Should we invest in Mars Exploration

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

I hate to bring this up but the USA is massively in debt.

I don't know how much funding is being asked for by various space enterprises, but it will take about 60 million dollars just to replace the 59 Tomahawk missiles fired against the Syrian airbase.

Several cliches come to mind. These include "money does not grow on trees."

 

[sophiecentaur]

The first manned mission to Mars will likely be a government project.

I am totally confused now. Musk has been mentioned, SpaceX and $30B - all to support the fact that it won't cost 'us' much. Now you tell me it will have to be government funded. The ground is shifting too much for us to get a sensible conclusion to this one. Which are we arguing about and which are the 'pro' comments aimed at?

but it will take about 60 million dollars just to replace the 59 Tomahawk missiles fired against the Syrian airbase.

Governments only need to print a bit more money or take out more loans from China, to deal with a simple problem like that. This is a world of smoke and mirrors, remember.

 

[mfb]

I am totally confused now. Musk has been mentioned, SpaceX and $30B - all to support the fact that it won't cost 'us' much. Now you tell me it will have to be government funded. The ground is shifting too much for us to get a sensible conclusion to this one. Which are we arguing about and which are the 'pro' comments aimed at?

I cannot see into the future, but I think we have five somewhat realistic scenarios leading to initial Mars missions:

• SpaceX's ITS (or a similar system later) works and will not cost significantly more than planned. SpaceX pays most of the development.
  NASA, with ESA and maybe JAXA contribution, buys a few flights to Mars and back - enough to have something like 2-3 crews of 10 astronauts on the surface for 2 years each. NASA cost: Maybe 2-4 billions for the flights, a few billions for developing and building the station on Mars (Mars Direct estimated 3 billions for ground infrastructure of a first flight in 2002, half a billion for subsequent missions).
  China might buy a few flights as well, although I'm not sure how that would work in terms of ITAR requirements.
  -> We get extremely cheap and large-scale access to space, SpaceX takes over the launch market and makes billions with its developments, we get many new things developed for the Mars station, and we learn a lot about Mars.
• SpaceX's ITS (or a similar system later) works and will not cost significantly more than planned, but they don't find a government interested in Mars missions. SpaceX might do a Mars mission on their own to demonstrate the feasibility - similar to Red Dragon.
  -> We get extremely cheap and large-scale access to space, many of the things developed for ITS and the Mars station are now sold by SpaceX, and we learn a lot about Mars.
• SpaceX's ITS does not work or costs too much to be interesting, and nothing else like it gets developed. Falcon 9, New Glenn or other reusable rockets work and reduce launch costs. NASA (probably with ESA+JAXA, maybe even with Russia) develops modules that can fly to Mars, land there, launch from there again, fly back, and all the other stuff, and launches them with the reusable rockets. ~20 billions in 2002 dollars if we go by the Mars Direct estimates, 4-5 for a subsequent mission
  -> We get cheaper but still expensive rockets, tons of spin-offs from all the infrastructure development, and we learn a lot about Mars.
• NASA goes to Mars with SLS. That will cost a lot, mainly due to the ridiculous price of SLS/Orion. Apart from that, it is similar to the previous scenario. We still get the cheaper rockets, even though the Mars mission doesn't use it.
• NASA doesn't go to Mars, but China does. China now leads worldwide research in various fields.

 

[AgentCachat]

That's a very romantic argument. People who sit around and contemplate the w of w are the ones who provide the intellectual ammunition for the technologists who provide the systems for the action men to play on. It's all funded by people who reckon they will make a profit out of a venture - one way or another. The investors never need to cross any mountains.

It may be romantic, but then many people are like that. You can also be a romantic technologist.

 

[sophiecentaur]

It may be romantic, but then many people are like that. You can also be a romantic technologist.

I guess I was over-categorising but there are very few people who are brilliant at theory and also gifted at applied technology. And even fewer who are those two and also successful investors.

 

[AgentCachat]

I guess I was over-categorising but there are very few people who are brilliant at theory and also gifted at applied technology. And even fewer who are those two and also successful investors.

That is correct, very few. They are responsible for so much.

 

[David Pass]

I want to ask for your thoughts about Mars exploration in the current time we live in. Why do you personally think we should or should not strive to put money, time, and effort to send an astronaut to mars?

