> 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.

True. Part of the MUCH larger cost of an infinitely superior system :-).

> 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.

There is absolutely no chance of this being true.
Consider: Send two craft from Earth to Mars (and return to earth for the
manned craft).
Assume orbital mechanics involved at each end are the same as for present
Earth-Mars or Earth-Mars-Earth situation. and that living, manufacturing etc
on MArs are as hard there as they are now BUT assume (stupidly :-) ) that
the surface is like the neighborhood where you live.
Imagine a machine with equivalent capabilities to the current Mars rovers
being placed semi randomly in this neighbourhood with an uncertainty of
positioning of about 15 km. What could it tell you about what it found
within its time and other constraints? Now place 3 people in the same
situation with support and equipment * commensurate with the very much
larger cost of placing them there*. What would they be able to find out
while they are there?

Mars is even more complex, varied and information rich than your
neighbourhood. While it is easy to see it as being mainly a reddish rocky
desolate surface, this is in large part because what we can determine about
it so far is limited by the crude tools available AND we (most of us) don't
view it with Mars scientists eyes. Comparison in complexity with an uirban
neighbourhood is not as silly as it sounds PROVIDED THAT you have available
even a small part of the instrumentation needed to analyse your
surroundings. A robot mission built to a price will be limited as to what is
available. A manned mission, at a far far higher price will not only have
far far more equipment, but it will be able to use the equipment infinitely
flexibly due to human presence.

Compare the amount of information able to be obtained in each case. Divide
cost by information in each case and decide which gave better value per $.

Quoting the figures given 10 trillion / 430 million is about 25:1. This is
not in fact the true cost in either case as there are both massive spinoffs
and massive hidden costs but use this ratio to start with.
STOP PRESS - I just realised that that is 10 trillioin, not 10 billion. The
ratio is therefore 25,000:1.
a) I don't believe that figure :-)
b) Still competitive :-) Read on.

What are the prospects that a manned mission would NOT return more than 25
times as much information as one of the current landers (or several of the
current landers). It is impossible to imagine a small team of experts would
not be able to intelligently gather hundreds to thousands as times more
information as a dumb, range limited, power limited, mobility limited,
equipment limited, a chain is as strong as its weakest link limited robot.

Even if the manned misison was lost during return the information return
would probably be tens of thousands of times greater than froma  robot
mission. Successful return would provide a significant mass of samples which
could then be subject to analyses not available to men or robots on Mars
surface. Such a comparison is NOT unfair - an integral part of the package
with a manned mission is, as has been noted, mission return capability.
Integral with returning the crew is returning samples.  . .

Summary. Robots are fine. They get a foot in the door.  They have a much
lower minimum cost of implementation per mission. They have a much lower
ongoinmg resource requirement en route. In relative terms they are vatsly
superior to not being able to send anythging at all. But in absolute terms
they are laughably pathetically incapable. The idea of spending $430 million
to achieve the same capability on earth would be unheard of (unless you are
selling toilet seats to the US military). Manned missions, especially manned
misisons to vastly information rich utterly unknown locations, have the
capability of achieving vastly more in absolute terms.

A thought: The very very very hard part of a manned Mars mission is
achieving crew return. It's so hard that things like fuel manufacture at the
far end are almost mandatory. A vastly cheaper and more capable mission
would be achieved by sending a one way mission. Nobody would do it. Nobody
would suggest it. But there would be many thousands of well qualified
volunteers available to man such a mission. Fortunately for the robots it
won't happen.

A few comments on the pat mesage follow fwiw.



            Russell McMahon


> And weren't the American astronauts rather vocal about not
> wanting to be 'spam in a can'?

No. Mercury was described as "Spam in a can".

> Machines do not make the  kind of random errors humans do.

Indeed. They make their own sorts of equally bad random errors.

> The MIR docking crash was due to human error.

Maybe yes - but probably NOT by the station's commander.

If you listen to the story as told by the US astronaut aboard at the time
who is about as independent observer as you could get (ie not totally but
fairly good) the cause was that the station commander was ordered to
atrtempt to do something that he had not trained for and objected to doing
on safety grounds. His objections were over-ridden by his ground
controllers. The human error was not space based but bureacratic. Such
errors are the human ones that also send robot misisons to their doom.

> 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.

That's modifiying the point raised before you answer it.
The constraints imposed by the deployed comms system are part of the overall
mass budget, cost nudget etc. The robot capability is low because the
overall system is a cheaper-faster-worser one. A human dearer-slower-better
one would send back zillions of photos on its infinitely more capable comms
link. If I can find the need to take 1 photo on average every waking minute
for 9 weeks as I travel around the world (about 19,200 baud not counting the
30 hours of video that my wife took) then I'm sure a Mars station would like
to be able to send back even more data.

> > 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?

