6 ms·

I can't imagine the in-mission mortality risk of a Mars mission would realistically be less than 5%, and 15% would not be unacceptable to me. Thus the rationa

by patio11 11y ago

I can't imagine the in-mission mortality risk of a Mars mission would realistically be less than 5%, and 15% would not be unacceptable to me. Thus the rationalist Mars mission: send a drone to Mars. Give your five favorite NASA crew members one shot in the head apiece with a fairly spun six shot pistol with one bullet chambered. This accomplishes all of your objectives, is cheaper, and minimizes the danger that the mission architects are underestimating the risk.

smeyer 11y ago
The general claim is that your argument is flawed in "this accomplishes all of your objectives". I don't claim to be an expert in the field, but I've heard people who do care about and practice planetary and martian science that a manned mission could accomplish more than all the previous unmanned missions combined.
- nabla9 11y ago
  That could be true and manned mission can still be irrational choice. All manned missions arguments I have seen are somewhat coy in this respect. Yes, geologist can make better choices on spot and take better samples than current drones, but that's not real comparison. We should compare alternative strategies using opportunity cost. The money used for manned mission could be used for massive fleet of of drones, satellites and technical development. Missions could be more incremental and cover more areas. Self driving cars are just taking off on earth. How does advance fleet of Mars robocars and satellites mapping Mars compare to manned mission?
- mapt 11y ago
  Some of the lectures I've seen actually peg this as true, but for the wrong reason. It is possible to put together automated missions at-scale. But not likely. Because auditors can trim back an automated mission's scope smoothly, no matter how expansive it is, in order to save money. A slightly lighter, cheaper camera, gives way to an even more slightly lighter, cheaper camera, ad infinitum. A hundred units give way to 99 units give way to 30 units give way to 1 unit. But if you try to do that with a manned mission, you start to jeopardize the public heroes you have sensationalized in order to fund the mission. You don't get to send half a human being to Mars.
brianberns 11y ago
We've already sent a number of drones to Mars. There are rational reasons for wanting to send humans as well: Humans can do things on Mars that drones cannot, and they pave the way for possible colonization in the future.
- _fizz_buzz_ 11y ago
  > Humans can do things on Mars that drones cannot Such as? The only thing I can think of is that they can test if the human body can endure life on Mars. Honestly, as cool as sending people to mars is, I don't think it is an idea driven by rationality at this point.
  - dinosammy 11y ago
    Humans on mars would inspire future generations with dreams of space travel, which will make them more likely to support higher levels of NASA funding?
    - jcranmer 11y ago
      You mean like how landing on the moon did wonders for NASA's budget?
      - eric_h 11y ago
        More like how the landing on the moon spawned SpaceX, Scaled Composites, etc. - It made people keep shooting for the moon.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        Sadly, the more useful something is, the more it is underfunded.
  - Fiahil 11y ago
    >> Humans can do things on Mars that drones cannot > Such as? Growing potatoes?
  - 11y ago
hoorayimhelping 11y ago
But it completely ignores the main reason we do this: because we're humans and we're not rational. We have irrational emotions, and we think symbolically. Sending a human to Mars and bringing them back is way less about actually going to Mars and back and way more about humanity making sure we can still beat challenges that face us.
analyst74 11y ago
with the speed of robotics advancement, compared to advancement in material science and human preservation technologies, we actually might have a team of base-building Martian robots before being able to send astronauts there.
- hfourm 11y ago
  This probably makes the most sense. I still see sending a human to Mars as a likely precursor though. If we prove it is possible, alongside the advancements that come from the missions, would hopefully dramatically increase NASA fandom and funding.
frandroid 11y ago
Maybe a drone can build Starfighter too...
jessriedel 11y ago
"Rational" is not a property of ends, it is a property of means (and beliefs). All ends are arbitrary. The robots sent to mars are not useful for any reasonable economic reason. Even insofar as you count speculative basic research as economically useful, there are vastly better ways to spend that money on speculative basic research on Earth. So why go to Mars? Because either (1) you find the basic research being done about Martian geology particularly compelling or (2) you want to see it explored by humans for its own sake. If you really actually believe in (1), then by all means; send more robots. But I'll bet 100:1 that you personally have no appreciation for the basic science questions, which are mostly very technical and boring. (Hint: grand-seeming questions about life are promoted for publicity and funding reasons, but these are not the ones that actually drive the science, and we are not learning more about the origin of life from going to Mars.) Rather, I think you'll have to admit we want to go to Mars because it is awesome. You may think sending metal under our control is just as awesome as sending flesh and blood humans, but ultimately this is an aesthetic judgement which is not grounded in rationality. Personally, I would like to see humans walk there, and I'm happy to pay my citizen-share of $100/year over the next decade to make it happen.
- taurath 11y ago
  I think you should work on quantifying the power of "awesome" in terms of increased planetwide hopefulness and collaboration. Optimism itself is a very powerful and meaningful thing to achieve. Pretending "aesthetics" don't matter and our hardware isn't very significantly designed to respond to emotion is a huge flaw in "purely logical" reasoning. For goodness sake didn't we already cover this in Star Trek TNG?
- jacquesm 11y ago
  I'd happily invest in SpaceX if they let me. Even if it counts as 'wasted' money in the books of some the simple fact that humanity would aspire to walking on another planet is worth backing. Robot exploration just doesn't feel the same to me. Hearing a 'roger' beep still gives me the willies and I was only 4 when the moonlandings happened. Nothing we did after that was as impressive to me, even though I'm sure it was easier to impress my 4 year old self than it will be to impress me today, walking on Mars would certainly qualify.
jaredhansen 11y ago
>this accomplishes all of your objectives No, it doesn't. It doesn't at all! Establishing human presence on Mars is one of the core objectives of the whole program. It's one of the reasons we care about Mars. Hell, moving gradually toward making additional homes for human beings is part of why we do space exploration in general. Yes, you can gather rocks via robots and send back data and whatever else, but to claim that doing so exhausts the set of reasonable objectives for Mars missions is just silly. Here's a thought experiment to confirm: How many probes have we flown to how many planets in the solar system? Any idea, roughly, when the first one happened, or the last? You may know, but most folks have no idea. Conversely: where in the solar system have humans been? Any idea when we first got there, or when the last trip was? Unlike all the many highly valuable probe missions we've sent, here, most people actually know something about it. This is because people care about other people and their experiences, in a way that they don't care about scientific results as such. Putting human beings on other worlds is an end in itself, and it is simply not accomplished by sending drones instead.

