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The curiosity rover took about 4 years to cover 10 miles. The Apollo 17 rover covered 20 miles in 4 hours. Ego and the human spirit aside, humans are better a

The curiosity rover took about 4 years to cover 10 miles. The Apollo 17 rover covered 20 miles in 4 hours. Ego and the human spirit aside, humans are better at exploring than robots, even with 50 years of advances in robotics.

jfengel 3y ago
The Curiosity rover went slowly because it was designed for data collection, not for speed. (That, and the fact that it had to get to Mars, which put severe weight limits.) Astronauts covered a lot of distance but they didn't do a lot of science. Though to be fair, they weren't there to do science. They were there to plant flags, take selfies, and maybe bring back some souvenirs so that science could be done back on earth. They didn't even send up a scientist until that last mission. The rover there was primarily to establish ownership. Having done that, they stopped. A team of humans might improve the efficiency of the robots, by repairing them faster and doing some other work locally. But for the same cost you could send up an awful lot of robots.
- elsonrodriguez 3y ago
  Apollo 17 brought back 200 pounds of lunar material, including the deepest core samples we have of a planetary body, but you characterize that as “souvenirs”. Name a robotic mission that has brought back more than 200 pounds of “souvenirs” from another world. Eventually robotic missions will get there, but more often than not they will be as a vanguard for human exploration and settlement, because even though I put aside human motivation for arguments sake, in the real world humans have a deep desire to explore that cannot be placated with data from a probe.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Its not like its physically impossible to design some sort of remote operated vehicle that can return with 200 lbs of material if these are within the mission parameters. That’s what I am getting at. Not that the missions were insignificant or the results poor, but that today especially considering present technology over that from 60 years ago, there doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to put a human at risk in outer space over designing a remote vehicle to perform the same procedures you expect the human to do.
    - elsonrodriguez 3y ago
      The existing sample return mission to mars is already getting budgetary pushback. I am willing to wager a human mission will not receive the same pushback, even if it's 10x the price. The human angle here cannot be ignored.

jfengel 3y ago

The Curiosity rover went slowly because it was designed for data collection, not for speed. (That, and the fact that it had to get to Mars, which put severe weight limits.) Astronauts covered a lot of distance but they didn't do a lot of science. Though to be fair, they weren't there to do science. They were there to plant flags, take selfies, and maybe bring back some souvenirs so that science could be done back on earth. They didn't even send up a scientist until that last mission. The rover there was primarily to establish ownership. Having done that, they stopped. A team of humans might improve the efficiency of the robots, by repairing them faster and doing some other work locally. But for the same cost you could send up an awful lot of robots.

elsonrodriguez 3y ago
Apollo 17 brought back 200 pounds of lunar material, including the deepest core samples we have of a planetary body, but you characterize that as “souvenirs”. Name a robotic mission that has brought back more than 200 pounds of “souvenirs” from another world. Eventually robotic missions will get there, but more often than not they will be as a vanguard for human exploration and settlement, because even though I put aside human motivation for arguments sake, in the real world humans have a deep desire to explore that cannot be placated with data from a probe.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Its not like its physically impossible to design some sort of remote operated vehicle that can return with 200 lbs of material if these are within the mission parameters. That’s what I am getting at. Not that the missions were insignificant or the results poor, but that today especially considering present technology over that from 60 years ago, there doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to put a human at risk in outer space over designing a remote vehicle to perform the same procedures you expect the human to do.
  - elsonrodriguez 3y ago
    The existing sample return mission to mars is already getting budgetary pushback. I am willing to wager a human mission will not receive the same pushback, even if it's 10x the price. The human angle here cannot be ignored.