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#11
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
On 1/20/2011 12:32 AM, Matt Wiser wrote:
That's indeed correct, Derek. Steve has made that comment on more than one occasion. What took Spirit and Opportunity years to do could be done by Humans in weeks. And will be done. In time. where robots go, people inevitably follow-Ranger, Surveyor, Lunar Orbiter, then Apollo. It'll happen with Mars. After lunar return, which a successor administration (hopefully in 2013) will put back on NASA's official agenda. Your basing your rule on a single example...the Moon. I'm waiting for the manned flights to Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. ;-) Pat |
#12
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
On 1/20/11 5:58 AM, Jochem Huhmann wrote:
(Derek Lyons) writes: "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. wrote: When those eyes can pick up a rock, break it open with an appropriate tool, run requisite tests on it, run over the next hill to check something at a speed somewhat faster than a drugged snail, notice something about the rock based on its heft or other details not easily gotten over a remote, time-lagged link, and the billion other things that a human being can do without even pausing to wonder how they did it, yes, you might have a point. ISTR, about a year into their mission(s), Steven Squires (head honcho of the rover program) being quoted as saying that a human geologist could do what either rover had done in a year - in thirty days. Which means that this geologist would have to be there for 5 months to do what Opportunity or Spirit did. And transporting him and everything he needs there (including fuel for getting him back) would mean that would need some orders of magnitude more mass and money. Looks like a bad deal to me. Manufacture the fuel and air and live off local water while there. Zubrin and others have covered this pretty well. There's some problems they gloss over, but a lot of what's needed isn't even particularly cutting-edge tech. You do need to send a nuclear reactor with them for the power to do that, but that's not difficult; modern designs are pretty much foolproof, very tough, and vastly smaller than the old days. This makes the necessary mass vastly, vastly smaller than that needed for many other missions where you don't have the materials to hand. Mars has CO2 and H2O, which combined give you a lot of things. All you need is energy and the right equipment. Or to turn that around: Look at a one-way robotic mission that gets the same mass to Mars as a manned mission needs. Then compare which mission can do more. You could spray hundreds or thousands of rovers over Mars for the same mass that a small crew needs just to stumble around in the dust near their lander for three months and then return. Your last line shows your prejudice. "Stumble around the dust". A small crew is so vastly superior to the rovers that it's not even funny. Just as one example, if the rover spots something interesting with its cameras X distance away, mission control has to hold a significant debate about sending the rover there, and if it diverts the rover any significant distance, you're going to wait a LONG time for it to get there. A human will spot the same thing, jog over, and take a look and decide if it was worth it in an afternoon. -- Sea Wasp /^\ ;;; Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog: http://seawasp.livejournal.com |
#13
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
On 1/20/2011 2:29 AM, Derek Lyons wrote:
The problem to date hasn't been various administrations putting or not putting Bold Goals onto NASA's official agenda - it's been the utter lack of any actual follow up (funding, political support) to said Bold Goals. Well, we went to the Moon and did the other thing (the Vietnam War)...and we looked the Moon over...and found out it was boring, lifeless, very expensive to go to, and very hostile to human life. None of that will have changed if we go back there. Mars is a slight improvement on the Moon, but a lot more difficult and expensive to get to and come back from. You want to see further manned exploration of the Moon, or manned flights to Mars, figure out a way for someone outside of the aerospace companies building the spacecraft to go there to make a buck off of it. Pat |
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
On 1/20/2011 2:58 AM, Jochem Huhmann wrote:
Or to turn that around: Look at a one-way robotic mission that gets the same mass to Mars as a manned mission needs. Then compare which mission can do more. You could spray hundreds or thousands of rovers over Mars for the same mass that a small crew needs just to stumble around in the dust near their lander for three months and then return. And the nice thing is, you don't have to worry about getting the rovers back either; in fact, the longer they stay, the better. I always thought we should have built more MER's, considering how well Spirit and Opportunity did and the low cost of the whole program. Pat |
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
