NASA's latest manned Mars archticture calls for about six Ares V launches and one Ares I launch. That's about 800 metric tons in LEO, total. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lea...1001.drake.pdf

Of this the total landed mass on Mars might be about 60 metric tons: http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/b.../1/06-2976.pdf

Much of that mass (for a manned mission) would be life support-related. It would also include vehicle/propellant for the Mars ascent, which of course is carrying six humans and life support.

On Mars, they might have a simple base and manned rovers, or possibly a combined base/rover as you described. They'd obviously be at a single site.

By contrast an unmanned mission could use the 60 metric tons to deploy many rovers across Mars, each far more capable than the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/, which is about 775 kg landed mass. If each rover was about 4x the mass of MSL (about 3 tons) that would be 20 rovers at different locations.

If you wanted a return sample, that could also be accommodated. Each rover need not bring its sample back to the return vehicle. You might have, say 5 rovers return samples from a several hundred km radius to an unmanned return vehicle, plus 10 non-sample-return rovers spread more distantly across Mars. The instrument package of each could be optimized for the location and mission. There are many different possibilities and ways to trade off the available landed mass.

Which concept would have the best chance of finding a Mars "Genesis Rock"? In one case you have a single human crew at a single location, or traversing a single track.

In the other case you have 15 - 20 rovers at different locations, each with ultra-high-definition stereoscopic video recording a 360 degree perimeter as it moves. Each moment of video would be scrutinized by dozens of scientists on earth. Each rover would be working 24 hours a day, without need to sleep or rest.

This is an assertion on your part. You have not provided any evidence or reasoning in support of this.

Nor is the determination of the best sites for colonisation the sole goal of Martian exploration. It is one of several. You have not provided any evidence for which of these goals unmanned exploration is superior.

We are not talking about human settlement, but about crewed missions in general. I know that a particular settlement roadmap is your hobby horse, but that is not the subject under discussion here, so please stop trying to hijack the thread.

Please give evidence from past, present, and future missions and mission studies that justify that the crew of mars expeditions will be "spending most of their time ensuring their very survival"

Originally Posted by JonClarke
Robots do no science at all, they just collect observations. For field geology and biology they collect that data slowly, clumsily, and inefficiently compared to what human crews could do. This is a documented fact from the Apollo missions and from terrestrial comparisons.

That 45 year old technology you scorn outperforms the best unmanned planetary surface exploration to date and that planned for the next few decades.

No robot on the horizon actually thinks for itself and can do field science. They are just tools. What ever advanced robotics are developed, they will work better when operating along side the humans who control them. Or do you so despise human abilities?

As roboticist Bill Clancey at Ames has said:

If we start instead with an inflated view of machines, we get a diminished view of people, and the design process focuses instead on mitigating human failures. Thus, fantasized, idealized machines become the yardstick for critiquing human work and reason.

And

For the public, and perhaps indeed many scientists, the “robotic geologist” and “robotic explorer” metaphor has been taken literally, to mean that we do not need to send people to explore Mars, for we already have robotic explorers on the surface. This confusion extends to a kind of “Wizard of Oz” phenomenon: Transfixed by the images of Mars, we mythologize “the little rover that could”; and few attempt to grasp the complexity of the scientists’ work “behind the curtain.”

http://homepage.mac.com/WJClancey/%7...10ClanceyW.pdf

Originally Posted by JonClarke
Robots have limited dexterity, mobility, dexterity, adaptability to unexpected surfaces compared even to a gloved astronaut.

As a roboticist friend of mine wrote (details can be sent by PM):

The power of machines to manipulate the environment is another problem that needs progress. The ability of factory robots to cut, drill, weld, paint and assemble the components of cars and other products should not deceive us into thinking that such services will be quickly available from robots in the field (on Mars or anywhere else). Those machines are working in extremely controlled environments where well-lit, identical, mass-produced objects can be manipulated in relatively fixed, if complex, ways. The problem is far more difficult when the environment is cannot be controlled, and the kinds of manipulation that might be needed cannot be specified. A simple repair task for a person would likely completely defeat today's most capable robots, and that is likely to remain true for many years. It is significant that despite more than thirty years of robot exploration, the largest hole ever dug on Mars is probably trench about a meter long a few centimetres deep dug by a Viking lander. A human explorer with a shovel could beat that in seconds.

