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> Seems to me that adding humans to the mix greatly increased the complexity and risk of the mission. We spent the last few years watching robots with state of

> Seems to me that adding humans to the mix greatly increased the complexity and risk of the mission. We spent the last few years watching robots with state of the art 21st century technology and software crash on the moon repeatedly, and yet, in the 1960s a few hot shot test pilots could stick a landing on their first try. Given the choice between robots and humans, I’ll take the humans.

strogonoff 3y ago
Human ingenuity aside, I wonder if sending humans on missions can offer higher success rates due to higher stakes for all involved (the cost of human life). When we send humans to the Moon, the pressure to get things right is higher and consequences of failure are very dire. Sadly, of course, not a guarantee of success.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Which then leads me to wonder... The risk vs reward calculation for human-involved missions is necessarily higher than robotic missions. Is that additional cost an order of magnitude higher? IE, we can afford one and only one human mission, but three robotic missions? Does the math work out in favor of the single high-success mission, or the three slightly lower success missions? Obviously depends on the expected success rate and cost of each. But, probably why we haven't done a lot with human missions since the 60s.
  - strogonoff 3y ago
    I am not sure such utilitarian math is the true solution, attempts to put a number on the value of human life seem all silly. I would rather say that the failure of a robotic mission costs an amount X, while the failure of a human mission intuitively has infinite price.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      Conversely setting human life to infinity cost quickly breaks down with the trolley problem. Any problem where groups a or b are going to die then whatever group is bigger lives, even if it doesn't make sense, such as group b is all very old and group a is very young but slightly smaller.
      - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
        To be fair, it's not really a breakdown of the trolley problem. It's the point of the trolley problem. Setting the value of a human life to infinity basically gives you deontology, in that both outcomes are approximately equally bad, and thus your choosing to get involved at all is unethical.
      - strogonoff 3y ago
        Trolley problems are an exercise in utilitarianism and maybe generally consequentialism. If those are your views, then you can probably put a number on it. Other views are available, however. (See sibling mentioning deontology.)
jxdxbx 3y ago
I didn’t want to pipe up right when it happened with my non-expertise but seriously, that Odysseus lander seemed liked a pretty dumb design. Of course it tipped over. Come on
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  I am also an armchair expert but I've played enough KSP to know that their design could have worked, but they would have needed to really stick the landing. Or add enough reaction wheels so it could self-right.
- KineticLensman 3y ago
  > that Odysseus lander seemed liked a pretty dumb design It was built thin and tall to fit within the Falcon 9 fairing. It didn't have extending legs because these would have become possible points of failure. The crash happened because the altimeter wasn't working, which IIRC was due to a pre-launch assembly error. As a result Odysseus landed outside the safe operating parameters of the landing legs.
perihelions 3y ago
You're reading history in reverse. The Soviets landed a robotic probe on the moon years before the USA succeeded with human pilots, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9 ("Luna 9") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#Mission_milestone_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#M... ("List of missions to the Moon—Mission milestone by country") You absolutely don't need sophisticated technology or giant budgets to accomplish this.
- AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
  Luna 9 used an airbag system, not a soft landing system.
- generalizations 3y ago
  Except, Luna 9 was soft landing attempt no. 12 - the point is the humans pulled it off on landing attempt no. 1.
  - ivandenysov 3y ago
    Counter point: first unmanned US soft landing attempt succeeded 3 years before first manned attempt. Surveyor 1 - 1966 Apollo 11 - 1969. I bet that NASA learned a lot from 7 unmanned Surveyor missions and that contributed to the success of Apollo 11.
tuyiown 3y ago
> in the 1960s a few hot shot test pilots could stick a landing on their first try. Ha you mean the most costly, engineering first and politicized science and engineering endeavor ever attempted, and even though it was some kind of little miracle ?
ubermonkey 3y ago
That's an astonishingly bad take that requires gratuitous cherry-picking of data.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
Read about missions like gemini 9. Its a sheer stroke of luck the moon mission worked, it could have easily failed and there would have been no rescue.
vpribish 3y ago
it's a movie. they wanted, like, human drama which is substantially more difficult if the main character is not alive.

