Here’s why many in aerospace remain skeptical of the journey to Mars

Wouldn't it be easier to deploy a permanent base in the Moon, and then leverage it for a Mars mission?

 

[melgross]

Voldenuit[/url]":35h7jxl4]

melgross[/url]":35h7jxl4]

Dan Homerick[/url]":35h7jxl4]
I very much doubt if that's feasible. First of all, it's not likely that Mars has what's needed anywhere near the surface, and if it does, where that might be. It would need to be right at where we want to land for scientific purposes.

The second difficulty is that an entire fuel mining and processing plant would need to be designed, tested and sent to Mars, and tested there. How much capacity would this plant need? If estimates as to reliability of the surface to contain enough fuel containing deposits were incorrect, what then? What if something in the plant broke down?

If this were even possible, it would need to be sent far in advance of the mission, so that when the mission landed, it would have the fuel ready for use. Anything else would be far too risky. And if something went wrong, how would we fix it from here?

The creation of in situ propellant would be from atmospheric CO2. No surface or subsurface extraction required.

You would need a power source and some H2 feedstock to turn CO2 into H2O and CH4.

And if the plant fails, it's easier to send a second fueling mission before your manned mission (you might have to delay the manned mission) than to send an astronaut priest and gravedigger.

Atmospheric pressure is so low, that what you're talking about has largely been abandoned as a practical matter. In order to use CO2, we'd need to go to the poles,mwhere there is both frozen water and CO2, but as far as I know, there is no planning to go there at all.

 

[Statistical]

Voldenuit[/url]":10nhda0k]

melgross[/url]":10nhda0k]

Dan Homerick[/url]":10nhda0k]
I very much doubt if that's feasible. First of all, it's not likely that Mars has what's needed anywhere near the surface, and if it does, where that might be. It would need to be right at where we want to land for scientific purposes.

The second difficulty is that an entire fuel mining and processing plant would need to be designed, tested and sent to Mars, and tested there. How much capacity would this plant need? If estimates as to reliability of the surface to contain enough fuel containing deposits were incorrect, what then? What if something in the plant broke down?

If this were even possible, it would need to be sent far in advance of the mission, so that when the mission landed, it would have the fuel ready for use. Anything else would be far too risky. And if something went wrong, how would we fix it from here?

The creation of in situ propellant would be from atmospheric CO2. No surface or subsurface extraction required.

You would need a power source and some H2 feedstock to turn CO2 into H2O and CH4.

And if the plant fails, it's easier to send a second fueling mission before your manned mission (you might have to delay the manned mission) than to send an astronaut priest and gravedigger.

Atmospheric pressure is so low, that what you're talking about has largely been abandoned as a practical matter. In order to use CO2, we'd need to go to the poles,mwhere there is both frozen water and CO2, but as far as I know, there is no planning to go there at all.

Please provide a cite. InSitu can be done at low pressure. Hell NASA gave Dr Zubrin funding in the 70s to test exactly that. It wasn't tested at Earth atmospheric composition and pressure but based on Mars. It isn't like the air pressure on Mars is a new discovery which scuttles existing plans.

The big question is "do you bring hydrogen". Storing hydrogen is tough. So you have a choice. One option is to bring hydrogen to produce methane and oxygen. The other option is to just bring the methane and produce oxygen. The later is simpler. Yes is requires bringing methane but methane is much easier to store. In a methalox engine the oxygen makes up 70% of the propellent mass. Regardless that decision has to do with the difficulty of storing hydrogen not the low pressure of the atmosphere on Mars.

The discovery of water being more common than previously thought has led to a third option although it being more complex and geography dependent makes me think it won't be used initially. You would land the fuel plant near a site with subsurface water and then extract the water. Using subsurface water plus CO2 in the Mars atmosphere you could produce methane and oxygen without having to bring and store hydrogen longterm.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi. ... 001775.pdf

 

[Jeff2Space]

chromal[/url]":2d2mi7mq]

Quiet Desperation[/url]":2d2mi7mq]
I've evangelized this idea for years, but too many geeks get too erect for the glory shot to Mars. Most were not alive to see Apollo fizzle out because there was no "what next"- just the legacy of a dead president politicians were afraid to touch. They quote his flowery speech with little understanding of what was going on at the time.

