what took the two rovers years to accomplish.


No one disputes that. The minor little problem with that logic is
simply it'll take forty years or so to get men there. And cost a hundred
times as much. By then the various rovers will have saturated us with all
the data we could ever need or want. Certainly saturated the public
with Mars pics by then.

Are you able to grasp these two obvious trends.

As technology increases, robots close the gap with humans.
And robots mean discoveries are made far sooner and
far cheaper.

And for Steve to publicly endorse the current NASA policy
isn't exactly surprising. Criticizing policy is something a NASA
manager does as he's handing in his resignation, if at all.




He's
been on record several times in various news media (LA Times, NY Times-or
Twits,depending on one's POV, Washington Post, etc.) in advocating Human
Missions-there's a limit to what rovers can do.

That's some heavy duty, artificially sweetened, artificially flavored koolaide
you be drinking there mate.

"Damien Valentine" wrote in message
...
On Sep 10, 12:02 am, "Matt Wiser" wrote:

Only one way to find out, and that's to get there.

Are you sure? I should think that, if you wanted to find out whether
Martian sands are rounder than Lunar regolith, all you'd have to do is
send a sufficient sample back to Earth. No need for a crewed system
to do that, as it seems you're suggesting.