My thoughts about this topic are how we should put forth our current developments and push to go to mars.That might mean an addition to taxes, which those people who aren't in favor of it, will spend more money towards funding space organizations like Mars One, SpaceX, and NASA (if you're living in U.S. territory). The fact of the matter is, some people don't believe in "climate change" and whether you're one of them or not, there's been ideas about how Mars can help us predict what can happen to Earth in the long distance future. If you look at mars, there are polar ice caps on the north and south region, with many scientists predicting the extinction of the ocean on mars. So to reiterate my question, do you think Mars is a good idea in our day in age? Or are there enough problems here on earth?

There are two fundamental notions to be pursued here: first, we will look at the problem from a political standpoint, and second, from the epistemological standpoint. Since you have brought the US to the forefront of human space exploration, I shall focus on it. The US is not a true democracy, as were the city-states of ancient Greece. It is a republic which exhibits some of the characteristics of a democracy. NASA is a government agency, not run by the US population, but ultimately by the CEO of the US, who needs to be educated and persuaded to direct his or her agencies in one way or the other.
The second notion has to do with the nature of knowledge. Human beings are innately curious, and with evolutions in technology, the arm of humanity becomes more dexterous and increases in length. An infant lays in his or her crib and reaches for the mobile, but is unable to touch it until the child is able to stand. In the same way, the need-to-know is self-justified. As the story of Babel teaches, people have learned a collective arm is in all ways more effectual than a singular one; therefore, we -- not only as Americans, but as a world community, use NASA as a prosthesis to reach farther and learn more tomorrow than we could yesterday. Financial concern, practical as it may be, becomes inconsequential from the explorer's standpoint. The possibility of falling is overshadowed by the desire to touch the mobile.

 

[jack action]

As the story of Babel teaches, people have learned a collective arm is in all ways more effectual than a singular one; therefore, we -- not only as Americans, but as a world community, use NASA as a prosthesis to reach farther and learn more tomorrow than we could yesterday.

And we, as Canadians, understand more than anyone else the need for an arm to reach farther!

 

[Dr_Zinj]

There are two fundamental notions to be pursued here: first, we will look at the problem from a political standpoint, and second, from the epistemological standpoint. Since you have brought the US to the forefront of human space exploration, I shall focus on it. The US is not a true democracy, as were the city-states of ancient Greece. It is a republic which exhibits some of the characteristics of a democracy. NASA is a government agency, not run by the US population, but ultimately by the CEO of the US, who needs to be educated and persuaded to direct his or her agencies in one way or the other.
The second notion has to do with the nature of knowledge. Human beings are innately curious, and with evolutions in technology, the arm of humanity becomes more dexterous and increases in length. An infant lays in his or her crib and reaches for the mobile, but is unable to touch it until the child is able to stand. In the same way, the need-to-know is self-justified. As the story of Babel teaches, people have learned a collective arm is in all ways more effectual than a singular one; therefore, we -- not only as Americans, but as a world community, use NASA as a prosthesis to reach farther and learn more tomorrow than we could yesterday. Financial concern, practical as it may be, becomes inconsequential from the explorer's standpoint. The possibility of falling is overshadowed by the desire to touch the mobile.

"people have learned a collective arm is in all ways more effectual than a singular one"

Untrue, as any plumber, automotive mechanic, or HVAC technician could tell you.

 

[Sue Rich]

I don't see a real purpose. Mars is pretty much a dead planet. True, there may be water beneath the surface, but nothing grows. I think most of us believe that Mars may have thrive at one time. millions or even billions of years ago, but it's pretty useless now. I don't see a real reason to explore an expedentially dead planet.

 

[Skeptic Tom]

If we slack off with investing in space we will be overtaken by countries such as China

 

[velocity_boy]

Yep...your final question in your post voiced my thoughts exactly: we have enough problems here on Earth to take care of. Problems that require money. Tax payer funding. So let's do that first.

I used to be a huge proponent of space exploration. Well, I still am up to a point. Of course we had to go to the moon to fulfill JFK's promise and to beat the Russians while were in a the midst of a Space Race and the Cold War. And you know that the public's interest in NASA and the Space Program really took a dive after we attained the Moon.

Mars? Meh. Sure, there is almost certainly microbial life out there, in the ice or maybe in liquid water beneath those ice caps. But so what? What is it really going to teach us? We know that microbes can flourish in adverse adverse, even anaerobic conditions. We know--well, anybody with extensive knowledge of the Universe--that the chances are very great that we here on Earth are not alone. There is certainly no intelligent life on Mars. Basically the only thing we get from going there--other than a multi-billion dollar pricetag, is the bragging rights to say we did it.