You say that, but there actually were very specific plans and decades of research and investment for what was to be next after Apollo. I could paste articles, but if a picture is worth 1000 words, then you should probably watch this motion picture from 1968 about exactly what was to follow Apollo. And it wasn't speculation: NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission designed, built, tested, and certified for a US Mars mission the NERVA Nuclear-Thermal rocket engine. Plus, dig the avante-garde soundtrack!

"Nuclear Propulsion In Space (1968) NERVA Manned Mars mission"
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b18HtG0DOCM)

Nixon killed this program in 1972 after two decades of progress and, apparently, some flight-ready hardware, which killed the 1978 or 1980 US Mars crewed mission they were credibly prepared to make.

Actually there were many studies of what to do after Apollo, but there were few actual funded plans. The politicians came to the consensus that the Space Race was going to be won by the US, so the budget cutting started a few years before the first successful manned landing of Apollo 11. The funding for new Apollo/Saturn V hardware and for some planned lunar missions were cut next, leaving Skylab and Apollo/Soyuz to make due with hardware from cancelled lunar missions.

The plan was to replace Apollo/Saturn with a space station, serviced by the space shuttle, and a reusable space tug (so that satellites could be serviced). This triad would have been the first step towards a space transportation system not solely dependent on single launches of an expendable launch vehicle (as was the Apollo/Saturn lunar missions).

But the funding was cut further and the only thing to survive (initially) was the space shuttle. The space station would be put on hold for decades and the reusable space tug never materialized.

So the assumption, going forward, should be that NASA's budget will not significantly increase in order to get us to Mars. There is no Space Race with the U.S.S.R. to win as a proxy war during the Cold War. The current global political and economic situation is completely changed from the 1960s, so don't expect history to repeat itself with "blank check" style funding for a manned Mars mission.

 

[new2mac]

Grashnak[/url]":cbejxez4]

caldepen[/url]":cbejxez4]

arcite[/url]":cbejxez4]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

What's the point of getting out of bed in the morning?

Every morning I feel like my day isn't really started until I see someone make at least one utterly asinine comparison or analogy. Thanks for kicking off my day early.

You'll have to forgive him, he doesn't get out of bed for anything less than $10,000 dollars.

 

[numbers_guy101]

Greason asked a perfectly reasonable question and found one more person (of many) at high levels in NASA that has learned so well to sing and dance when the difficult questions arise.

 

[mmealling]

afidel[/url]":20lotnpl]

arcite[/url]":20lotnpl]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The total amount of surface exploration done by robot probes to date could be accomplished by a manned mission in an afternoon.

But that's Greason's point: Why are we going? If it's all just pure science then yea, scrap it all and send some probes, if anything. My interest is in settlement. In expanding our economic sphere of influence to include the entire solar system. Unless it's focused on moving large numbers of people out into the Solar System I could really care less. The science can come along for the ride.

 

[mmealling]

caldepen[/url]":9lwpv2g4]

Greason said the documents do not make it clear what the overall goal of the Journey to Mars is: Flags and footprints? A base? Human settlement? “If you don't know why we're doing it, it's hard to know whether it is worth doing,” he said.

Was this rhetorical? If not, kind of silly. A base or human settlement are surely not the goal for the first time. Flags and footprints and perhaps leaving some experiments and equipment are surely the goal...

It most certainly is NOT rhetorical because how you design the program depends on the goal. If the goal is flags and footprints then it has no purpose other than pork for certain political districts. If it's pure Science! then just send some probes while we look at pretty (but highly colorized) pictures. Much cheaper.

Unless the goal is moving large numbers of humans off planet and into the Solar System a lot of us have less than zero interest. Anyone saying anything that Jeff says is silly is, well, silly...

 

[mmealling]

Skelator123[/url]":3qkacbcn]

joshv[/url]":3qkacbcn]I know this is a very unpopular opinion here at Ars, but our space exploration dollars are substantially wasted sending human bodies into space vs robotic explorers.