Please explain the relevance of robotic assembly which involves tightly constrained repetitive tasks to exploration of Mars and field science. Or do you think that that field science is the same as an assembly line? What is your expertise for such a judgement?

Originally Posted by JonClarke
How big an overhead will a human mission need? More than a robotic mission certainly.
As a matter of fact, I was the one who pointed out the relative masses and human work forces associated with human and unmanned missions. You didn't.

For the record the Space Shuttle as a total workforce in the order of ~15,000 to 18,000 people - compared with Apollo's 400,000. The MER program had some 4,000 people involved in it. I don't see why a human mission to Mars would have a larger workforce that the Shuttle program.

[b]Originally Posted by JonClarke
A human mars mission might have 10 times or 100 times as many people working on it. But it will be at least a thousand times as productive.
Assertion again. I have already given evidence why I think this the case. You have not. You are consistently not producing facts in support of your case.

As for productivity, my numbers are quite reasonable. I have already given estimates for what can be done with advanced unmanned missions. You have mocked them but not addressed them or countered them with better facts and reasoning.

Which tasks? We are not talking about making cars or domestic appliances in an assembly line on Mars, we are talking about exploration. You have not given one bit of information that shows that robots are better for exploration, just fact less assertion.

Originally Posted by JonClarke
Completely irrelevant to Mars exploration. No payload. Can only move on flat surfaces. Needs near 400 watts to run. Has an endurance for less than an hour. Such a machine is useless on Mars.
What aspects of ASIMO will be useful for Mars? It's unnecessary bipedal gait? It's no existent payload? It's limited range and inability to cope with real world surfaces. If you are going to talk about capabilities use ones that are actually useful. And yes, unmanned spacecraft are all read useful for exploration. More advanced machines, both autonomous and teleoperated with be enormously useful on crewed Mars mission, and will make the human crews even more effective at exploring the planet.

Jon

This was from slightly earlier

Originally Posted by JonClarke
Impressive though the advances in robotics have been they have not translated into impressive progress in terms of field robotics on the surface of the Moon or Mars.

Of course, the PTBs who include the world's greatest experts in robotic planetary exploration, happen to be be wrong, and you, who are neither a roboticist or a planetary scientist or published anything on human missions, happen to be right. How who this different to the Hoaglandites or the Moon Hoaxers? I will take the expertise of Steve Sqyyres, Bill Clancey, Ken Edgett, Mike Malin, and Ross Taylor over your opinion in this areas any day.

Originally Posted by JonClarke
Rocketry does not need to advance to get people to Mars. The technology of today (and 30 years ago), is more than adequate.

Cited by whom? What makes them right?

Originally Posted by JonClarke
Conversely the last 30 years have seen major advances in most of the other space flight necessary for humans to go to Mars. Long duration human spaceflight, management of multi year missions, large scale solar power production, orbital assembly, high efficiency life support, knowledge of the surface of and atmosphere of Mars. The main areas of development pending are EDL, rovers and suits. None of these require break though science, simply application and development of what we now know.

Except the current robots are not good enough to match human capabilities. Prototype robots are not good enough, and neither the projects of the next generation robots. The only ones that can exist only in the minds of fantastists who say "robots can do anything".

Bill Clancey again http://homepage.mac.com/WJClancey/%7...10ClanceyW.pdf

The starting point for HCC is clear thinking about the differences between people and current technology. If we start instead with an inflated view of machines, we get a diminished view of people, and the design process focuses instead on mitigating human failures. Thus, fantasized, idealized machines become the yardstick for critiquing human work and reason.