Too, we can find out all we need to know from robotics. As that particular technology has come a very long way. I challenge somebody to tell me what a human can do on Mars insofar as obtaining useful information for us that a robot cannot. And, please, can we end this absurd talk about ever terra-forming Mars? Why would we? We have plenty of room here on Earth. Room has never been the issue. The time and cost of terra-forming are mind-boggling. Guess what? Mars doesn't want us! LOL. It is as inhospitable of an environment as you can find. There. is. no. air. to breathe. Watch the movie "The Martian" for a glimpse of how terrible it is there. And then try to imagine not just one highly-skilled professional astronaut surviving, but masses of regular laymen people. It' never going to happen. So let us spend the money on fixing the problems that those Mars advocates think are going to force us to one day have to live there! LOL

Hope this helps. Thanks.

 

[sophiecentaur]

If we slack off with investing in space we will be overtaken by countries such as China

It depends on who "we" are. We are all humans and this is a Physics discussion. Some of 'us' on PF could be Chinese.

 

[mfb]

Yep...your final question in your post voiced my thoughts exactly: we have enough problems here on Earth to take care of. Problems that require money. Tax payer funding. So let's do that first.

When do you expect this to be done? When will we reach a point where no one can see any problem left or find new problems?

Of course we had to go to the moon to fulfill JFK's promise and to beat the Russians while were in a the midst of a Space Race and the Cold War.

Why? And why is this "of course"? If "the US president said so" and "someone else tries to be first" are sufficient as reason, then the US should go there because both Obama and Trump wanted/want it and the Chinese might be first otherwise.

Sure, there is almost certainly microbial life out there

Most experts disagree.

What is it really going to teach us?

How life develops or if it can spread between planets, how the history of Mars looked like, a lot about Mars today, and a huge jump in knowledge about how common and how flexible life is in general.

I challenge somebody to tell me what a human can do on Mars insofar as obtaining useful information for us that a robot cannot.

A human can do in a day what our current rovers do in months. Light-speed delay makes every action painfully slow and sometimes hands are just the best tools we have. In addition, we can do much more with the better equipment we could deliver with a manned mission. Samples brought back to Earth can be studied in even more detail here.

The time and cost of terra-forming are mind-boggling.

Humans spent a significant fraction of the GDP (or equivalent before GDP was a thing) over hundreds of years to "terraform" parts of Earth to make more farmland.

It is as inhospitable of an environment as you can find.

Not as inhospitable as Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune, our Moon, or any other object in the solar system apart from Earth. Not as inhospitable as space, where the ISS has been manned continuously since 2000.

It' never going to happen.

Humans will never cross an ocean. Or invent machines more powerful than themselves. Humans will never fly. Or go to space.
For some reason, I don't trust "humans will never do X" predictions.

 

[velocity_boy]

You're wrong about human being thirty times more productive than robotics.

And you're wrong that most experts don't think we will find microbes on Mars.

Terraforming Earth was a necessity. Doing the same to Mars is not. It's also vastly more difficult and expensive. To even compare the two is absurd.

Finding microbes on Mars won't show us how transpermia works.

And I expect...hope?...to attend to problems here right now. And in the future. Actually we've been doing this and many folks don't realize that the world is a far better and more peaceful place now than ever. That's right, more peaceful. As in less war. Look it up. Thus, there is nothing we cannot fix here, or improve. Why?

Gee, dunno. Maybe because it's our home? LOL

Mars is a distant wasteland, and offers very little in compared with the costs of going there.

While crossing the oceans and this other things offered much. Plus, again...sigh...they were right here.

You know...Home.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Humans spent a significant fraction of the GDP (or equivalent before GDP was a thing) over hundreds of years to "terraform" parts of Earth to make more farmland.

That is a total misuse of the term "terraform" - even with the added punctuation. There has been fringe farming, established on some very inhospitable parts of the world but that is in no way comparable with starting with what Mars has to offer. OK, you are very keen on the idea but there are other priorities.
Your argument that there will always something else that's (wrongly considered to be) more worth while is dead right (except that "wrong" is just a personal view). That could well be the case and you would just have to come to terms with it - same way as the millions of 'poor' have to come to terms with (other people's) priorities that are applied to their fortunes.

the Chinese might be first otherwise.