If you are worried about a "backup" for the human population, there are probably much cheaper things we can do to make our population more sustainable and guard against existential threats (asteroids) - and those things should be done. But, if you are just interested in the glory of putting human bodies on other planets, that's great, please spend your own money in pursuit of that goal.

Sometimes the point of doing something is simply to DO it. Not because it's easy, but because it's hard.

Unless you know the reasons for the goals you have no idea what to optimize for when doing mission architecture. To "DO it" you have to know what "it" is.

 

[caldepen]

mmealling[/url]":2qbn0xoy]

caldepen[/url]":2qbn0xoy]

Greason said the documents do not make it clear what the overall goal of the Journey to Mars is: Flags and footprints? A base? Human settlement? “If you don't know why we're doing it, it's hard to know whether it is worth doing,” he said.

Was this rhetorical? If not, kind of silly. A base or human settlement are surely not the goal for the first time. Flags and footprints and perhaps leaving some experiments and equipment are surely the goal...

It most certainly is NOT rhetorical because how you design the program depends on the goal. If the goal is flags and footprints then it has no purpose other than pork for certain political districts. If it's pure Science! then just send some probes while we look at pretty (but highly colorized) pictures. Much cheaper.

Unless the goal is moving large numbers of humans off planet and into the Solar System a lot of us have less than zero interest. Anyone saying anything that Jeff says is silly is, well, silly...

I disagree. Flags and footprints would generate an infinite amount of data and research into countless things and could be a great first iteration. Not to mention generating the excitement necessary to push us further. Many things never get even started because the initial goal is too high. Just take a look at my house projects.

I think it will be important to compartmentalize goals and targets. Telling congress that our goal should be setting up Disney Planet on Mars might persuade them to further cut spending because it will be too monumental a task, whereas just getting there initially and going out on the surface will generate the desire and excitement to do more, so that eventually, yes there will be a Disney Planet there for all to enjoy (I just barfed a little bit in my mouth...).

 

[mmealling]

If you are interested in what Jeff was getting at, listen to this speech he gave at ISDC in 2011. There is a difference between strategy, goals, and tactics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy2kIPLsUn0

 

[caldepen]

Well I am not really interested in arguing semantics and how one individual defines things. Everyone knows that there are different levels of goals. What I am suggesting is that perhaps, suggesting to congress that the goal should be settlements on Mars could be off-putting.Of course that would be a long term, end of a cycle type goal, much like a goal in medicine is to end pain and suffering. Perhaps a better strategy is to compartmentalize the goals into reachable ones.

 

[mmealling]

caldepen[/url]":2khhowvm]

mmealling[/url]":2khhowvm]

caldepen[/url]":2khhowvm]

Greason said the documents do not make it clear what the overall goal of the Journey to Mars is: Flags and footprints? A base? Human settlement? “If you don't know why we're doing it, it's hard to know whether it is worth doing,” he said.

Was this rhetorical? If not, kind of silly. A base or human settlement are surely not the goal for the first time. Flags and footprints and perhaps leaving some experiments and equipment are surely the goal...

It most certainly is NOT rhetorical because how you design the program depends on the goal. If the goal is flags and footprints then it has no purpose other than pork for certain political districts. If it's pure Science! then just send some probes while we look at pretty (but highly colorized) pictures. Much cheaper.

Unless the goal is moving large numbers of humans off planet and into the Solar System a lot of us have less than zero interest. Anyone saying anything that Jeff says is silly is, well, silly...

I disagree. Flags and footprints would generate an infinite amount of data and research into countless things and could be a great first iteration. Not to mention generating the excitement necessary to push us further. Many things never get even started because the initial goal is too high. Just take a look at my house projects.

And that's a tactic, not a strategy. The problem with single task oriented goals like that is that there's not enough money left afterwards to do the next step. Apollo at its height was sucking up 4% of the entire Federal Budget. That's not sustainable. You are suggesting an iterative approach and those are valid but, as TWO Presidential committees have said, the current plan isn't financially sustainable and that puts it at political risk. Plans like that have to fit within two Presidential terms (8 + 2 years).

