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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
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#23
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
In article -
hdakotatelephone, says... 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. Double edged sword. Abandoning unmanned probes on Mars means that they can't return samples to Earth. A manned mission which returns people to Earth will undoubtedly return samples too. Mars samples in an Earth lab would be called "invaluable" by geologists, biologists, and other scientists on earth. Jeff -- "Had Constellation actually been focused on building an Earth-Moon transportation system, it might have survived. The decision to have it first build a costly and superfluous Earth-to-orbit transportation system (Ares I) was a fatal mistake.", Henry Spencer 1/2/2011 |
#24
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
In alt.philosophy ZX wrote:
.... The fact this question is comparing robots to humans pretty much sums it all up. The accountants say we can't afford a 2nd basket so that's that. -- If there was no warming or cooling trend, then the chance of 2007 being tied with 1998 [130 year record!] would be quite high. -- No Pressure , 11 Dec 2010 05:20:39 -0800 |
#25
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
In article 6555a6f0-bf56-48dd-9e0d-
, says... Add ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE, to the rover operations, and watch productity soar... Can we add some magic fairy dust to the rovers too? Seriously though, there is no such thing as artificial intelligence which is smart enough to handle rover operations on Mars. It's not been invented yet. What you want is something as smart as Data from Star Trek, which is science fiction. FACE FACTS WE DONT HAVE THE MONEY TO SEND PEOPLE TO MARS, or even back to the moon Not the way NASA is doing it, which is to require the most expensive HLV they think they can afford. The version they're pitching right now still uses the unproven 5 segment SRB's and the still in development J2- X. This thing will still be billions more expensive than Direct. Jeff -- "Had Constellation actually been focused on building an Earth-Moon transportation system, it might have survived. The decision to have it first build a costly and superfluous Earth-to-orbit transportation system (Ares I) was a fatal mistake.", Henry Spencer 1/2/2011 |
#26
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
True, there will always be places where humans can't go due to the extreme environment (i.e. on earth, unmanned submarines could arguably dive deeper and explore tighter spaces than any manned vehicle). *But Mars is especially attractive because it's conditions are quite suitable for human exploration. Jeff -- Lets not forget a human will spend at least half his or her time on mars not doing anything. But eating sleeping, bathing, cooking, personal hygiene, exercising etc etc etc?. And if ISS is any example most remaing time will be spent on maintence of stuff. What percent of ISS astronaut time is actually devoted to science? Figure THAT into the man vs robot equasion. Spirit and opportunities landing sites were selected for max landing safety, not how interesting they are. although they have done great! Follow ups should be produced, sent to more challenging locations, send 20 assume 50% loss rate, that still leaves 10 more working on mars |
#27
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
In article 25f39dad-5a25-45ec-abeb-
, says... True, there will always be places where humans can't go due to the extreme environment (i.e. on earth, unmanned submarines could arguably dive deeper and explore tighter spaces than any manned vehicle). *But Mars is especially attractive because it's conditions are quite suitable for human exploration. Jeff -- Lets not forget a human will spend at least half his or her time on mars not doing anything. But eating sleeping, bathing, cooking, personal hygiene, exercising etc etc etc?. So what? Unmanned probes on Mars have been solar powered and typically spend the Maritain night using their batteries to run heaters, so they don't do (much) science at night either. They also ran into trouble with dust covering the arrays, which could easily have been swept off by a person in a spacesuit. And if ISS is any example most remaing time will be spent on maintence of stuff. So what? The Mars rovers also ran into several difficulties which required them to stop and not do (much) science until the people on Earth figured out a work-around to the problem. Terrain which required the rovers to sit idle until engineers on Earth figured out a safe way forward would have been absolutely no obstacle to a person in a spacesuit. What percent of ISS astronaut time is actually devoted to science? Figure THAT into the man vs robot equasion. ISS is teaching us how to live and work in space, which is a necessary precondition to a manned Mars mission. Hopefully the bugs will be worked out of many of the systems by our ISS experience. Spirit and opportunities landing sites were selected for max landing safety, not how interesting they are. although they have done great! Follow ups should be produced, sent to more challenging locations, send 20 assume 50% loss rate, that still leaves 10 more working on mars Too bad unmanned missions never receive the level of funding that manned missions do. This is politics. The Space Race wasn't won by the first unmanned lunar probe, it was won when men set foot on the surface and were returned safely to Earth. Actually, this whole unmanned versus manned debate is absolutely stupid. The most efficient way to explore Mars is with both! In fact, having both on the *same mission* would be best. Having a person in the Mars lander remotely command an unmanned rover would be far more efficient than commanding the same rover from Earth with the huge time lag in communications. Having a person in a spacesuit available to fix problems with the rovers would also be a huge advantage. Dusty solar arrays and dead motors could easily be cleaned or replaced on the spot. In this case, having humans available to do "routine maintenance" on otherwise unmanned equipment is a freaking huge advantage! Jeff -- "Had Constellation actually been focused on building an Earth-Moon transportation system, it might have survived. The decision to have it first build a costly and superfluous Earth-to-orbit transportation system (Ares I) was a fatal mistake.", Henry Spencer 1/2/2011 |
#28
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
On Jan 20, 11:25*am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
" wrote: Add ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE, to the rover operations, and watch productity soar... This is like saying, "Add MAGIC, to the rover operations, and watch productity soar..." better to do something affordable that explores, might have some scientific payoff, doesnt risk human life, remember the chilling after effects of apollo 13? If people aren't going, what's to explore? *And no, I DON'T remember said "chilling". 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 So your view is the space program should essentially just be a video game. *Hell, dispense with all the hardware and make it purely virtual. -- "Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar *territory." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * --G. Behn artifical intelligence is coming, did you hear it appears a computer won jeopardy playing against 2 champs including ken jennings........ a mars geo sync sat computer with downlinks could run a large number of rovers on the surface, with near no time delay, and multiple rovers could help one another out if one gets stuck. why knock robotic exploration? the US has no ability to send astronauts |
#29
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
better to do something affordable that explores, might have some
scientific payoff, doesnt risk human life, remember the chilling after effects of apollo 13? If people aren't going, what's to explore? *And no, I DON'T remember said "chilling". the near disaster of a dead crew, is the root cause of the cancelation of the final lanings. heck the vehicles were all built, launch teams seasoned and ready to go. management feared losing a crew, and decided they didnt want to end the lunar program by a lost crew. thus flight certified vehicles were left outdoors to rot in salt air: ( and one flight certified LM hangs above the gift shop in the saturn center. How sad is that??????? |
#30
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Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?
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