Originally Posted by JonClarke
There has been extensive research on such technology. It has failed to deliver anything reliable beyond a couple of metres. Which is a pity, because there have been times when i could have used such a rig. Whereas a simple human operated rig can drill hundred metres.

Goliath does not exist except in your imagination. Have you done a detailed study, involving power and mass budgets, communication requirements, power sources, instruments? No you haven't. Go ahead an do one,m and them come back with a meaningful comparison.

Do you have a link to the type of drilling machine you mean? I have seen similar ones, I think. If they are similar The operator does a lot more than "drop another section of pipe onto a tray". The corer is driven using complex feedback between a range of sensors such as pressure, temperature, vibration speed, and orientation.

Were such a complex process capable of automation, there is still the question of deciding when and where the hole is to be drilled using which data sets (radar, magnetics, EM, conductivity, resistivity, seismic, neutron beam, structure, chemistry), which bits are to be used, how the sample is to be recovered, processed, an analysed. A robot can't do that, people have. The people can either do that on the end of a time lag that is never less than 10 minutes and sometimes more than 40 minutes, or they decide do on the spot. Then there is the question of what to do when something goes wrong. How does a robot unbog rods jammed 30 metres below the surface by flowing sands? That needs instant feedback between machine and operator and rapid decision making. That's why robot drilling technology for Mars - the inchworm mentioned earlier - use quite different techniques that are very much slower.

Originally Posted by JonClarke
Terra Max crashed spectacularly as I recall. Not exactly a useful system as yet.

Not irrelevant at all. It has taken 30 years of research to get to vehicles that can crash spectacularly. How many more decades before such autonomous technology will be reliable on earth, and how many more before they can be reliably applied to planetary rovers? When achieved such technology will be very useful as an adjunct to human drivers on Mars. It certainly isn't a replacement.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JonClarke
What is the evidence that sophisticated robots will be able to do sophisticated tests? You will always need scientists in the loop deciding which sites need to be visited, what samples should be collected and which tests should be done on them. With the time lag this will always be slower than with people on site.

How many planetary rovers operate at night? None.
Are you going to equip them with night vision systems (always lower resolution than day vision)? Headlights and floodlights? Have you included that in the power budget?


Night time is not wasted time for the human crew. Not only is it essential repair and maintenance of the irreplaceable field scientists and the engineers needed to keep the spacecraft (and sophisticated robots) functioning, it can be used to run analyses and process data. Or have you not seen how analytical machines run samples in batches?

Originally Posted by JonClarke
This is not logic, this assertion. It is a fact that robotic missions cost twice as much per kg as human ones. For example:
MGS cost $538 million and…. yadda, yadda, yadda….
MO cost…. yadda, yadda, yadda….
Phoenix cost…. yadda, yadda, yadda….
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera………………

And this is the finest example of refusal to engage presented facts that I have seen on these boards out side a Moon Hoax believer, a young Earther or a Hoaglandite.

You have failed to engage the data, only hurled abuse at it. You have provided no analysis as to why it is wrong, only asserted that it is. You have accused me of using a "logical fallacy" which seems to your favourite tactic when you fail to have any factual information to refute an argument. I don't buy this. You can do better.

Show why a simple cost per kg does not work. Show how it gives invalid results.

If you think you can make a better analysis, then do it. Don't just keep stating your opinion.

if you can think of a better metric, then say what it is.

And, BTW, all the unmanned missions are from from between 1996 and 2009. You are welcome to find better missions. This period also covers that in which most of the ISS costs were incurred. Apollo was a different era and represents a worse case scenario because almost everything had to be developed from scratch.

[QUOTE=MentalAvenger;1123476]Logically, robotic missions to Mars would be far less expensive than manned missions. The food, water, oxygen, and living facilities alone would make human missions more expensive.

So you keep saying. But you need to show it. Logic is meaningless without facts and correct reasoning. I do not accept that it is logical just because you say it is. Particularly since your grasp of what is involved with field science and exploration, let alone manned and unmanned missions, is so poor. OK, I might be wrong. Then show me. Otherwise you are no different to a Hoaglandite who keeps saying that it is "obvious" the face on Mars is artificial.

