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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”.
by 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 agoIts 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 agoThe 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.