SpaceBanter.com - View Single Post - Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?

**Jeff Findley**

In article ,
says...

tphile wrote:

We should have more robots, probes and sattelites for exploring. They
are cheaper and we can make and send more of them.

True.

and can do all the work necessary without
the risks and costs that a manned mission can do.

False. The buy in cost for manned missions is higher per mission, but
the cost effectiveness of humans is still higher than robotic
missions.

As evidence for this, compare how far the unmanned Mars rovers have
traveled in the several years they've been on Mars to the distance
traveled by the manned lunar rovers, which did all of their traveling in
a matter of hours.

You can also compare the reach and power of the robotic arm (the simple
ones which took samples using a grinder) to that of a human in a
spacesuit with the appropriate hand tools for obtaining samples.

Tele-operated robotics on Mars is nowhere near the speed, power, reach,
and efficiency of a human in a spacesuit. Not even close.

Jeff
--
"Had Constellation actually been focused on building an Earth-Moon
transportation system, it might have survived. The decision to have it
first build a costly and superfluous Earth-to-orbit transportation
system (Ares I) was a fatal mistake.", Henry Spencer 1/2/2011