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Space probes may be cheap but they are slooooowwww. Most of the research done by spirit, opportunity and curiosity could have been done by a trained astronaut

Space probes may be cheap but they are slooooowwww. Most of the research done by spirit, opportunity and curiosity could have been done by a trained astronaut in an afternoon. As an example, in its 2623 day mission, spirit traveled less than 5 miles. Rovers are great for low budget exploration, but if you want to kick things into high gear, there's no substitution for trained humans. Some of you may be thinking, 'Hold on a second, if you took the money for manned exploration and poured that all in to rovers, surely you would get even more science done than humans could possibly do!" Perhaps, but I would argue that the research done to support the manned exploration should be counted in the scientific haul. Meaning that currently, for ten billion dollars, we could shoot rovers to every corner of the solar system using current rocket technology. But if we spent that ten billion dollars sending people to mars, we would have to develop new rockets, new infrastructure, new habitation technologies, cosmic radiation shields and much more. All that technology, plus the knowledge we gain on mars would be more valuable than simply sending rovers all over the solar system, partially because all that new technology would probably make it easier to later send rovers all over the solar system. In addition to the above, there is also the massive pr power of putting people on mars. Everyone in the world knows Neil Armstrong, but no one cares much about luna 2.

jldugger 9y ago
> Rovers are great for low budget exploration, but if you want to kick things into high gear, there's no substitution for trained humans. But how many rovers can you get for the price of one round trip space party?
- codys 9y ago
  It's fairly hard to figure this out. What follows is a really bad comparison between Apollo & Curiosity, which completely ignores tech advancement, the difference between a moon flight and a mars flight, the length of time for each mission, the amount of data collected, and a whole lot of other stuff. The cost of Apollo program in 1973 was reported as ~$25 billion. In 2016 dollars, ~$135 billion. The Apollo program made 6 manned landings (I'm going to ignore non-landing missions as we're talking about rovers & consider them part of the development cost for the program). The curiosity mission was reported as costing $2.5 billion in 2011 ($2.6 billion in 2016 dollars). So with some really bad math (as noted earlier): - dollars per manned moon mission = 135/6 = 22.5 billion - dollars per unmanned mars mission = 2.6 billion - For the cost of 1 manned moon mission, we could have ~8 (22.5/2.6) unmanned mars missions.
valuearb 9y ago
NASAs manned space efforts have devolved into a scam to divert funds into the state of Alabama. It literally can't build any manned space systems unless they are gold plated and cost 20 times what they should.
- nathancahill 9y ago
  The gold plating is for radiation shielding in space. It reflects more infrared radiation than other materials.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    I thought it was to prevent corrosion in leo.. I understood that the upper atmosphere's interaction with high energy radiation creates a corona of ionized gas around the earth which is extremely eager to combine/corrode any material it makes contact with.
- SkyLX 9y ago
  Cite some sources for your claims dude.
  - mikeytown2 9y ago
    The SLS rocket is crazy expensive. It's known as the Senate Launch System because of all the pork. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/5/10/14886570/nasa-space-launch-system-rocket-ula-blue-origin-spacex https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...
- thearn4 9y ago
  i.e. what is sometimes called the "Alabama Space Mafia".
- aubiematt 9y ago
  The question should be, would you rather your tax dollars go towards a War machine? Or supporting the move of intelligent people to 3rd world Alabama to hopefully balance out the crazies and racists?
c22 9y ago
Everyone remembers Pathfinder but no one cares much about Eugene Cernan.
codys 9y ago
> Space probes may be cheap but they are slooooowwww If we spent as much on a space probe (or probes) as on a manned mission, I imagine there would be enough weight capacity to make the unmanned rover (or rovers) faster, if that was considered worthwhile. Also consider that the total distance traveled by a unmanned rover over the course of the mission already exceeds that of manned missions. Wikipedia links to a nice chart from NASA [1]. Distance traveled and speed to travel that distance isn't necessarily connected to the value of a rover. As to "all that new technology [we gain from manned exploration] would probably make it easier to later send rovers all over the solar system", frankly, we could just develop the new tech for unmanned exploration directly. Manned missions primarily serve as PR, except when we actually need careful manipulation, like repairing the Hubble, something that has almost continuously been pushed off to the point where it likely makes sense just to replace it. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Roving_Vehicle#/media/File:Driving_Distances_on_Mars_and_the_Moon.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Roving_Vehicle#/media/Fi...
greeneggs 9y ago
There is no better time for manned space exploration than now. Certainly within 100 years and possibly within decades, robots will be better than humans in nearly every aspect of space exploration. I think the proponents of manned space exploration see their window closing, and are getting a bit desperate. If we want NASA's research to have benefits to broader society, it would be best to redirect it all toward robotics and artificial intelligence. This would give the most scientific benefits as well as long-term engineering benefits. Currently, the money being spent on manned space exploration has negligible side benefits. A lot of it is being spent on old technologies, like non-reusable rockets that are too expensive to fly.