What is your ultimate goal? Check out Jeff's speech I posted in another response.

 

[Grashnak]

caldepen[/url]":32mslbyx]
I disagree. Flags and footprints would generate an infinite amount of data and research into countless things and could be a great first iteration. Not to mention generating the excitement necessary to push us further.

The problem is that you're actually wrong here. Spending probably 200+ billion dollars to send a few people to Mars for a handful of days or a couple of weeks will generate infinitely less data and research than spending far less to continue to send multiple rovers that operate for years. If generating data is your goal, robots are the way to go.

I acknowledge your previously stated belief that the sheer romantic adventure is important to our humanity, and that's not the kind of belief that there is much point arguing about as it's a personal principle, but as someone who has written more than a few budgetary documents for government, you're never going to get administrations to commit that kind of money for adventurism. There needs to be a distinct strategic vision put forward beyond "we go to Mars because it's there".

How, when, how much, what for, and why should we care. In concrete terms. That's what governments want to hear when it comes to getting them to spend money these days. Unfortunately I don't think we've seen that kind of cohesive vision yet.

 

[Statistical]

caldepen[/url]":33ztxb2t]
I disagree. Flags and footprints would generate an infinite amount of data and research into countless things and could be a great first iteration. Not to mention generating the excitement necessary to push us further.

The problem is that you're actually wrong here. Spending probably 200+ billion dollars to send a few people to Mars for a handful of days or a couple of weeks will generate infinitely less data and research than spending far less to continue to send multiple rovers that operate for years. If generating data is your goal, robots are the way to go.

Nobody is going to mars for days. Orbits don't work that way. When you reach Mars the optimal return window is 18-20 months later. Trying to launch outside the return window is prohibitively expensive in terms of fuel and transit time. In fact in NASA's reference mission in a "loss of hab" event the crew would return to the MTV in mars orbit and live there for the rest of the 18-20 months before the transit window opens. You can do short stays on the Moon because the moon maintains a relatively constant distance with Earth. Mars on the other hand is not a constant distance from Earth. It ranges from 55 million kms and over 400 million km away.

Yeah the Martian would have been a pretty boring book of Watney made it to the hab designed to last for two years and stocked with 12 man years worth of consumables.

 

[Voldenuit]

Statistical[/url]":yabgcsnu]
Nobody is going to mars for days. Orbits don't work that way. When you reach Mars the optimal return window is 18-20 months later. Trying to launch outside the return window is prohibitively expensive in terms of fuel and transit time. In fact in NASA's reference mission in a "loss of hab" event the crew would return to the MTV in mars orbit and live there for the rest of the 18-20 months before the transit window opens. You can do short stays on the Moon because the moon maintains a relatively constant distance with Earth. Mars on the other hand is not a constant distance from Earth. It ranges from 55 million kms and over 400 million km away.

Yeah the Martian would have been a pretty boring book of Watney made it to the hab designed to last for two years and stocked with 12 man years worth of consumables.

Well, the book handwaved it a bit by having nuclear-electric propulsion on the Hermes, iirc, so they weren't constrained to Hohmann transfer orbits, and presumably, took hyperbolic routes.

But, in lieu of us magically discovering Epstein drives, a manned Martian mission will indeed last months to years, which will increase the magnitude of difficulty, and the payload that will have to be delivered to the planet (whether that be done in multiple missions or a single big mission).

 

[new2mac]

The Martian sucked. It's 'science' in the same way that reality TV is 'reality'.

 

[SpaceMonster!]

afidel[/url]":4aajgz0v]

arcite[/url]":4aajgz0v]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The total amount of surface exploration done by robot probes to date could be accomplished by a manned mission in an afternoon.

I'm surprised how much afidel's reply was downvoted. I'm a fan of space-exploration and therefore a fan of robotic probes since they do most of the exploration, but it's absurd to think they're a fast way of doing things. If NASA spots a good rock 20 yards away from Curiosity's they'll poke it with the laser, then plot a driving course, position the drill and take the sample. With a 40-minute communication delay this can take over a day to plan and execute. An astronaut would just walk over with a rock hammer and have an answer in under a minute.