by patio11 11y ago

smeyer 11y ago

The general claim is that your argument is flawed in "this accomplishes all of your objectives". I don't claim to be an expert in the field, but I've heard people who do care about and practice planetary and martian science that a manned mission could accomplish more than all the previous unmanned missions combined.

nabla9 11y ago
That could be true and manned mission can still be irrational choice. All manned missions arguments I have seen are somewhat coy in this respect. Yes, geologist can make better choices on spot and take better samples than current drones, but that's not real comparison. We should compare alternative strategies using opportunity cost. The money used for manned mission could be used for massive fleet of of drones, satellites and technical development. Missions could be more incremental and cover more areas. Self driving cars are just taking off on earth. How does advance fleet of Mars robocars and satellites mapping Mars compare to manned mission?
mapt 11y ago
Some of the lectures I've seen actually peg this as true, but for the wrong reason. It is possible to put together automated missions at-scale. But not likely. Because auditors can trim back an automated mission's scope smoothly, no matter how expansive it is, in order to save money. A slightly lighter, cheaper camera, gives way to an even more slightly lighter, cheaper camera, ad infinitum. A hundred units give way to 99 units give way to 30 units give way to 1 unit. But if you try to do that with a manned mission, you start to jeopardize the public heroes you have sensationalized in order to fund the mission. You don't get to send half a human being to Mars.

brianberns 11y ago

We've already sent a number of drones to Mars. There are rational reasons for wanting to send humans as well: Humans can do things on Mars that drones cannot, and they pave the way for possible colonization in the future.