You honestly think that these are not factored into the study I quoted?

Originally Posted by JonClarke
This is what the current generation of rovers is doing, in part. Testing the ground and preparing the way for future crewed missions.

Again you persist in thinking that Mars missions are all about Mars settlement. They are not. But even if they were, let's look at what the Mars rovers have already provided useful

Better models of the atmosphere for EDL would be useful. But for a short stay mission you are probably right. But why do a short stay mission when for about the same or less cost you can do a long stay one?

I have neither the time nor the energy to address all those points at once. I will try a few for now.

Since no mission of that caliber has been done, there would be no “evidence”. But I gave many valid reasons.

The paragraph above states it, looking for the best site for colonization. IMO.

Ok, let’s look at that. IMO, using crewed missions to locate the best settlement sites would be a waste of time and resources, so sending crewed missions before a settlement is at least started would be illogical. Also, sending crewed missions to Mars would be a lot easier, safer, and less expensive is there was a thriving settlement, or two, or three there to take care of them during their stay. It would also make human exploration of Mars a lot easier and much more productive and cost effective. I shouldn’t have to explain why working out of a settlement with all the services would be better than working out of the spaceship that brought you. And that, after all, is the point. Use the proper tools to do the job. Use robots to find the settlement sites, use humans to do the detailed work later on.

But, if settlement is not the goal, then why spend all that money to send people there just to dig around? To find what, and why? It would end up being another Apollo scenario, lots of fuss and bluster at first, tapering off to no more missions eventually.

Who the hell are you to TELL me what to post? Like you, I am presenting my opinions. And I AM advocating manned missions to Mars, just in the proper sequence.

Again, there can be no “evidence” from missions that are not representative or have never happened. But, if a spacecraft arrives on Mars, and they intend to stay for 1 ½ - 2 years, then return home again, the only reasonable sequence of events would be setting up durable shelters, outfitting those shelters, setting up oxygen production/recycling stations, making sure the return vehicle is ready and able to handle the return trip, and THEN they can go about their scientific mission.

If the scenario was setting up a viable settlement, then the time required to ensure survival would be much longer, because such things as reliable food production and permanent shelters would have to be taken care of first.

Irrelevant, and I don’t scorn it. It has it’s place as does everything else. I only scorned your attempt to use that technology as an analogy for technology which will have to be quite different in many aspects.

No one I know of or have heard of believes that, so why even bring it up. That is Strawman.

Exactly. As I have said many times, the right tool for the right job.

No, humans are (currently) the ultimate machine. IMO, their place on Mars will be what they do best, detailed study, not monotonous wide ranging scouting looking for a good homestead.

As previously explained, that would be the kind of repetitive assembly line tasks used inside the rover to analyze samples. (yeah, robots inside the robot) Again, the right tool for the right job. IIRC, even voyager had a simple sample and test robotic function.

Actually, I don’t recall you giving any “evidence” of why a human mission would be 1000 times more productive than a robotic mission, but rather a lot of unsubstantiated opinions. Actually, since you made the extraordinary claim, it is up to you to back it up with relevant facts.

That is your opinion. Remember that my viewpoint is not between robotic or manned missions doing the SAME job, and it never has been. It is, and always has been about using the proper mission for the application.

Sample processing, driving across featureless expanses without the need for sleep, to name a couple. But, when you include the extra payload available without life support, and the huge savings in not having to have a return of the crew to Earth (with all that life support too), initial exploration by robotic rovers would be more cost effective. Off hand, I’d estimate we could put 3-4 big rovers on Mars, each going in different directions, for the price of one manned mission which included return to Earth.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

Look, if you get to give yourself a 40% weight reduction and then naively divide 60 tons by your weight per rover to figure the number of rovers in order to make your figures come out better, then so do I. So 25 tons less 40% = 15 tons. Thus for 60 tons, I get 4 human staffed labs on wheels in four separate parts of the planet.