Exploring the surface of Mars would be done more effectively by a human presence.

 

[SpaceMonster!]

Space stations and Moon bases won't help Mars astronauts. If you want enough fuel to get to Mars it's far easier and cheaper to just build a bigger rocket than it is to build a refueling infrastructure in space. Getting in and out of the Moon's gravity-well (for lunar landing or lunar orbit) means that you're spending a ton of fuel in order to refuel. Similarly, any rescue mission will be mounted the same way the original mission was. If the original mission came from Earth, then the rescue mission will too.

The concerns about radiation are just nonsense that medical researchers have milked for grants for decades. Airline pilots get more cumulative radiation dosing and cancer risk than a Mars astronaut would on a single mission and death by space-cancer is a trivial component of total mission risk when compared to all the other ways an astronaut can die.

If you want to go to Mars, then go to Mars. This isn't a road trip, it's space travel. Nothing is "on the way" there. The idea that we should build space stations and lunar bases first is the reason that a Mars landing has been "30 years from now" for the past 50 years.

 

[SpaceMonster!]

melgross[/url]":23wol7tl]

Voldenuit[/url]":23wol7tl]

melgross[/url]":23wol7tl]

Dan Homerick[/url]":23wol7tl]
I very much doubt if that's feasible. First of all, it's not likely that Mars has what's needed anywhere near the surface, and if it does, where that might be. It would need to be right at where we want to land for scientific purposes.

The second difficulty is that an entire fuel mining and processing plant would need to be designed, tested and sent to Mars, and tested there. How much capacity would this plant need? If estimates as to reliability of the surface to contain enough fuel containing deposits were incorrect, what then? What if something in the plant broke down?

If this were even possible, it would need to be sent far in advance of the mission, so that when the mission landed, it would have the fuel ready for use. Anything else would be far too risky. And if something went wrong, how would we fix it from here?

The creation of in situ propellant would be from atmospheric CO2. No surface or subsurface extraction required.

You would need a power source and some H2 feedstock to turn CO2 into H2O and CH4.

And if the plant fails, it's easier to send a second fueling mission before your manned mission (you might have to delay the manned mission) than to send an astronaut priest and gravedigger.

Atmospheric pressure is so low, that what you're talking about has largely been abandoned as a practical matter. In order to use CO2, we'd need to go to the poles,mwhere there is both frozen water and CO2, but as far as I know, there is no planning to go there at all.

The low atmospheric pressure has no effect on in-situ production of methane. CO2 being 96% of the atmosphere matters, the atmosphere being 1% the pressure of Earth doesn't.

 

[SpaceMonster!]

caldepen[/url]":1tpriv9b]

mmealling[/url]":1tpriv9b]

caldepen[/url]":1tpriv9b]

Greason said the documents do not make it clear what the overall goal of the Journey to Mars is: Flags and footprints? A base? Human settlement? “If you don't know why we're doing it, it's hard to know whether it is worth doing,” he said.

Was this rhetorical? If not, kind of silly. A base or human settlement are surely not the goal for the first time. Flags and footprints and perhaps leaving some experiments and equipment are surely the goal...

It most certainly is NOT rhetorical because how you design the program depends on the goal. If the goal is flags and footprints then it has no purpose other than pork for certain political districts. If it's pure Science! then just send some probes while we look at pretty (but highly colorized) pictures. Much cheaper.

Unless the goal is moving large numbers of humans off planet and into the Solar System a lot of us have less than zero interest. Anyone saying anything that Jeff says is silly is, well, silly...

I disagree. Flags and footprints would generate an infinite amount of data and research into countless things and could be a great first iteration. Not to mention generating the excitement necessary to push us further. Many things never get even started because the initial goal is too high. Just take a look at my house projects.

I think it will be important to compartmentalize goals and targets. Telling congress that our goal should be setting up Disney Planet on Mars might persuade them to further cut spending because it will be too monumental a task, whereas just getting there initially and going out on the surface will generate the desire and excitement to do more, so that eventually, yes there will be a Disney Planet there for all to enjoy (I just barfed a little bit in my mouth...).

