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



 
 
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  #11  
Old January 20th 11, 12:03 PM posted to sci.space.policy,alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written
Pat Flannery
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Posts: 18,465
Default 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  
Old January 20th 11, 01:13 PM posted to sci.space.policy,alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
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Default 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  
Old January 20th 11, 02:11 PM posted to sci.space.policy,alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written
Pat Flannery
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Posts: 18,465
Default 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


  #14  
Old January 20th 11, 02:16 PM posted to sci.space.policy,alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written
Pat Flannery
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Posts: 18,465
Default 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
  #15  
Old January 20th 11, 02:26 PM posted to sci.space.policy,alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written
[email protected]
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Posts: 1,516
Default 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  
Old January 20th 11, 02:55 PM posted to sci.space.policy,alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written
Jochem Huhmann
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Posts: 606
Default 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  
Old January 20th 11, 03:24 PM posted to sci.space.policy,alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written
Jochem Huhmann
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Posts: 606
Default 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
  #18  
Old January 20th 11, 03:54 PM posted to sci.space.policy,alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written
ZX
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Default 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.

  #19  
Old January 20th 11, 04:17 PM posted to sci.space.policy,alt.philosophy,rec.arts.sf.written
Jeff Findley
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Posts: 5,012
Default Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?

In article ,
says...

tphile wrote:


We should have more robots, probes and sattelites for exploring. They
are cheaper and we can make and send more of them.


True.


and can do all the work necessary without
the risks and costs that a manned mission can do.


False. The buy in cost for manned missions is higher per mission, but
the cost effectiveness of humans is still higher than robotic
missions.


As evidence for this, compare how far the unmanned Mars rovers have
traveled in the several years they've been on Mars to the distance
traveled by the manned lunar rovers, which did all of their traveling in
a matter of hours.

You can also compare the reach and power of the robotic arm (the simple
ones which took samples using a grinder) to that of a human in a
spacesuit with the appropriate hand tools for obtaining samples.

Tele-operated robotics on Mars is nowhere near the speed, power, reach,
and efficiency of a human in a spacesuit. Not even close.

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
 




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