On Jan 20, 7:13*am, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
wrote: On 1/20/11 5:58 AM, Jochem Huhmann wrote: (Derek Lyons) writes: "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. *wrote: When those eyes can pick up a rock, break it open with an appropriate tool, run requisite tests on it, run over the next hill to check something at a speed somewhat faster than a drugged snail, notice something about the rock based on its heft or other details not easily gotten over a remote, time-lagged link, and the billion other things that a human being can do without even pausing to wonder how they did it, yes, you might have a point. ISTR, about a year into their mission(s), Steven Squires (head honcho of the rover program) being quoted as saying that a human geologist could do what either rover had done in a year - in thirty days. Which means that this geologist would have to be there for 5 months to do what Opportunity or Spirit did. And transporting him and everything he needs there (including fuel for getting him back) would mean that would need some orders of magnitude more mass and money. Looks like a bad deal to me. * * * * Manufacture the fuel and air and live off local water while there. Zubrin and others have covered this pretty well. There's some problems they gloss over, but a lot of what's needed isn't even particularly cutting-edge tech. * * * * You do need to send a nuclear reactor with them for the power to do that, but that's not difficult; modern designs are pretty much foolproof, very tough, and vastly smaller than the old days. * * * * This makes the necessary mass vastly, vastly smaller than that needed for many other missions where you don't have the materials to hand. Mars has CO2 and H2O, which combined give you a lot of things. All you need is energy and the right equipment. Or to turn that around: Look at a one-way robotic mission that gets the same mass to Mars as a manned mission needs. Then compare which mission can do more. You could spray hundreds or thousands of rovers over Mars for the same mass that a small crew needs just to stumble around in the dust near their lander for three months and then return. * * * * Your last line shows your prejudice. "Stumble around the dust". A small crew is so vastly superior to the rovers that it's not even funny. Just as one example, if the rover spots something interesting with its cameras X distance away, mission control has to hold a significant debate about sending the rover there, and if it diverts the rover any significant distance, you're going to wait a LONG time for it to get there. A human will spot the same thing, jog over, and take a look and decide if it was worth it in an afternoon. -- * * * * * * * * * * * Sea Wasp * * * * * * * * * * * * /^\ * * * * * * * * * * * * ;;; * * Website:http://www.grandcentralarena.com*Blo...vejournal.com- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Add ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE, to the rover operations, and watch productity soar... AI R&D for space exploration can have so many uses on earth. and spirit and opportunity should of been produced by a hundred and sent to mars. Only nasa would design and build something so good, to only abandon it: ( FACE FACTS WE DONT HAVE THE MONEY TO SEND PEOPLE TO MARS, or even back to the moon Our country is in decline and broke. NO ADMINSTRATION can propose sell design build send and get results before they president has served his 2 terms. its not going to happen...... better to do something affordable that explores, might have some scientific payoff, doesnt risk human life, remember the chilling after effects of apollo 13? now imagine 5% of a few hundred rovers being controlled by students on earth. That might just get support for a manned mission. The student says today I noticed this wierd rock had the rover go back and take a look how cool, all the way on moon, or mars |
#16
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
Pat Flannery writes:
On 1/20/2011 2:58 AM, Jochem Huhmann wrote: Or to turn that around: Look at a one-way robotic mission that gets the same mass to Mars as a manned mission needs. Then compare which mission can do more. You could spray hundreds or thousands of rovers over Mars for the same mass that a small crew needs just to stumble around in the dust near their lander for three months and then return. And the nice thing is, you don't have to worry about getting the rovers back either; in fact, the longer they stay, the better. Yes, and this is one reason why robotic missions are so much more mass-efficient: Instead of carrying lots of fuel, food etc. for the return leg they can carry actual payload. And of course some bare human hands and feet are rather useless anyway, so even with a manned mission you'll need rovers, instruments, labs and other equipment. The crew and its needs mainly impose a drastic mass penalty. I think manned missions to Mars have a huge romantic appeal (and I'm all for them), but if what you're really after is hard scientific data they're rather pointless. And I also think that as long as most people propagating manned missions secretly think of the "romantic" part