On Feb 1, 12:58*am, "Matt Wiser" wrote:
"Jeff Findley" wrote in message

...



In article 347a9744-0a01-4b2f-99de-d7f5859908c8
@k6g2000yqf.googlegroups.com, says...

Now imagine 20 of them crawling all over mars...... at about 9 years
old its a excellent tested design.. land some in more rugged areas....
modify the design a bit to pick up interesting finds and take them to
a retrieval lander, to send them back to earth.

Your "I have a dream for toasters on Mars" is getting very, very old.

isnt it amazing what a toaster can do heck soon they will be able to
remote control refuel satellites

I spent 10 days on the trail at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico a
year and a half ago as a member of a group of 8 Boy Scouts (youth) and 3
adult leaders. *Hiking amounted to about 4 to 5 hours each day, leaving
the rest of the day to "explore". *In those 10 days, we hiked about 75
miles carrying 50 pound backpacks on our backs, which is more than three
times the distance traveled by Opportunity. *In other words, we were
hiking three times the distance in a *day* what Opportunity was driving
in a *year*.

Now imagine the distance that a manned Mars mission could cover if
instead of walking, the astronauts traveled in a pressurized rover,
equipped with an airlock and suits for EVA's. *Sound familiar? *It
should. *NASA is looking closely at just such an architecture for manned
surface operations.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

Jeff, the bobbert, in his enthuasism for rovers, continously ignores the
fact that each rover is hand-made, and that things like booster avability,
range issues, and launch manifests, get in the way of his pipe dream. Not to
mention his hostility towars any kind of human spaceflight. He's not quite
the lunatic the guthlessball is, but he's at least good for some laughs.

rovers need not be made in small numbers, economy of scale could
produce a hundred, and falcon versions send them on their way for a
fraction of the cost of the original spirit and opportunity..

future versions of these robust rovers could collect samples, placing
them in central locations for travel back to earth..

while it might be nice to send astronauts there are problems.

humans will contaminate mars, we cant afford it, travel times are fr
too long untill a nuke rocket is built, radiation of deep space is a
big issue. theres probably a million problems sending astronauts that
arent a issue for robotic missions....

and so what if the rovers are slow? we can replace them when they
break and length of exploration really doesnt matter.....