How to Mars ? people / robot debat

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. It doesn't stop there. We
could visit comets and astroids and even send spacecraft out of our solar
system. We could virtually touch every corner of our solar system and for
decades. The scientific payoff and discoveries dwarfs the alternative of a
single mission to a single location of a single planet for just a few
months.

Supporters of manned spaceflight like to argue that the astronaut is more
effective than a robot. Well even if this was true the astonaut would need
to be not twice as effect or ten times or one hundred times but rather a
thousand times as effective to just get the same value as the robot. Lets
concede that the astronaut is twice as effective as the robot. That makes
the robot a better choice by a factor of five hundred times. Would the Mars
pancam image be any better taken my an astronaut ?

The argument for the astronauts also claims that a human is needed in the
loop. That argument misses the point that with robots humans are in the
loop. Just look at JPL. They have hundreds of the worlds best researchers.
They are directly in the loop orchestrating the rovers activities. This is
called telepresence. Those researches are virtually on Mars. Also note how
JPL claims the rover cameras have 20/20 vision. This telepresence technology
is also on trial in the operating rooms of hospitals. Doctors are performing
surgery telerobotically from upto thousands of miles away from the patients.
The plain fact is that people are in the loop big time with the robots.

Now remember, I concede that the astronauts would be more effect than the
robots but the problem is that they would be marginally more effective for a
disproportionate cost to the tune of five hundred times less scientific
returns.

The manned mission supporters realize this lack of value so they cite the
spin off technologies that benefit mankind. This is a very hollow argument.
If you really value, for instance, the medical devices that emerge then it
is silly to not pursue them in a direct targeted way rather than spending
all your money visiting the moon and hoping that this will trickle down to
an improved pace maker. Furthermore much if not all of the spin of
technologies will inevitablly emerge on their own good timetable.

Please, lets touch and visit every corner of our solar system and for
decades rather than a single mission to a single location of a single planet
for a single moment in time.

Dan

In article , Dan DeConinck wrote:

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

Except that isn't the cost of one manned mission to Mars. The cost of
one manned mission to Mars is likely in the $40B ballpark, with
subsequent missions being in the $4B range.

(Arbitrary moment - I doubled the Mars Direct reference figure. It's a
little less than, I believe, the Mars Reference Mission sits at... but
it's probably in the right order of magnitude)

Now remember, I concede that the astronauts would be more effect than the
robots but the problem is that they would be marginally more effective for a
disproportionate cost to the tune of five hundred times less scientific
returns.

Let's assume, hmm, three manned landings; call it $50bn. Will three
manned landings beat the science return of a hundred probes? Probably
not. Will they provide significantly different scientific return? Almost
certainly. We'll get, at a conservative guess, fifteen hundred man-hours
of surface work, actual field geology [1]; over a hundred and seventy
thousand man-hours of data on partial-g environments, on working and
living in them. It's quite hard to do that with what is, essentially, a
teleoperated poking stick.

Going to Mars many not be the smartest use of the manned-exploration
budget, and getting NASA to do it is - at best - another level of
inefficiency [2]. But it's not completely worthless, and there are good
reasons for it, good things that will be done.

[1] assumption - 600 day nominal stay, 2 crew each day doing 4hr/day
surface work - 4800 hrs/mission. The .3-g duration is 4 crew, 4-hr, 600
days. Three missions? It's unlikely to be cancelled *too* quick :-)

[2] At worst, it's a criminal waste of the US taxpayers money. YMMV.

--
-Andrew Gray

Supporters of manned spaceflight like to argue that the astronaut is more
effective than a robot. Well even if this was true the astonaut would need
to be not twice as effect or ten times or one hundred times but rather a
thousand times as effective to just get the same value as the robot. Lets
concede that the astronaut is twice as effective as the robot. That makes
the robot a better choice by a factor of five hundred times. Would the
Mars
pancam image be any better taken my an astronaut ?

If you consider that the entire distance driven by both Lunkhod's and Mars
Pathfinder
was less than the shortest LRV traversal on Apollo 15, and that the total
volume of samples returned by the successful Soviet Lunar return mission
probes had a mass about equal to the Apollo 11 contingency sample, then I
would imagine that an astronaut is much more than two times as effective as
a robot. Maybe 100 times, for the right sort of mission. (Field geology.)

If you consider that the entire distance driven by both Lunkhod's and Mars
Pathfinder
was less than the shortest LRV traversal on Apollo 15, and that the total
volume of samples returned by the successful Soviet Lunar return mission
probes had a mass about equal to the Apollo 11 contingency sample, then I
would imagine that an astronaut is much more than two times as effective as
a robot. Maybe 100 times, for the right sort of mission. (Field geology.)

If the robotic mission had 1/4 of the apollo budget it could of done much much
more....

"Hallerb" wrote in message
...
If the robotic mission had 1/4 of the apollo budget it could of done much
much
more....

And if it had 4 times "of" the apollo budget it could "of" done much much
more.

And if it had 4 times "of" the apollo budget it could "of" done much much
more.

Sott my grammar helper