Break even at 25,000:1 if you believe that $10T figure. I've seen far far
far lower "fully costed" Masr mission figures beore today. Dunno where the
$10T came from. Even then, an overall human mission would NOT be a 3 month
24/7 one. The vastly higher cost would have accompanying vastly higher
capability. And if the human life support system fauled then ALL data up to
that point (and much thereafter) would have been sent via the suitably
capable comms links.

> > > I think you've made my point for me. Thanks.
> >
> > i think you have missed my point entirley
>
> I hope not.

I think so :-)

> Humans may have a place in space, but they have very different
> strengths than robots.

Agree, of course.

> Many experts have said that they will never be
> as efficient or cost effective as robots.

Religious argument. Thosusands available on each side to swaer on mother's
grave that they speak truth. Only deciding for yourself works.

> My big objection is that NASA is being forced to rob Peter to pay Paul.

True. Unrelated to the argument of robot versus manned. When politics enter
the fray (do remember why this is all being done) everyone suffers.
.

> Hubble was the first casualty. Others robot
> exploration programs will quickly follow.

Yes. Sadly.
>
> > > 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.

But they didn't. And underatanding all the why's and wherefores is
important. IF a simple low cost low mass addition would have added very
substanmtially to the mission capability in a cost veffective way, they
would have done it. Thinking through why they didn't MAY add perspective to
how much youcan achieve with one relatively fantastic and absolutely
pathetic rover.

> My point was that humans need ongoing provisioning, at very high cost,

yes

> compared to robots doing the SAME THING.

No. Can't do the same thing. Provide one example of a robot anywhere that in
net sum can do more than an average human.  eg a welding robot can outweld
any human welder, needs no food, takes no breaks etc etc. But it can only
weld, its stuck on one spot (or on a track), can ONLY weld, relies on power
supply being there, can only weld, needs electrodes/wire/gas whatever
supplied just right, can only weld. Also, did I note that it can only weld?
A robot welder is an excellent welder. But its a pathetic anything else.

> > > 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.

Yes. Withing the overall mass/$/time budget.
Overall mission goodness is optimiesd (hopefully) by all the many and large
compromises being made. The result is utterly pathetic - but its the best
patheticx we have on the surface of mars so it's relatively fantastic.
>
> > > 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.

Pathetic.
Which is fine as long as we realise that it is.

> 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.

Nope. You get a linear multiplier. 1000 x pathetic is not too bad
considerinb, but ... .
Add human brain power and thing change.

> Or is 'pilot error' a fallacy? The MIR cargo crash proves otherwise.

Highly possibly bureaucratic error - see above.


> > robots not getting sick?
>
> Sick, as specifically applied to humans. e.g. flue, cold, etc.

Flash memory dead, solar fla........... :-(, jammed high gain antenna, hello
Spirit, come in Spirit, hello, ....

> 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.

Not too many years sooner.
Recall that a LARGE reason for the program was to better the Soviets.
The Soviets started out ahead.
The Soviets managed unmanned sample return - random sample, random location
(scoop from where you happen to randomly be), very very very small size ...
. Sooner - yes. But far far inferior to what a walking man could manage.
Hey - see that large house shaped rock over there. Thatv looks like it's
made of ....

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

If they couldn;'t fix it then, the information would have got home, but no
samples.

In the case of Apollo 13 a simple design error cro\ippled the craft. Human
ingenuity and some rolls of duct tape got them home. Most robot mission
sdon't carry duct tape. Once they work out how to yteach robots to use duct
tape as well as humans can then they'll probabl;y carry it.

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

Much. Many if not most major scientific discoveries have been serendipitous.
The list vis awesomely long.

> > 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.

Bureaucratic idiots on the ground ... :-)

> 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.

Every person who lifts off expects to die. If they don't there's something
wrong with them. Most are pleasanytly surprised by whayt actually happens.


> > > 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.

Worked marvellously. Showed all sorts of ways that things go wrong and how
people cheat to stop others knowing anmd ....
Excellent tool. Now we need to learn from it :-)

> > 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.

The frequency with which nuclear submarines have accidents is a good
indication of how well critical systems can be built. Getting good data on
this may be a bit more difficult. The Kursk tragedy shows that carrying
weapons systems, let alone old sunstandardeapons systems, on Mars bound
spacecraft is probably a bad idea. :-(

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


Can. But the task is actually harder, alas. A sub can be made as solid and
heavy as you want, more or less. Main victim is probably speed. Spacecraft
are much much much more weight constrained.


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

"Nifty" is one of the few things that DOES cut it IMHO. If you can't use
security, and food on the table or equivalent then catching the imagination
may be a substitute. Actually doing so can be hard.

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

Yep. And a human will far far far outperform a robot when both are sent on a
reasonably minimum cost mission to the same place. The robot is far cheaper.
The manned mission is far more capable - partially because it costs far far
more.

> Do NOT send humans to sample soils and geology when robots are clearly
> more cost effective.

&b pathetic :-)

> And do not cut robot funding in order to fund human programs.

Agree

> The people and knowledge you loose will take decades to replace.

Agree.

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList
mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu