Jim Korman wrote:
> > Jake Anderson wrote:
> > And robot's don't get sick or need medical attention.
>
> ????????????????? Spirit doesn't seem to be in great
> health. I DO hope they get it fixed.

Sounds like they will repair it since it appears to have been a
software 'design error'.

My point was that robots don't need a support or recovery
system. If they break, they are abandoned. Humans have
to be given treatment and repatriated. You have to provide
a LOT of additional support to cover human breakdowns.

All the points made so far in favour of a human presence in
space neglect the orders of magnitude higher costs they bring
with them TO DO SIMILAR WORK.

And weren't the American astronauts rather vocal about not
wanting to be 'spam in a can'? Machines do not make the
kind of random errors humans do. The MIR docking crash
was due to human error.

Jake Anderson wrote:
> thats around 10 scientific return photos a day.

And your point is? If they wanted to return more images, they would.
They certainly have the capability to do so, within the constraints of
the deployed communications system.

> personally I think thats pretty cool. but if you dont think a person could
> do better given a solid day of work?

Huummm. A robot working for 3 months 24x7 (more or less) at $430 million
vs a human at $10 trillion+ for what volume of work? And what happens
when the human's life support system fails?

It sure doesn't seem cost effective to me. Nor will it EVER be.
As I said before, it's a question of WHY we are out there.
Humans add little to the raw science collection (other
than the human part). Yes, they are more flexible than a robot, and
certainly more adaptive, but that doesn't make humans the best solution
for exploring space.

> somewhere between what zubrin says and what nasa says
>
> > I think you've made my point for me. Thanks.
>
> i think you have missed my point entirley

I hope not. Humans may have a place in space, but they have very different
strengths than robots. Many experts have said that they will never be
as efficient or cost effective as robots. I certainly agree.

My big objection is that NASA is being forced to rob Peter to pay Paul.
Hubble was the first casualty. Others robot
exploration programs will quickly follow.

> > But they aren't going to run out of food or oxygen either.
>
> yes they are
> the rovers currently on mars are estimated to run out of power in 3 months
> when the solar panels get covered in dust

A design choice. They could have put on simple panel wiper brushes to
keep the panels clean.

They could also have added remote control to the
lunar rover and rechargeable batteries (rather than the single use lithium)
and explored the moon for months after the last mission left.

My point was that humans need ongoing provisioning, at very high cost,
compared to robots doing the SAME THING.

> > And if they had needed a machine that could go meters per second, they
> > would have built one.
>
> that is a decidedly non trivial task.

Again, a design choice was made.

> > What they have is adequate for the prescribed task
> > since with solar power it will eventually get there.
>
> untill the batteries die from cycling and the solar panels get coated in
> dust

Design choice.

Haven't the Voyagers performed decades longer than their design life?
It's always about cost/benefit. If they wanted longer cycle life, they'd
spend the dollars to put it in. Unfortunately ongoing budgetary constraints
have lead to many shortcuts that have cost the program dearly.
e.g. Apollo 1, Hubble mirror test, Challenger, Columbia

> > They were talking
> > about covering 10's of km of area with Spirit.
>
> last i spoke to the head of mars program at NASA they seemed to be
> indicating a 1-3km drive in a straight line would be a fair effort (dont
> disaggree with him there)

It certainly is. But that's what I saw/heard on NASA TV last week.
Maybe they were being a bit exuberant having had a near perfect landing.

> > They seem to have even
> > greater plans for Opportunity (climb out of the crater to go for the
> > 'big one' km away).
>
> thing is a person wouldnt even considder that a big plan at all it'd be
> trivial

Again, a design choice, with a thousand fold cost factor to add humans.
Put the same money into a robot as you would have to put into a human mission
and I think you'd still get more bang for the buck with a robot.

> > And robot's don't get sick or need medical attention.
>
> humans adding unreliability!!???

Yes. They respond differently each time, particularly when stressed.
Or is 'pilot error' a fallacy? The MIR cargo crash proves otherwise.

> robots not getting sick?

Sick, as specifically applied to humans. e.g. flue, cold, etc.

> not needing maintenence?

Less than humans. Robots don't have bodily functions that need to
be accommodated.

> how many robitic missions have failed?

Many. How many humans have be killed because of STUPID HUMAN mistakes?
Loss of MPO was a stupid human mistake, caused by a flawed design process,
but no human lives were lost.

> how often do machines break?

Too often it seems. Now add in the toll in human lives.

We already know the recent tragic and unnecessary death toll.
It's one thing to die because of a true 'accident'. It's quite another to
die because of political considerations where the safety rules and concerns
are bent or ignored.

10's of millions were spent on retrofitting escape systems into the
shuttles, but little was spent to address a KNOWN problem with insulation
falling off fuel tanks. I call it murder by committee. Same for the Challenger
O-ring override for launch.

> what is happening with spirit now? its not working its broken. A human (well
> a group thereof) is the ultimate maintanance and system reliabilty asset any
> mission can have.

Exactly. And HUMANS make mistakes, and other humans will die from them.
If you only send robots the human toll is greatly reduced.

> > Yes, that is a likely negative result of a focus on manned missions,
> > particularly when manned missions are at least 100 times more costly,
> > and with much less science return.
>
> less science return? what possible evidence do you have for that?

How many trillions of megabytes of data/image/measurements
have been returned from the robot explorers of our solar system?
At what cost, compared to having sent humans there?

