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Originally Posted by SollyLama
You'll have to add much more weight just in auxillery systems. Like the food and air issue. We can't rely on the prospect of using mars materials too much because it means doom if those systems fail.
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The cheap Mars missions are two-part missions--land the reactor and fuel processor first, don't send the manned mission until your processor has been running for a while. You could run the atmosphere extraction the same way--have one system on the first mission, make sure it's working before launching the manned mission, and bring along a spare just in case.
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Although Apollo was a great achievement, was it really the most efficient way to explore the moon?
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At the time, yes. Even now, maybe. The moon isn't that far away, the cost penalties of carrying a life support system for a few days are surpassed by the extra flexibility of having a crew on board. Look at how limited Sojourner was, 25 years after Apollo.
Now, if you're just going on a cost basis, the rational thing to do is to stop exploring for a few more centuries until we've developed truly advanced robotics, and maybe some advanced power systems. I'm unwilling to accept that option.
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I do disagree with China having the foresight to go to Mars, or even the moon for that matter. China is driven by military paranoia at the executive level. Space is a military platform for them, and little else.
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Foresight in the sense of being able to reliably commit to the long-range planning and financing necessary. There's no economic justification for going to Mars, there's a fair amount of scientific justification, there may be an enormous political justification. China may decide that the politcal advantages and their military spinoffs outweigh the economic problems associated with such a program. I don't think any other country has the willpower and the resources to undertake the mission. It also helps that China wouldn't have to sell the program to its people.