jldugger 9y ago

> Rovers are great for low budget exploration, but if you want to kick things into high gear, there's no substitution for trained humans. But how many rovers can you get for the price of one round trip space party?

codys 9y ago
It's fairly hard to figure this out. What follows is a really bad comparison between Apollo & Curiosity, which completely ignores tech advancement, the difference between a moon flight and a mars flight, the length of time for each mission, the amount of data collected, and a whole lot of other stuff. The cost of Apollo program in 1973 was reported as ~$25 billion. In 2016 dollars, ~$135 billion. The Apollo program made 6 manned landings (I'm going to ignore non-landing missions as we're talking about rovers & consider them part of the development cost for the program). The curiosity mission was reported as costing $2.5 billion in 2011 ($2.6 billion in 2016 dollars). So with some really bad math (as noted earlier): - dollars per manned moon mission = 135/6 = 22.5 billion - dollars per unmanned mars mission = 2.6 billion - For the cost of 1 manned moon mission, we could have ~8 (22.5/2.6) unmanned mars missions.

valuearb 9y ago

NASAs manned space efforts have devolved into a scam to divert funds into the state of Alabama. It literally can't build any manned space systems unless they are gold plated and cost 20 times what they should.

nathancahill 9y ago
The gold plating is for radiation shielding in space. It reflects more infrared radiation than other materials.
- sgt101 9y ago
  I thought it was to prevent corrosion in leo.. I understood that the upper atmosphere's interaction with high energy radiation creates a corona of ionized gas around the earth which is extremely eager to combine/corrode any material it makes contact with.
SkyLX 9y ago
Cite some sources for your claims dude.
- mikeytown2 9y ago
  The SLS rocket is crazy expensive. It's known as the Senate Launch System because of all the pork. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/5/10/14886570/nasa-space-launch-system-rocket-ula-blue-origin-spacex https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...
thearn4 9y ago
i.e. what is sometimes called the "Alabama Space Mafia".
aubiematt 9y ago
The question should be, would you rather your tax dollars go towards a War machine? Or supporting the move of intelligent people to 3rd world Alabama to hopefully balance out the crazies and racists?

c22 9y ago

Everyone remembers Pathfinder but no one cares much about Eugene Cernan.

codys 9y ago

> Space probes may be cheap but they are slooooowwww If we spent as much on a space probe (or probes) as on a manned mission, I imagine there would be enough weight capacity to make the unmanned rover (or rovers) faster, if that was considered worthwhile. Also consider that the total distance traveled by a unmanned rover over the course of the mission already exceeds that of manned missions. Wikipedia links to a nice chart from NASA [1]. Distance traveled and speed to travel that distance isn't necessarily connected to the value of a rover. As to "all that new technology [we gain from manned exploration] would probably make it easier to later send rovers all over the solar system", frankly, we could just develop the new tech for unmanned exploration directly. Manned missions primarily serve as PR, except when we actually need careful manipulation, like repairing the Hubble, something that has almost continuously been pushed off to the point where it likely makes sense just to replace it. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Roving_Vehicle#/media/File:Driving_Distances_on_Mars_and_the_Moon.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Roving_Vehicle#/media/Fi...

greeneggs 9y ago

There is no better time for manned space exploration than now. Certainly within 100 years and possibly within decades, robots will be better than humans in nearly every aspect of space exploration. I think the proponents of manned space exploration see their window closing, and are getting a bit desperate. If we want NASA's research to have benefits to broader society, it would be best to redirect it all toward robotics and artificial intelligence. This would give the most scientific benefits as well as long-term engineering benefits. Currently, the money being spent on manned space exploration has negligible side benefits. A lot of it is being spent on old technologies, like non-reusable rockets that are too expensive to fly.