On Feb 1, 11:47*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
"Fevric J. Glandules" wrote:





Rick Jones wrote:

I want to see boots on Martian ground in my lifetime (boots with human
feet in them, with the rest of the human there in a suit as well...)

+1

but I am curious about how much it costs to put a rover on Mars for
weeks versus a human geologist for a day. *Lets say it takes three
weeks to do with a rover what a human geologist could do in a day. *Is
getting a human geologist to Mars (and I presume back again) more or
less than 21X the cost of a rover mission?

The same question that came to *my* mind.

Viking cost about a billion 1970s dollars - adjusted, that's more
than Curiosity [1], I believe.

Apollo ran to ~24 billion 1969 dollars.

Surveyor cost half a billion.

So manned:moon seems to be about 20/30 times more expensive than
unmanned:mars. *I'd guess that manned:mars would be an order of
magnitude more expensive than unmanned:mars.

Put it this way: for the cost of a manned Mars mission, you could
put a *lot* of rovers up there.

[1] Other data:
Spirit & Opportunity cost about a billion USD.
Curiosity about 2.8 billion.

The number you pulled out of your ass for the difference in
productivity between a man on the scene and a remote rover is WAY too
low.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
*territory."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * --G. Behn

well humans must eat sleep, bathe, care for themselves, have
recreation, and all the other things that must be done on a personal
level...... plus they will have to do maintence and repairs of their
suits, habitat, and everything else to stay alive.......

what the number of productive science hours per ISS resident? I have
never seen a published number just that its low, because of al the
must do chores....

now compare that with rovers, that can run 24 / 7 given operators to
supervise from earth.....

with a proper nuke power pack they can work day and nite, and theres
no concern of humans contaminating mars, sterlize everything before
shipment......

the best part of this? the artificial intelligence of robots can be
advanced a lot, useful for back on earth.

soon the US will be again competive in manufacturing by using robotics
to assemble products, eventually entire plants with few workers,
mostly maintence people to care for equiptement.

the days of Whipple Manufacturing are nearly here........