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I feel that people that think robots are the future of space exploration don't follow these missions too closely. Robots are terrible and not getting better ver

I feel that people that think robots are the future of space exploration don't follow these missions too closely. Robots are terrible and not getting better very quickly at all. This thing has been trying to dig a small hole for more than a year, something any person can do in about 15 minutes. In 8 years Curiosity has covered the same distance as a long afternoon walk. We're not gonna be able to send people to places like Europa, but any meaningful Mars exploration will need people.

balfirevic 7y ago
That's not clear at all. Part of the reason why these robots are not very capable are very small mass budget and inability to iterate often, both due to high cost of shipping stuff to Mars. Under those restrictions, humans are not getting to Mars at all. When those restrictions are relaxed enough to contemplate sending humans to Mars, the robots will become much more capable too. Disclaimer: I'd still love to see humans on Mars because it's exciting as hell!
- logicallee 7y ago
  > Part of the reason why these robots are not very capable are very small mass budget "The InSight lander weighs 794 pounds (360 kilograms)" https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/faq/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/faq/
  - balfirevic 7y ago
    Exactly?
  - khafra 7y ago
    Are you implying that 794lbs is substantially heavier than a human, plus supplies for over a year, plus the extra delta-v to lift the human and half those supplies back up off Mars?
  - DerekL 7y ago
    For comparison, the Apollo Lunar Module had a launch mass of 15,200 kg.
- kraemahz 7y ago
  The robots can be iterated on Earth and the environments aren't much different. The problem here is NASA. NASA is a politicized bureaucracy that has its hands tied behind its back. It cannot afford to take risks (both from a budget point of view and a politics point of view; failed missions are a wound to national pride). It cannot afford to hire the best and brightest because government payroll levels can't match industry wages. NASA is mired in old engineering superstition and has wrapped all progress in procedures that make it impossible to iterate quickly. They've made hardware and software decisions produced for them by niche industries that charge 10-20x consumer prices for inferior hardware that is certified by NASA standards. NASA is not the organization that made it to the Moon anymore.
tambourine_man 7y ago
>We're not gonna be able to send people to places like Europa… We will, just probably not in the next 20 years or so.
- pampa 7y ago
  I'm not quite sure if this comment is about space travel, or international O_o
ssivark 7y ago
Yes, but what are the odds of any human lasting 8 years on Mars, to study temporal variations? :-)
- dharmab 7y ago
  All of the serious mars mission proposals are one way trips.

balfirevic 7y ago

That's not clear at all. Part of the reason why these robots are not very capable are very small mass budget and inability to iterate often, both due to high cost of shipping stuff to Mars. Under those restrictions, humans are not getting to Mars at all. When those restrictions are relaxed enough to contemplate sending humans to Mars, the robots will become much more capable too. Disclaimer: I'd still love to see humans on Mars because it's exciting as hell!

logicallee 7y ago
> Part of the reason why these robots are not very capable are very small mass budget "The InSight lander weighs 794 pounds (360 kilograms)" https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/faq/ https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/faq/
- balfirevic 7y ago
  Exactly?
- khafra 7y ago
  Are you implying that 794lbs is substantially heavier than a human, plus supplies for over a year, plus the extra delta-v to lift the human and half those supplies back up off Mars?
- DerekL 7y ago
  For comparison, the Apollo Lunar Module had a launch mass of 15,200 kg.
kraemahz 7y ago
The robots can be iterated on Earth and the environments aren't much different. The problem here is NASA. NASA is a politicized bureaucracy that has its hands tied behind its back. It cannot afford to take risks (both from a budget point of view and a politics point of view; failed missions are a wound to national pride). It cannot afford to hire the best and brightest because government payroll levels can't match industry wages. NASA is mired in old engineering superstition and has wrapped all progress in procedures that make it impossible to iterate quickly. They've made hardware and software decisions produced for them by niche industries that charge 10-20x consumer prices for inferior hardware that is certified by NASA standards. NASA is not the organization that made it to the Moon anymore.

tambourine_man 7y ago

>We're not gonna be able to send people to places like Europa… We will, just probably not in the next 20 years or so.

pampa 7y ago
I'm not quite sure if this comment is about space travel, or international O_o

ssivark 7y ago

Yes, but what are the odds of any human lasting 8 years on Mars, to study temporal variations? :-)

dharmab 7y ago
All of the serious mars mission proposals are one way trips.