This is the kind of thinking that led to the Apollo program being canceled. Yes, a large goal makes it more difficult to get going, but a small goal makes it harder to muster further effort. If we get the footprints, some rocks and some glory and then ask to double the budget so we can get a settlement then we won't get the settlement and it will now be much harder to ever get it because the up-front benefit is now gone.

 

[SpaceMonster!]

caldepen[/url]":266jy79a]Well I am not really interested in arguing semantics and how one individual defines things. Everyone knows that there are different levels of goals. What I am suggesting is that perhaps, suggesting to congress that the goal should be settlements on Mars could be off-putting.Of course that would be a long term, end of a cycle type goal, much like a goal in medicine is to end pain and suffering. Perhaps a better strategy is to compartmentalize the goals into reachable ones.

Anything less than a permanent presence will lead to congress canceling any further spending the moment we have footprints on Mars. Settlement requires more money but provides less public interest than the initial landing. If we aim low and just try to get a landing then the funding won't be there to get anything more. It will be the Apollo program all over again.

 

[SpaceMonster!]

new2mac[/url]":2ie031xp]The Martian sucked. It's 'science' in the same way that reality TV is 'reality'.

The Martian raised public awareness of the plausibility of a manned Mars mission. You should encourage people to watch the movie (or read the book). If you rant about the inaccuracies then they will forget your exact points and instead remember vaguely that someone smart told them a Mars mission is unrealistic.

 

[SpaceMonster!]

Of course it would be easier. Its also an essential first step. But its not sexy enough. I don't entirely blame congress either :

“Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned,” Obama said at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before.”

What a stupid ignorant statement.[/quote]

Going back to the Moon is not an essential first step. It's absurd to spend a ton of fuel going there in order to refuel. It's the difference between building a large rocket and a massive refueling infrastructure or just building a slightly larger rocket and going straight to Mars.

There's no point in using the Moon to practice for a Mars landing either because the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere, doesn't have the same gravity, doesn't have the same communications lag, doesn't have the same method of landing and doesn't have the same method of in-situ fuel production.

We've wasted decades planning and canceling Moon missions when we should just be going straight to Mars. Space stations and Moon bases aren't stepping stones, they're detours.

 

[Grashnak]

Statistical[/url]":1f6zts8g]

caldepen[/url]":1f6zts8g]
I disagree. Flags and footprints would generate an infinite amount of data and research into countless things and could be a great first iteration. Not to mention generating the excitement necessary to push us further.

The problem is that you're actually wrong here. Spending probably 200+ billion dollars to send a few people to Mars for a handful of days or a couple of weeks will generate infinitely less data and research than spending far less to continue to send multiple rovers that operate for years. If generating data is your goal, robots are the way to go.

Nobody is going to mars for days. Orbits don't work that way. When you reach Mars the optimal return window is 18-20 months later. Trying to launch outside the return window is prohibitively expensive in terms of fuel and transit time. In fact in NASA's reference mission in a "loss of hab" event the crew would return to the MTV in mars orbit and live there for the rest of the 18-20 months before the transit window opens. You can do short stays on the Moon because the moon maintains a relatively constant distance with Earth. Mars on the other hand is not a constant distance from Earth. It ranges from 55 million kms and over 400 million km away.

Yeah the Martian would have been a pretty boring book of Watney made it to the hab designed to last for two years and stocked with 12 man years worth of consumables.

Very good point. Major brain fart on my part there.

 

[new2mac]

new2mac[/url]":361yknaf]The Martian sucked. It's 'science' in the same way that reality TV is 'reality'.

The Martian raised public awareness of the plausibility of a manned Mars mission. You should encourage people to watch the movie (or read the book). If you rant about the inaccuracies then they will forget your exact points and instead remember vaguely that someone smart told them a Mars mission is unrealistic.

There's a Mars movie every few years. And they're all aweful. The only effect it's having is making sure the thought of going to Mars is a horrible Hollywood cliche. :facepalm:

 

[iEvolution2]

A very smart woman.