strogonoff 3y ago

Human ingenuity aside, I wonder if sending humans on missions can offer higher success rates due to higher stakes for all involved (the cost of human life). When we send humans to the Moon, the pressure to get things right is higher and consequences of failure are very dire. Sadly, of course, not a guarantee of success.

alistairSH 3y ago
Which then leads me to wonder... The risk vs reward calculation for human-involved missions is necessarily higher than robotic missions. Is that additional cost an order of magnitude higher? IE, we can afford one and only one human mission, but three robotic missions? Does the math work out in favor of the single high-success mission, or the three slightly lower success missions? Obviously depends on the expected success rate and cost of each. But, probably why we haven't done a lot with human missions since the 60s.
- strogonoff 3y ago
  I am not sure such utilitarian math is the true solution, attempts to put a number on the value of human life seem all silly. I would rather say that the failure of a robotic mission costs an amount X, while the failure of a human mission intuitively has infinite price.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    Conversely setting human life to infinity cost quickly breaks down with the trolley problem. Any problem where groups a or b are going to die then whatever group is bigger lives, even if it doesn't make sense, such as group b is all very old and group a is very young but slightly smaller.
    - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
      To be fair, it's not really a breakdown of the trolley problem. It's the point of the trolley problem. Setting the value of a human life to infinity basically gives you deontology, in that both outcomes are approximately equally bad, and thus your choosing to get involved at all is unethical.
    - strogonoff 3y ago
      Trolley problems are an exercise in utilitarianism and maybe generally consequentialism. If those are your views, then you can probably put a number on it. Other views are available, however. (See sibling mentioning deontology.)

jxdxbx 3y ago

I didn’t want to pipe up right when it happened with my non-expertise but seriously, that Odysseus lander seemed liked a pretty dumb design. Of course it tipped over. Come on

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
I am also an armchair expert but I've played enough KSP to know that their design could have worked, but they would have needed to really stick the landing. Or add enough reaction wheels so it could self-right.
KineticLensman 3y ago
> that Odysseus lander seemed liked a pretty dumb design It was built thin and tall to fit within the Falcon 9 fairing. It didn't have extending legs because these would have become possible points of failure. The crash happened because the altimeter wasn't working, which IIRC was due to a pre-launch assembly error. As a result Odysseus landed outside the safe operating parameters of the landing legs.

perihelions 3y ago

You're reading history in reverse. The Soviets landed a robotic probe on the moon years before the USA succeeded with human pilots, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9 ("Luna 9") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#Mission_milestone_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#M... ("List of missions to the Moon—Mission milestone by country") You absolutely don't need sophisticated technology or giant budgets to accomplish this.

AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
Luna 9 used an airbag system, not a soft landing system.
generalizations 3y ago
Except, Luna 9 was soft landing attempt no. 12 - the point is the humans pulled it off on landing attempt no. 1.
- ivandenysov 3y ago
  Counter point: first unmanned US soft landing attempt succeeded 3 years before first manned attempt. Surveyor 1 - 1966 Apollo 11 - 1969. I bet that NASA learned a lot from 7 unmanned Surveyor missions and that contributed to the success of Apollo 11.

tuyiown 3y ago

> in the 1960s a few hot shot test pilots could stick a landing on their first try. Ha you mean the most costly, engineering first and politicized science and engineering endeavor ever attempted, and even though it was some kind of little miracle ?

ubermonkey 3y ago

That's an astonishingly bad take that requires gratuitous cherry-picking of data.

kjkjadksj 3y ago

Read about missions like gemini 9. Its a sheer stroke of luck the moon mission worked, it could have easily failed and there would have been no rescue.

vpribish 3y ago

it's a movie. they wanted, like, human drama which is substantially more difficult if the main character is not alive.