This was sitting in drafts - may as well add it to the dire :-)

> > > So what's with this obsession of sending men into space to
> > > do a worse job than robots?

The "men versus machines in space" argument is yet another that falls into
the "highly religious" category. You are unlikely to convince a devotee at
either extreme that the other alternative has any merit whatsoever.

FWIW I consider that robots undeniably have their place but that there is no
substitute for people when you get really serious.

Robot based missions tend to be cheaper, smaller, have a lower minimum
complexity level, & take less time to plan & implement. However, its very
much a case of the inescapable better, cheaper, faster, choose any two. Once
you have managed to get a person into the same place that you can easily
send a Robots the man is almost infinitely more capable. Sure, people are
potentially more delicate regarding g forces and atmosphere, and have less
raw numeric processing power and data storage capacity. They are less
mechanically strong than a robot can be made and far more resource expensive
to operate. But after that things become different.

The augmentation by a human mind of relatively cheaply provided processing
power and storage capability produces an information manipulation system
that is utterly unachievable otherwise. The augmentation by mind controlled
human muscle of relatively cheaply provided mechanical machinery creates an
environment manipulation system utterly unachievable by other means. The
combined package of man plus machines (mechanical and electronic) is, so far
at least, utterly essential for more than playing relatively minor games or
taking photos.

Many will recall the first Mars rover stuck for days on a small rock. A look
at the distances travelled, time taken, objectives reached and science
achieved by any rover envisaged to date, while highly impressive in
comparison to not being able to do anything at all, pales into
insignificance to what could be achieved by a person in the same
environment. The ability to choose any rock desired, take whatever samples
are needed, manipulate local environment as necessary, integrate all
available information locally to make new on the spot decisions re
subsequent investigations is utterly undoable any other way.

The absolute cost of entry level manned endeavour in space is far higher
than the entry level cost for robotics for the same given basic mission. The
achievable results from a robotic mission and the base manned mission that
would be mounted in any given situation bear no comparison.

Some day sometime, perhaps, we will have artificial intelligence that can
approach human like utility. When we also have mechanical manipulation an
locomotion to match, then the robots may start to achieve what a person can
do.

Somebody mentioned high gain antennas getting stuck (which happens) and
someone else suggested having two of them. This, of course, is not how it is
done. Instead they make a design that is so reliable and sophisticated that
there is no risk of it ever getting stuck. Consequently there is no way out
when it does, of course, get stuck.

The best we can do with robots so far is to spend hundreds of millions of
dollars getting something to another planet which may quite possibly land
fully successfully (2 out of 3 lately, far worse historically), work 100%
for more than a few days (1 out of 2 lately, they hope), and run for a
lifetime measured in weeks rather than months (more if lucky). In relative
terms this is an utterly fantastic achievement. In absolute terms it is
utterly pathetic.



        Russell McMahon

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