 

[Chuckstar]

SpaceMonster![/url]":21o7bs10]

afidel[/url]":21o7bs10]

arcite[/url]":21o7bs10]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The total amount of surface exploration done by robot probes to date could be accomplished by a manned mission in an afternoon.

I'm surprised how much afidel's reply was downvoted. I'm a fan of space-exploration and therefore a fan of robotic probes since they do most of the exploration, but it's absurd to think they're a fast way of doing things. If NASA spots a good rock 20 yards away from Curiosity's they'll poke it with the laser, then plot a driving course, position the drill and take the sample. With a 40-minute communication delay this can take over a day to plan and execute. An astronaut would just walk over with a rock hammer and have an answer in under a minute.

Exploring the surface of Mars would be done more effectively by a human presence.

The counterpoint is that you could have dozens of rovers at various places on the surface all at the same time for the cost of sending humans to one location.

 

[SpaceMonster!]

Chuckstar[/url]":2fhvdpvz]

SpaceMonster![/url]":2fhvdpvz]

afidel[/url]":2fhvdpvz]

arcite[/url]":2fhvdpvz]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The total amount of surface exploration done by robot probes to date could be accomplished by a manned mission in an afternoon.

I'm surprised how much afidel's reply was downvoted. I'm a fan of space-exploration and therefore a fan of robotic probes since they do most of the exploration, but it's absurd to think they're a fast way of doing things. If NASA spots a good rock 20 yards away from Curiosity's they'll poke it with the laser, then plot a driving course, position the drill and take the sample. With a 40-minute communication delay this can take over a day to plan and execute. An astronaut would just walk over with a rock hammer and have an answer in under a minute.

Exploring the surface of Mars would be done more effectively by a human presence.

The counterpoint is that you could have dozens of rovers at various places on the surface all at the same time for the cost of sending humans to one location.

An excellent point but consider the end point of Mars exploration. Humans will have to go to Mars sooner or later for a variety of reasons and once they're there the development of Mars rovers will stagnate. If the dozens of rovers lack some necessary capability that's been identified then we won't spend 10 years designing a new robotic way of doing the task. We'll either send preexisting human tools to the humans or tell them to improvise the needed tool. Robots don't adapt, they have to replaced with new versions. It takes a lot of time.

We should stop messing around with taking photos of our destiny and get on with living it.

 

[new2mac]

We need to sends humans to Mars so we can prove there is intelligent life on other planets. Then everyone can shut up about answering that question.

:facepalm:

 

[Chuckstar]

SpaceMonster![/url]":2qyco20g]

Chuckstar[/url]":2qyco20g]

SpaceMonster![/url]":2qyco20g]

afidel[/url]":2qyco20g]

arcite[/url]":2qyco20g]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The total amount of surface exploration done by robot probes to date could be accomplished by a manned mission in an afternoon.

I'm surprised how much afidel's reply was downvoted. I'm a fan of space-exploration and therefore a fan of robotic probes since they do most of the exploration, but it's absurd to think they're a fast way of doing things. If NASA spots a good rock 20 yards away from Curiosity's they'll poke it with the laser, then plot a driving course, position the drill and take the sample. With a 40-minute communication delay this can take over a day to plan and execute. An astronaut would just walk over with a rock hammer and have an answer in under a minute.

Exploring the surface of Mars would be done more effectively by a human presence.

The counterpoint is that you could have dozens of rovers at various places on the surface all at the same time for the cost of sending humans to one location.

An excellent point but consider the end point of Mars exploration. Humans will have to go to Mars sooner or later for a variety of reasons and once they're there the development of Mars rovers will stagnate. If the dozens of rovers lack some necessary capability that's been identified then we won't spend 10 years designing a new robotic way of doing the task. We'll either send preexisting human tools to the humans or tell them to improvise the needed tool. Robots don't adapt, they have to replaced with new versions. It takes a lot of time.

We should stop messing around with taking photos of our destiny and get on with living it.

"Consider the end point of Mars exploration..."

Which is what?

Why will humans have to go to Mars eventually?

Even if humans will go to Mars eventually, what's the logic behind spending the money to go now?

And there will be a very limited ability to improvise tools, even if humans are there. If your laser chromatograph isn't up to the task, you're not going to build a new one on Mars. And getting a new one there will take just as long if not longer by sending it with the next humans than sending it with the next rover.

Your original point "humans are better explorers" has now devolved to a logic-less mess of "we may as well go now."

 

[SpaceMonster!]

Chuckstar[/url]":19fqkyz3]

SpaceMonster![/url]":19fqkyz3]

Chuckstar[/url]":19fqkyz3]

SpaceMonster![/url]":19fqkyz3]

afidel[/url]":19fqkyz3]

arcite[/url]":19fqkyz3]What would be the scientific value of a manned trip to Mars anyway? Big picture...what could be learned by human exploration that could not with cutting edge robots and probes?

The total amount of surface exploration done by robot probes to date could be accomplished by a manned mission in an afternoon.

I'm surprised how much afidel's reply was downvoted. I'm a fan of space-exploration and therefore a fan of robotic probes since they do most of the exploration, but it's absurd to think they're a fast way of doing things. If NASA spots a good rock 20 yards away from Curiosity's they'll poke it with the laser, then plot a driving course, position the drill and take the sample. With a 40-minute communication delay this can take over a day to plan and execute. An astronaut would just walk over with a rock hammer and have an answer in under a minute.

Exploring the surface of Mars would be done more effectively by a human presence.

The counterpoint is that you could have dozens of rovers at various places on the surface all at the same time for the cost of sending humans to one location.

An excellent point but consider the end point of Mars exploration. Humans will have to go to Mars sooner or later for a variety of reasons and once they're there the development of Mars rovers will stagnate. If the dozens of rovers lack some necessary capability that's been identified then we won't spend 10 years designing a new robotic way of doing the task. We'll either send preexisting human tools to the humans or tell them to improvise the needed tool. Robots don't adapt, they have to replaced with new versions. It takes a lot of time.

We should stop messing around with taking photos of our destiny and get on with living it.

"Consider the end point of Mars exploration..."

Which is what?

Why will humans have to go to Mars eventually?

Even if humans will go to Mars eventually, what's the logic behind spending the money to go now?

And there will be a very limited ability to improvise tools, even if humans are there. If your laser chromatograph isn't up to the task, you're not going to build a new one on Mars. And getting a new one there will take just as long if not longer by sending it with the next humans than sending it with the next rover.

Your original point "humans are better explorers" has now devolved to a logic-less mess of "we may as well go now."

A better question than "why go now?" is "why wait?" and the Spirit rover didn't get stuck in the sand because it's laser chromatograph wasn't up to the task.

 

[Chuckstar]

SpaceMonster![/url]":2rcic4kh]

A better question than "why go now?" is "why wait?" and the Spirit rover didn't get stuck in the sand because it's laser chromatograph wasn't up to the task.

Wait because it's super-expensive, and it's much cheaper to send any number of rovers, instead. Now we're just going in circles... Like Spirit.

(And of course some things that can go wrong with rivers humans could fix. But again, you could have literally dozens of the things running around for the same cost as humans.)

 

[Skelator123]

mmealling[/url]":s2j8tb0e]

Skelator123[/url]":s2j8tb0e]

joshv[/url]":s2j8tb0e]I know this is a very unpopular opinion here at Ars, but our space exploration dollars are substantially wasted sending human bodies into space vs robotic explorers.

If you are worried about a "backup" for the human population, there are probably much cheaper things we can do to make our population more sustainable and guard against existential threats (asteroids) - and those things should be done. But, if you are just interested in the glory of putting human bodies on other planets, that's great, please spend your own money in pursuit of that goal.

Sometimes the point of doing something is simply to DO it. Not because it's easy, but because it's hard.

Unless you know the reasons for the goals you have no idea what to optimize for when doing mission architecture. To "DO it" you have to know what "it" is.

Send a human to Mars and bring back alive. Since you obviously missed the reference to JFK's famous speech.