Would that be the end of the world? Think of the money that could save.

A human can do in a day what our current rovers do in months.

Possibly true (but with a smaller ratio involved and the cost ratio is way off in the other direction) and the fact is that many environmental studies take months / years, in any case; that's ideally suited to robotic experimentation. The delay in a control loop becomes less and less significant when robots can be increasingly autonomous. Having a human walk on the surface of Mars, just so they can plant a flag is not worth the risk of anyone's life. (A 'modest proposal': perhaps we could send volunteer residents of death row?)

 

[sophiecentaur]

I don't trust "humans will never do X" predictions.

Neither do I. But whether they should do it now or generations later is another matter.

 

[JLowe]

Yep...your final question in your post voiced my thoughts exactly: we have enough problems here on Earth to take care of. Problems that require money. Tax payer funding. So let's do that first.

I used to be a huge proponent of space exploration. Well, I still am up to a point. Of course we had to go to the moon to fulfill JFK's promise and to beat the Russians while were in a the midst of a Space Race and the Cold War. And you know that the public's interest in NASA and the Space Program really took a dive after we attained the Moon.

Mars? Meh. Sure, there is almost certainly microbial life out there, in the ice or maybe in liquid water beneath those ice caps. But so what? What is it really going to teach us? We know that microbes can flourish in adverse adverse, even anaerobic conditions. We know--well, anybody with extensive knowledge of the Universe--that the chances are very great that we here on Earth are not alone. There is certainly no intelligent life on Mars. Basically the only thing we get from going there--other than a multi-billion dollar pricetag, is the bragging rights to say we did it.

Too, we can find out all we need to know from robotics. As that particular technology has come a very long way. I challenge somebody to tell me what a human can do on Mars insofar as obtaining useful information for us that a robot cannot. And, please, can we end this absurd talk about ever terra-forming Mars? Why would we? We have plenty of room here on Earth. Room has never been the issue. The time and cost of terra-forming are mind-boggling. Guess what? Mars doesn't want us! LOL. It is as inhospitable of an environment as you can find. There. is. no. air. to breathe. Watch the movie "The Martian" for a glimpse of how terrible it is there. And then try to imagine not just one highly-skilled professional astronaut surviving, but masses of regular laymen people. It' never going to happen. So let us spend the money on fixing the problems that those Mars advocates think are going to force us to one day have to live there! LOL

Hope this helps. Thanks.

Throwing more money at problems doesn't necessarily make them any better. If we spent every dime we had on cancer research, there's still very little to no chance we'd find a cure. Now I don't think sending humans to Mars is necessary, there is very little we could do that our robots can't, but someday, the Earth will be uninhabitable. Assuming its possible to traverse space on long voyages, its a necessity we figure out how or we will become extinct for certain. There is also something to be said for overcoming a challenge for its sake alone, its in our nature to do things previously thought impossible for no other reason than to do them.

 

[sophiecentaur]

but someday, the Earth will be uninhabitable.

To include this in your argument needs a bit more precision. The Sun will become a red giant and swallow us up but that is of no concern to humankind in any way whatsoever. What sort of event or 'developing situation' are you suggesting we could deal with by leaving the Earth? How many of us would get to leave? What would be done about the remainers? The suggested event always seems to be a rogue asteroid. That could be dealt with by using enough resources but the project receives much less fandom than a sexy trip to Mars. I wonder why, bearing in mind that every Earthling could benefit from such an insurance project.

If we spent every dime we had on cancer research, there's still very little to no chance we'd find a cure.

That's a pretty nonsense statement, actually. The long term treatment of many (most) cancers is getting more and more successful and the prognosis is improving all the time. There is a visible gain from every million quid that's spent in that direction. Again, this is nothing like as sexy as a Mars shot.

There is also something to be said for overcoming a challenge for its sake alone,

There is a pecking order of challenges. You are assuming your favourite should be everyone's favourite. 'Thrilling' doesn't equate to 'most worthwhile'.

its in our nature to do things

...to do lots of things that we would not want to encourage. Again, this is not an argument - except to present to some tight fisted funding body. In that case, it could just tip the balance.

 

[mfb]

You're wrong about human being thirty times more productive than robotics.