_fizz_buzz_ 11y ago
> Humans can do things on Mars that drones cannot Such as? The only thing I can think of is that they can test if the human body can endure life on Mars. Honestly, as cool as sending people to mars is, I don't think it is an idea driven by rationality at this point.
- dinosammy 11y ago
  Humans on mars would inspire future generations with dreams of space travel, which will make them more likely to support higher levels of NASA funding?
  - jcranmer 11y ago
    You mean like how landing on the moon did wonders for NASA's budget?
    - eric_h 11y ago
      More like how the landing on the moon spawned SpaceX, Scaled Composites, etc. - It made people keep shooting for the moon.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Sadly, the more useful something is, the more it is underfunded.
- Fiahil 11y ago
  >> Humans can do things on Mars that drones cannot > Such as? Growing potatoes?
- 11y ago

hoorayimhelping 11y ago

But it completely ignores the main reason we do this: because we're humans and we're not rational. We have irrational emotions, and we think symbolically. Sending a human to Mars and bringing them back is way less about actually going to Mars and back and way more about humanity making sure we can still beat challenges that face us.

analyst74 11y ago

with the speed of robotics advancement, compared to advancement in material science and human preservation technologies, we actually might have a team of base-building Martian robots before being able to send astronauts there.

hfourm 11y ago
This probably makes the most sense. I still see sending a human to Mars as a likely precursor though. If we prove it is possible, alongside the advancements that come from the missions, would hopefully dramatically increase NASA fandom and funding.

frandroid 11y ago

Maybe a drone can build Starfighter too...

jessriedel 11y ago

"Rational" is not a property of ends, it is a property of means (and beliefs). All ends are arbitrary. The robots sent to mars are not useful for any reasonable economic reason. Even insofar as you count speculative basic research as economically useful, there are vastly better ways to spend that money on speculative basic research on Earth. So why go to Mars? Because either (1) you find the basic research being done about Martian geology particularly compelling or (2) you want to see it explored by humans for its own sake. If you really actually believe in (1), then by all means; send more robots. But I'll bet 100:1 that you personally have no appreciation for the basic science questions, which are mostly very technical and boring. (Hint: grand-seeming questions about life are promoted for publicity and funding reasons, but these are not the ones that actually drive the science, and we are not learning more about the origin of life from going to Mars.) Rather, I think you'll have to admit we want to go to Mars because it is awesome. You may think sending metal under our control is just as awesome as sending flesh and blood humans, but ultimately this is an aesthetic judgement which is not grounded in rationality. Personally, I would like to see humans walk there, and I'm happy to pay my citizen-share of $100/year over the next decade to make it happen.

taurath 11y ago
I think you should work on quantifying the power of "awesome" in terms of increased planetwide hopefulness and collaboration. Optimism itself is a very powerful and meaningful thing to achieve. Pretending "aesthetics" don't matter and our hardware isn't very significantly designed to respond to emotion is a huge flaw in "purely logical" reasoning. For goodness sake didn't we already cover this in Star Trek TNG?
jacquesm 11y ago
I'd happily invest in SpaceX if they let me. Even if it counts as 'wasted' money in the books of some the simple fact that humanity would aspire to walking on another planet is worth backing. Robot exploration just doesn't feel the same to me. Hearing a 'roger' beep still gives me the willies and I was only 4 when the moonlandings happened. Nothing we did after that was as impressive to me, even though I'm sure it was easier to impress my 4 year old self than it will be to impress me today, walking on Mars would certainly qualify.

jaredhansen 11y ago

>this accomplishes all of your objectives No, it doesn't. It doesn't at all! Establishing human presence on Mars is one of the core objectives of the whole program. It's one of the reasons we care about Mars. Hell, moving gradually toward making additional homes for human beings is part of why we do space exploration in general. Yes, you can gather rocks via robots and send back data and whatever else, but to claim that doing so exhausts the set of reasonable objectives for Mars missions is just silly. Here's a thought experiment to confirm: How many probes have we flown to how many planets in the solar system? Any idea, roughly, when the first one happened, or the last? You may know, but most folks have no idea. Conversely: where in the solar system have humans been? Any idea when we first got there, or when the last trip was? Unlike all the many highly valuable probe missions we've sent, here, most people actually know something about it. This is because people care about other people and their experiences, in a way that they don't care about scientific results as such. Putting human beings on other worlds is an end in itself, and it is simply not accomplished by sending drones instead.