> yes they cost more, but a single human can do the job of tens of robotic
> missions in a much shorter time frame and much more reliably.

Really? How many man years of training went into the lunar missions
to place some retro- reflectors, seismic sensors, and the like, compared
to what it would have cost to soft land them on something like Surveyor?

IF JFK's mandate had been to 'land a robot on the moon and return
it safely to earth' there would have been little public interest,
but they could have done it years sooner.

> when it deployed it hit the lens cover of the camera. A human would have
> just kicked it out of the way now you can say "well next time dont do that"
> but the thing is next time is a *Looong* time away. Look at the moon, since
> apollo there hasnt been another lander, that i know of anyway.

And if a simple design error had left the humans stranded, then what?

> Yhe thing is the americans got boatloads more information. They had soil
> profiles and eyewitnes accounts and well damn it everything a geoligist
> wanted to know from hundreds of sites spread over hundreds of km (several
> tens away from the landers). Read the apollo transcripts, especially from

Sure with 7? manned missions costing how many times more than the Mars
programs (in constant dollars).

> the geoligist they sent up there. he was giving detailed analisis of the
> soil while they were deploying the buggy because he was pulling on a rope
> and leaning over close to the ground. robots dont take unforseen
> oppertunities like that because they run a program.

True. But how much science comes from such casual, if expert, observation?

> > a human and you need a much more robust and wide data path. More
> > $$$ again.
>
> you can make it free if you dont go.

Exactly. Which brings us back to the cost benefit analysis.
IF you wish to explore space, what is the 'best' way to do that?
The answer hinges on what, exactly, you wish to accomplish.

> > And you don't have to worry about fatigue or life support with a robot.
>
> yes you do
> your robot will break
> it will die
> and the more complex you make it to try and get the most out of it, the
> faster that'll happen

Sure. But you won't have a human body and their family to deal with.
You won't be forced to go back and redesign everything for safety yet again.
You'll just fix the problem and send another robot.

> Which is fine if the designer knew it would happen and if such a thing were
> possible.
> its the unpredicted problems where humans come into their own.

Absolutely correct.
So when something unpredicted happens, that leads to their
unexpected death, we just send up another human?

> MIR was a lump of metal, there was nothing ground controllers could have
> done to save it, if not for the humans aboard then the mission would have
> been lost.

Again proving the fallibility of human engineering.

> you cant forsee everything and make it redundant

True. But given NASA's ability to CONTINUE to screw up, I hold little
hope of them ever getting men to Mars and back, ALIVE.

> > And what would the public response be to the additional deaths
> > that will NO DOUBT HAPPEN.
>
> yeah but then people are going to die on the roads too
> i know which way i'd rather go

Well, if a UFO landed in my back yard, I'd be gone in a flash too.
At least it would be 'interesting', and by MY choice, not the poor
choices of the upper managers at NASA.

> > If we can't get something as complex as the Shuttle to work reliably,
>
> not to be blunt but the shuttle is a piece of crap
> it was initally a good idea then it got infected by the NASA mentality and
> the airforces requirements and general feature creep

And how will NASA be ANY DIFFERENT in the future. 3rd time lucky??

No thanks. I see no point in wasting money on a PROVEN UNRELIABLE design
process where the lower level engineers concerns are STILL ignored
(as the Columbia tragedy proved).

> entire wiring loom? we are talking hundreds of km of cable. basically the
> shuttle as it stands now is a bad design for what its used for.

Yep. No argument from me on that. And this is supposed to be one of
NASA's big achievements?

> > Biosphere 2 sure didn't work out, did it,
>
> no and i'm not entirley suprised but wth has that got to do with this?

Biosphere was supposed to have been a 'proof of concept' for colonies on other planets.
Didn't work because expert advice was ignored (sound familiar?).
Biosphere 2 was supposed to work better, because of more scientific engineering,
but it too has failed.

> a better analogy would be a nuclear submarine
> they seem to do a pretty good job of crusing around for 6 months under water

6 months without EVER surfacing? Really? Impressive, and a good example
of what can be done. On the other hand, if they have a fire or other
serious problem, they can surface, and help can be rendered.
No way to do that on the moon.

> without contact with the outside world with 80 people on them and a couple
> of thousand PSI on the outside, much harsher environment than space in
> some ways.

So why then can't NASA do at least as well?

> > Seems to me that the taxpayer should be told the truth, not sold
> > some totally unrealistic pie in the sky promise.
>
> true, and they have been now, near as i can tell
> hey we are going to do this thing and its going to cost a fair bit but damn
> it'll be nifty

"Nifty" just doesn't cut it when the taxpayer is footing the bill.

> > I am all for space exploration, but like any other engineering task,
> > use the CORRECT tool for the job. In this case, robots.
>
> but what do you do when your robot breaks?

Send up another.

> show me a perfect robot that never needs maintence, works first time and is
> capiblle of making decisions about what is important and i will worship you
> as a god lol

My robot will easily outlast and outperform your human, given the
-same- monetary investment and development time.

Bottom line is, what do we really want to do in space?
Explore, and gather scientific data about other worlds? Send robots.
Learn about colonizing space? Then send humans.
Do NOT send humans to sample soils and geology when robots are clearly
more cost effective.
And do not cut robot funding in order to fund human programs. The people
and knowledge you loose will take decades to replace.

Robert

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