Curiosity covered 15 km in nearly 4.5 years. The experiments take a couple of measurements per day (e. g. "a dozen per day" for ChemCam, one of the more flexible instruments, or one measurement per day for APXS). Humans could easily drive that distance in a single EVA, and they would be able to collect thousands of samples in a week, to be analyzed in the station and/or on Earth. Apollo 17 collected 741 samples in 3 days, with a crew of just 2 astronauts. You are right, they are not 30 times more productive. They are even more than that.

And you're wrong that most experts don't think we will find microbes on Mars.

The rovers don't even have "search for present life" as science objective. Opportunity and Curiosity as example. If the experts would think present life was likely, they would search for it.
All the publications (these three are just examples) focus on life in the past, and mention life today only remotely as obscure option that cannot be fully ruled out today.

Terraforming Earth was a necessity.

It was not, humans could have used the existing farmland. Or not starting farming at all.
It is more difficult, but we can use technology of the 21st and 22nd century for it.

Finding microbes on Mars won't show us how transpermia works.

If they have their origin on Earth, we could figure out when the evolution separated. Even better if multiple microbes point to multiple transfer events.

And I expect...hope?...to attend to problems here right now. And in the future. Actually we've been doing this and many folks don't realize that the world is a far better and more peaceful place now than ever. That's right, more peaceful. As in less war. Look it up. Thus, there is nothing we cannot fix here, or improve. Why?

That is my point. The world is getting more peaceful, people get less hungry, longer-living, richer and so on all the time. Yet people point to increasingly small problems or find new problems. No matter how much life on Earth improves, you can always say "we have to improve it more before we do new things". New things that ultimately improve the life on Earth as well.

the Chinese might be first otherwise.

Would that be the end of the world? Think of the money that could save.

It is not my argument, please do not quote it out of context:

Why? And why is this "of course"? If "the US president said so" and "someone else tries to be first" are sufficient as reason, then the US should go there because both Obama and Trump wanted/want it and the Chinese might be first otherwise.

It will save the US some money in the short run, but over time it will cost money as the Chinese will be even faster surpassing the US in technological advancements.

Having a human walk on the surface of Mars, just so they can plant a flag is not worth the risk of anyone's life.

I agree. And that is not the goal of any of the proposed missions to Mars.

That's a pretty nonsense statement, actually. The long term treatment of many (most) cancers is getting more and more successful and the prognosis is improving all the time. There is a visible gain from every million quid that's spent in that direction. Again, this is nothing like as sexy as a Mars shot.

Cancer research gets more money. Which is good. It is not either-or. It is both. The overall costs per person are tiny.

 

[nikkkom]

It will save the US some money in the short run, but over time it will cost money as the Chinese will be even faster surpassing the US in technological advancements.

You just struck gold. As I see it, a major reason for going to Mars is R&D of space tech, to learn how to do all this stuff. Whoever masters it first gets a huge advantage over those who did not.

We don't need a complete closed loop life support on Earth - and therefore we don't have this technology.
We don't need to grow a complete complement of food in an enclosed artificial base - and therefore we don't have this technology.
We don't have compact fission reactors.
We don't do enough research on microgravity effects on humans and on mitigating its effects. Hell, we don't even know whether living permanently in 0.3g is dangerous to humans.
Our spacesuits at best had 2-3 iterations of R&D on them. They are equivalent of cars from 1930.
We don't have universal space tugs.
ISRU tech for asteroid/Moon/Mars materials does not exist either.

 

[nikkkom]

I don't see a real purpose. Mars is pretty much a dead planet.

Correct.
As soon as you find a better planet in the Solar System, please let us know.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Curiosity covered 15 km in nearly 4.5 years.

How many years ago was the Curiosity design started? Was the idea of driverless cars even public knowledge, that long ago. If you are as optimistic as you clearly are about technology that suits your cause then you have to assume the same for things that don't support it. Robots may not be as smart as 'qualified' humans but they are improving. They are more rugged and they are expendable. Are those not massive advantages?

It is not my argument, please do not quote it out of context:

Sorry. I was confused by your wording. I missed the irony(?).

It is not either-or. It is both.

You are assuming that Mars has to come into the equation at all. If you're insisting on the spin off benefits then there are loads more possible technical challenges than trips to Mars. Mars isn't at the top of everyone's list - even if you feel it should be.

 

[mfb]

The idea of self-driving cars is decades old. In 1987 a European project got more than a billion (in today's dollars) as funding. At that point not even Spirit and Opportunity existed.

