Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?

On Jan 20, 1:32*am, "Matt Wiser" wrote:
"Derek Lyons" wrote in message

...

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" 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.

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.

Yes, considering how amazingly solvent the American government is at
the moment, there's no doubt they'll be stepping up space exploration
as soon as the Republicans get in.

On Jan 19, 4:59*pm, "Jonathan" wrote:
I see some NASA talking heads are out pushing a manned trip
to Mars yet again.

This debate isn't even close.

Loosely speaking, putting men on Mars is a Forty year long
$Trillion dollar (or)deal. And succeeds in putting a dozen
or so eyes on the surface for exploration.


What good are eyes on Mars? Why not learning to survive mostly from
things found on Mars? In that case it would be good to use both humans
and robots. The idea is to create things that can grow and get a life
of their own and then humans will be able to move in en-mass once we
can use the fuels or matter on Mars itself.

Losely speaking, rovers take Four years or so, and cost a
$Billion dollars. And succeeds in putting ...how many eyes
on the surface of Mars?

"NASA recorded 109 million hits on its home page and related
Web sites during the 24-hour period coinciding with the late
Saturday landing of Spirit on Mars. Nearly 17 hours after the
successful landing, that figure had more than doubled.."http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/41212/nasa_rover_mars_photos_draw_...

Rovers put ....MILLIONS of eyes on the planet for exploration
all sharing a /common experience/ and as if they were ...there.

If you want humanity to care, NASA needs to bring everyone
along for the ride. Not just six or so. A manned mission to Mars
only benefits Lockheed et all. Rovers benefit the ...public.

We can place the notion of a *manned mission to Mars along with
the other Great Scientific Scams of all time.Scams like a super collider
or gravity wave detectors or neutrino tanks or fusion.

Scams which have as their sole purpose to create a project
that absolutely maximizes the amount of time and money
wasted. While absolutely minimizing the potential
accomplishments.

What a great (corrupt) business plan that would~

At least NASA still dares, daring to go for
the ultimate con-job.

Jonathan

s

"Matt Wiser" wrote in message
...

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" 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.


Ya, what he conveniently forgets to mention is that 'thirty days'
will be sometime around the year ....2040!

With luck!

By then Mars will be just crawling with gizmos of all kinds.




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.

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" wrote in message
...
On 1/19/11 7:59 PM, Jonathan wrote:

I see some NASA talking heads are out pushing a manned trip
to Mars yet again.

This debate isn't even close.

Loosely speaking, putting men on Mars is a Forty year long
$Trillion dollar (or)deal. And succeeds in putting a dozen
or so eyes on the surface for exploration.

Losely speaking, rovers take Four years or so, and cost a
$Billion dollars. And succeeds in putting ...how many eyes
on the surface of Mars?

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,


I'll take a snails pace that starts....next year, instead of that
'quick walk' sometime around the year 2040!

And the Mars Science lab is taking the lab to Mars, instead
of the geologist. This mission is dedicated to life on Mars
and will have the kind of instruments that can give definitive
answers, unlike the previous rovers.

If you watch the mission animation in the drop down, you'll
see this mission looks to be rather exciting.
http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/...x.cfm?v=12&a=2

Especially considering the kinds of instruments it has.
http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/...n/instruments/

But more to the point, at the rate electronics and computing
are advancing, we'll have the answers we want long before
men ever get there. So the geologist 'advantage' isn't a
valid argument. The manned mission has to be about...building
something permanent, not scientific exploration.


People are for ...building.
Rovers are for ...exploring.


s

Pat Flannery wrote:

On 1/20/2011 11:25 AM, Derek Lyons wrote:
Pat wrote:
One thing you could do if you were going to land a lot of them is
optimize them into several types to perform specific exploratory
functions, all using the same chassis design and power supply systems.

And when you have a half dozen different rover designs, the theorized
cost savings of sending a bunch of MER rovers evaporate - because
you're no longer sending a bunch of MER rovers.

They'd be the same design, with different experiments and tools on some
of them, the way you can put different objects in the back of a pick-up
truck without redesigning the truck itself.

You'd have a point if the experiments and tools were merely inert
cargo stacked on the chassis like cargo in a truck bed. But they
aren't. They're active devices that require considerable (expensive)
engineering in their own right, and additional expense to integrate
into the chassis.

However, if you did want to cut costs to a minimum, the original design
seemed to do a lot of things pretty well, so just stick to that and
forget the variants.

If by 'a lot of things' you mean 'a fairly narrow range of scientific
instruments designed to answer an narrow range of scientific
questions', then sure.

A group of them could then be landed at the same area of interest and
give it a really thorough going over.

So long as the 'area of interest' is a fairly flat low lying area
relatively near the equator.

That still covers a _lot_ of square miles of territory.

99.99% of which is absolutely boring and of little exploratory
interest.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

On 1/20/2011 11:25 AM, Derek Lyons wrote:
Pat wrote:
One thing you could do if you were going to land a lot of them is
optimize them into several types to perform specific exploratory
functions, all using the same chassis design and power supply systems.

And when you have a half dozen different rover designs, the theorized
cost savings of sending a bunch of MER rovers evaporate - because
you're no longer sending a bunch of MER rovers.

They'd be the same design, with different experiments and tools on some
of them, the way you can put different objects in the back of a pick-up
truck without redesigning the truck itself.
However, if you did want to cut costs to a minimum, the original design
seemed to do a lot of things pretty well, so just stick to that and
forget the variants.


A group of them could then be landed at the same area of interest and
give it a really thorough going over.

So long as the 'area of interest' is a fairly flat low lying area
relatively near the equator.

That still covers a _lot_ of square miles of territory.

Pat

On Jan 20, 7:53*pm, "Jonathan" wrote:
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" wrote in ...





On 1/19/11 7:59 PM, Jonathan wrote:

I see some NASA talking heads are out pushing a manned trip
to Mars yet again.

This debate isn't even close.

Loosely speaking, putting men on Mars is a Forty year long
$Trillion dollar (or)deal. And succeeds in putting a dozen
or so eyes on the surface for exploration.

Losely speaking, rovers take Four years or so, and cost a
$Billion dollars. And succeeds in putting ...how many eyes
on the surface of Mars?

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,

I'll take a snails pace that starts....next year, instead of that
'quick walk' sometime around the year 2040!

And the Mars Science lab is taking the lab to Mars, instead
of the geologist. This mission is dedicated to life on Mars
and will have the kind of instruments that can give definitive
answers, unlike the previous rovers.

If you watch the mission animation in the drop down, you'll
see this mission looks to be rather exciting.http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/...x.cfm?v=12&a=2

Especially considering the kinds of instruments it has.http://marsprogram..jpl.nasa.gov/msl...n/instruments/

But more to the point, at the rate electronics and computing
are advancing, we'll have *the answers we want long before
men ever get there. So the geologist 'advantage' isn't a
valid argument. The manned mission has to be about...building
something permanent, not scientific exploration.

People are for ...building.
Rovers are for ...exploring.

s- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If we repurposed the nasa manned budget for robotic exploration
imagine how much we could do

wrote in message
...

If we repurposed the nasa manned budget for robotic exploration
imagine how much we could do

My feelings exactly. And how much more advanced will the
next rovers be five or ten years out? Or more capable, as in
rovers that ...fly all day long. Satellites are limited by resolution
and rovers/people by distances. How about in between?

ARES Mars airplane
http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/platform.html
http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/

(Derek Lyons) wrote:

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" 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.

But a thirty year lead time to get that month. There are trade-offs.

I think that the rovers win this battle. Getting humans there needs
some kind of "lifeboat" justification, and I'm not sure I can make
that work.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27

On Jan 19, 5:16*pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
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.

* * * * Rovers are wonderful tools, but they are SUBSTITUTES -- and very poor
substitutes -- for human beings on-site.

* * * * Perhaps in 20 or 30 years the rovers may start to be smart enough and
competent enough to make human beings less impressive by comparison. But
if you were to list out all the tests and conditions you would LIKE to
have your rover handle, you'd find that the number it CAN handle is a
tiny, tiny, tiny subset of those things that a human being with a
rover-equivalent in modern tools can do.

* * * * Now, is that worth the cost? I dunno. Possibly, possibly not.

* * * * But the competition is much, much closer than you'd like to think.

--
* * * * * * * * * * * Sea Wasp
* * * * * * * * * * * * /^\
* * * * * * * * * * * * ;;; * *
Website:http://www.grandcentralarena.com*Blo...ivejournal.com

At the risk of repeating myself, how much do we have to show for the
+/- $100B spent to date on the ISS? Any significant science you can
quote? Comparable in magnitude to the outlay?

How much could we have achieved spending that kinda dough on dumb-ass,
retarded, incapable robots?

Quite a bit more, I suspect. Especially if we got economies of scale
out of building more of them, more modularly.

Men on Mars is the same as the ISS, only far, far, worse. And, do we
blow all the $ just on Mars because we have to do a manned mission?
Why not a bit on Europa? Bit on Titan? Oops, sorry too busy walking
on Mars.

Check out this, where they explain it took them 20 yrs to get a $750M
sat up, partly because all the $ goes to manned space. Only a
professional speaking (albeit with a vested interest):

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Great-Obs...cm_cr-mr-title

Obama definitely did the right thing canceling Constellation.

Not to mention that an accident on the way or coming back that
resulted in more dead crewmen would set space back decades. Like the
shuttle.

But, hey, manned space results in plenty of pork for the aerospace
guys. Must be useful if the politicians say it is.

Sorry, I appreciate your position and I regret we are not doing much
in space as well. But wasting money on white elephants has already
cost us dearly.