and just pretend to have "hard" arguments for manned missions nothing ever will come out of that. Either say "I want manned missions because we CAN go there and therefore we should" or shut up and go for rovers and probes... I always thought we should have built more MER's, considering how well Spirit and Opportunity did and the low cost of the whole program. I think one problem is that the landing methods of these things are only good for a very small part of Mars. You need low elevations with (somewhat) thicker atmosphere to get them down with parachutes only. And of course you need enough sun, so that a landing in Valles Marineris (which would make an interesting target) is probably a bad idea. You surely get a denser atmosphere in a canyon 7 km deep, but you'll also get deep shadows all over. And if you have to redesign the landers and rovers anyway, you can also go all the way and fix some shortcomings, like the small size and somewhat tight equipment. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
#17
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" writes:
Which means that this geologist would have to be there for 5 months to do what Opportunity or Spirit did. And transporting him and everything he needs there (including fuel for getting him back) would mean that would need some orders of magnitude more mass and money. Looks like a bad deal to me. Manufacture the fuel and air and live off local water while there. Zubrin and others have covered this pretty well. There's some problems they gloss over, but a lot of what's needed isn't even particularly cutting-edge tech. The equipment is still lots and lots of mass, for something a rover doesn't need to begin with. It also means lots of development and testing (and costs) for something that is totally irrevelant to what you're doing there. Except when what you *want* to do is primarily landing humans but then just say so and don't argue humans are better robots. They aren't. You do need to send a nuclear reactor with them for the power to do that, but that's not difficult; modern designs are pretty much foolproof, very tough, and vastly smaller than the old days. This makes the necessary mass vastly, vastly smaller than that needed for many other missions where you don't have the materials to hand. Mars has CO2 and H2O, which combined give you a lot of things. All you need is energy and the right equipment. Lots of energy would give you more if you could use it for actually doing something there instead of producing water and fuel for the crew. Especially since you'll *additionally* need power and equipment to get the crew around and to power everything a rover also needs to power. Or to turn that around: Look at a one-way robotic mission that gets the same mass to Mars as a manned mission needs. Then compare which mission can do more. You could spray hundreds or thousands of rovers over Mars for the same mass that a small crew needs just to stumble around in the dust near their lander for three months and then return. Your last line shows your prejudice. "Stumble around the dust". Yeah. This was meant to show that to do more than stumbling around you'd need much more than just the bare crew there. You'd need manned rovers with human-controllable equipment and lab hardware and whatever. You'd actually need something very similar to a robotic rover, just with seats and pressure cabins and controls and an airlock and thousands of things more that do nothing else than keep the crew alive and in control. A small crew is so vastly superior to the rovers that it's not even funny. Just as one example, if the rover spots something interesting with its cameras X distance away, mission control has to hold a significant debate about sending the rover there, and if it diverts the rover any significant distance, you're going to wait a LONG time for it to get there. A human will spot the same thing, jog over, and take a look and decide if it was worth it in an afternoon. Except that they wouldn't. Jog over, I mean. The crew would be used as a kind of very fragile, very precious and extremely hard to maintain human robot. If you have a mission setup that would allow a human just to jog over to a rock you also can have a rover just sprinting over. Or twenty of them, more probably. OK, you *could* do different things and you could do some things you can't do with robots, but if you look at the bottom line it's just not worth it. It would be cool, yes. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
On 1/19/2011 7:59 PM, Jonathan wrote:
This debate isn't even close. Possibly because the sense of purpose, THE reason why, has become fuzzy if not lost. A clue to this is how space exploration now is framed by cost. If 40 years, cost in dollar amount is near irrelevant given a dollar today is nearly irrelevant in worth to a dollar 40 years ago. The fact this question is comparing robots to humans pretty much sums it all up. |
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
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#20
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
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