You are assuming that Mars has to come into the equation at all.

I don't say it has to, I say it is good if it does.

If you're insisting on the spin off benefits then there are loads more possible technical challenges than trips to Mars.

Do you have anything in particular in mind?

I highlight the spin-offs as I don't get the impression that you would welcome spending money for the main science mission.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Do you have anything in particular in mind?

Most of my priorities would not incvolve manned activities.: More deep space observation at all frequencies. More planetary probes. Defence against rogue asteroids (detection and dealing with). More gravity wave work. Plus all the non-space stuff associated with ecology, health and feeding people. (Re-terraforming Earth, even). The asteroid one would potentially do more for 'all of us' than the Mars project.

I don't get the impression that you would welcome spending money for the main science mission.

A manned "Science Mission" would, in my opinion, not be good value because I can't see a lot of point in taking it further into the colonisation stage. It would be no more of a priority project than other missions. I really don't see the 'because we can' has ever been a good reason for such an activity. Let's face it, the immense length of time since the last Moon landing has not exactly got in the way of Scientific progress and the Moon was only targeted for military reasons.
I do have a problem with the fact that the enthusiasts seem to pepper their otherwise reasonable comments with starry eyed adventure arguments. I know that the ISS crews all rave about being up there but that feel good thing is pretty bad value and has a very few beneficiaries.

 

[nikkkom]

Most of my priorities would not incvolve manned activities.: More deep space observation at all frequencies. More planetary probes. Defence against rogue asteroids (detection and dealing with). More gravity wave work. Plus all the non-space stuff associated with ecology, health and feeding people.

Why bother, since you intend humanity to die off like dinosaurs? If anything, let's just invest money in making lots of nukes and kill everybody. Same result as dying out, just faster.

 

[jack action]

I really don't understand where this idea that we have some sort of responsibility to maintain the human race alive and well at any cost comes from.

So the human race will be extincted some day. So what?

Even assuming we have this "god-given mission" to perpetuate life, wouldn't be easier to just send bacterias or other simple life forms within small spaceships throughout space, aiming for different planets and hope that one will survive and evolve to a future, well-adapted, human race? Wouldn't this be sufficient enough to maintain life in the universe? That is a low cost experiment that I could live with.

 

[russ_watters]

Curiosity covered 15 km in nearly 4.5 years. The experiments take a couple of measurements per day (e. g. "a dozen per day" for ChemCam, one of the more flexible instruments, or one measurement per day for APXS). Humans could easily drive that distance in a single EVA, and they would be able to collect thousands of samples in a week, to be analyzed in the station and/or on Earth. Apollo 17 collected 741 samples in 3 days, with a crew of just 2 astronauts. You are right, they are not 30 times more productive. They are even more than that..

You've badly missed the point of the productivity analysis. Productivity of an overall mission is not dependent on a one-for-one comparison of a person to a robot because they are not assumed or needed to be one-to-one replacements. What matters most is productivity as leveled by cost. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers cost $820 million for a 90 sol mission (I assume in roughly ~2000 dollars). Why send up two? Why the heck not - it only cost $820 million! With modest economies of scale, we could send hundreds of rovers for the cost of a single manned mission.

If there is a specific task that a robot can't do that a human can, that is one thing, but it just isn't true that humans can be more productive overall than a similar commitment of robots.

 

[russ_watters]

You just struck gold. As I see it, a major reason for going to Mars is R&D of space tech, to learn how to do all this stuff. Whoever masters it first gets a huge advantage over those who did not.

If the choice is to spend money on, say, lowering the poverty rate vs space exploration, you are right that we gain technologically from space exploration. But it most certainly does NOT follow that money spent on space exploration will provide a technological advantage over money spent on, say, cancer research. It is tough to gauge the efficiency of research, but space exploration is by nature a very inefficient way to promote technological innovation be cause it relies on by-chance spinoffs instead of direct development.

This was recently discussed...

 

[sophiecentaur]

Why bother, since you intend humanity to die off like dinosaurs? If anything, let's just invest money in making lots of nukes and kill everybody. Same result as dying out, just faster.

That's a nonsense reply. (Another straw man.)If you really believe that the human race is immortal then you have not studied history or palientology.

 

[mheslep]

but it just isn't true that humans can be more productive overall than a similar commitment of robots.

That depends on the complexity of the task. Complex tasks don't necessarily break down into simple parallel operations.

 

[russ_watters]

That depends on the complexity of the task. Complex tasks don't necessarily break down into simple parallel operations.

That *might* be true and I did allow for a task too complicated/difficult for a robot to do, but it is pretty speculative whether or not that problem would apply/couldn't be overcome. The tasks would have to be designed first and judged in the context of existing (at the time) robots to know for sure. And either way, there is a lot of important "grunt" work that certainly can and should be done by robots before sending a human to make that big discovery only s/he can make.

Regardless, @mfb didn't make that argument, he made a straight-up task completion count argument. And now that I actually look at his numbers, they don't seem to add up: 741 samples in 3 days with a crew of 2 is 123.5 samples per person per day. That's 20 times more than a dozen, not "even more than...30".* Perhaps he was referring just to the distance of travel, but that's an obvious nope; you can't be driving and taking samples at the same time. So the sample count and driving distance are mutually exclusive, not coincident tasks.

*And I let this go before, but the time actually performing the tasks isn't the relevant duration either: the relevant time is the mission development and execution duration. If a human exploration mission takes 10 years to develop and 5 years to execute for a 3-day stay, you've achieved much less than a single rover would even if the only duration difference was that the rover stayed and worked during the time the humans were flying home.

 

[russ_watters]

To take this to an only slight extreme, someone in another thread asked why we just don't send people to Enceladus since it was recently found to be a possible harborer of life. As I and others pointed out to him, there are a lot of places that might harbor life and if we just send people to Enceladus, we wouldn't have any money left over to explore anything else, anywhere, for a really long time. So it is much more time and money efficient and provides a higher chance of success if we send hundreds of probes to candidate sites in the solar system (including many on Mars) rather than sending one manned mission to Mars...er, Enceladus.

To say it more explicitly/directly: We've entered a golden age of space exploration, with vastly more exploration, for cheaper, being done over the past decade or two, enabled by the funding freed-up by the decline and fall of manned space exploration.

So I'll ask a more pointed question: if you could have one 3-day trip to Mars *or* fifty probes to explore every planet and major moon in the solar system, plus space telescopes, Earth studying satellites, etc. over the next 20 years, would you really pick the Mars trip?

[edit]
Thought not explicit in its goal regarding humans vs robots, the NASA "Faster, Better, Cheaper" mandate from 1992 is what I am referring to:
http://www.acqnotes.com/Attachments/Faster, Better, Cheaper Revisited.pdf

 

[mheslep]

I fully agree that 'bots should be sent to do that which 'bots can clearly do on Mars and not people. Sending people to simply scoop up rocks without sophisticated discernment would be a waste. However, there are certainly tasks that can not be partitioned into simpler steps. For the near future at least, and perhaps into the distant future, some of these tasks remain too complex for a many-hands approach, or the domain of human experts.

"When a task cannot be partitioned because of sequential constraints, the application of more effort has no effect on the schedule. The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned." Source.

 

[mfb]

You've badly missed the point of the productivity analysis.

Or I just considered a different aspect than you? In particular, consider the claim by velocity_boy that humans wouldn't be significantly faster than robots.
A common argument against human missions is "they cost more". Yes, sure, they do, no one questions that. But they also lead to more results, and velocity_boy asked for arguments showing that.

So the human race will be extincted some day. So what?

I prefer the state "humans are not extinct" over the state "humans are extinct", thank you.

Regardless, @mfb didn't make that argument, he made a straight-up task completion count argument. And now that I actually look at his numbers, they don't seem to add up: 741 samples in 3 days with a crew of 2 is 123.5 samples per person per day. That's 20 times more than a dozen, not "even more than...30".* Perhaps he was referring just to the distance of travel, but that's an obvious nope; you can't be driving and taking samples at the same time. So the sample count and driving distance are mutually exclusive, not coincident tasks.

The rovers don't collect samples, they make measurements and then discard whatever they studied. In terms of samples that can be studied in more detail on Earth, a rover has 0 unless we make a sample return mission. The Apollo 17 crew covered 35 km (more than twice the total distance of Curiosity, although humans have to drive back again, so let's say they are about equal) and collected 741 samples in 3 days.

if you could have one 3-day trip to Mars

There is no such thing, a mission would have to be longer.
And I don't think you can get all the things you listed for the price of a manned Mars mission (with >1 year on the surface). Wait 10 years, then buy it from SpaceX.