So to answer your question: What would I rather have 20 Hummerbots at 20 different locations, or 4 Ark II's capable of covering a transect thousands of kilometers long over the course of one tour? I'll take the four Ark II's any day, because the quality (and quantity) of the research will be incomparably better.

In order for your argument to work--that robots will deliver higher quality research than humans--sample returns of involving thousands of kilograms of rock is not an option. It is mandatory.

If 5 vehicles have to rendezvous in order to meet up with a mother ship, then what's the point of sending 5 vehicles? The mass could be combined to make 1 human staffed Prevost rover that could then drive to all the places that would be visited by the 5 vehicles, and do it more efficiently, since it wouldn't have to backtrack.

If you get 15-20 Hummerbots, then I get 3-4 manned Provost rovers. But even if I was limited to 1, I'd still bet on the humans, because a Hummerbot can't get out and walk around, climb up a steep scree slope to get to an outcrop, knock chunks out of it and find that fossil that is the Holy Grail of any Mars mission.

You've brought up this point about high res video more than once now--as if a manned expedition would be too stupid to remember to bring a decent camera?

You and MentalAvenger keep bringing up this point as if its worth discussing, as when he writes:

This demonstrates such a naiveté that it makes it hard to take anything else you all say seriously. Humans on Mars will deal with the need for sleep the same way truck drivers handle the featureless expanses of Wyoming: they'll take turns!

Then surely you won't object if I respond to your latest salvo of bombast.

Let's cut to the chase: you yourself said you don't give a rat's excrement about science on Mars. You said it's boring and that it doesn't justify spending $100 billion. Your opinion, and you're welcome to it. Jon and I are of the opinion that the question of other life in the universe is one of those grand scientific questions that would be well worth such an expense to try to answer. That's our opinion.

Now, you said yourself that humans are better at doing the detailed sorts of study that quality science requires:

Therefore, you agree with us that humans are in fact the best option for doing quality science.

Therefore, your objection to sending humans to Mars before we spend $100 billion on robots first is not because humans are the right tool for the job of quality science, but rather is that quality science is the wrong job.

In fact, as you yourself have said, your argument is (1) that the right job is to set up a human gene bank on Mars in case an asteroid hits the Earth rendering it unihabitable. And then (2) you argue that the best way to achieve that goal is to spend $100 billion on Hummerbots to send into Indian country like Lewis and Clarke to look for a good homestead.

Both arguments flawed for the following reasons. The risk of the Earth being hit by an extinction-causing asteroid in the next 10,000 years is utterly negligible. There is convincing evidence of only one impact event in the last billion years that would have been capable of causing the extinction of humans. Thus, there is on the order of a 1 in a billion chance per year that we will go extinct due to an asteroid impact. In other words, on average, about 6 people per year die from asteroids. The worth of a human life is perhaps $3,000,000. At least that's roughly the average settlement that courts give out for negligently causing death. So, in other words, it might be worth spending $20 million per year to try to save these lives. You on the other hand want to spend $10 billion per year in perpetuity--and you can't even promise that you'll be able to save these lives.

Thus if the goal is to protect human lives from asteroids, we're better off spending the money on asteroid impact mitigation--that is, identifying Earth orbit crossing rocks, and developing the means to deflect such entities as the need arises--if ever--which it probably won't for millions of years.

Of course, you'll counter that saving individual human lives is not important. What matters is ensuring the survival of the species. Again, if we're going to spend $10 billion per year in order to prevent the extinction of humans, then its better to spend it on self-contained shelters right here on Earth. Better to restart the human species with a few million individuals right here on Earth than to rely on an inbred colony of Martians.

Therefore, your idea about what the "right job" is is based on a Chicken Little argument that the sky could literally fall one day; but your plan isn't even the best way to address that "problem".

But even granting for the sake of the argument your point that a Mars colony is necessary in order to guarantee the survival of Homo sapiens, your idea that it is necessary to spend $100 billion on fancy robots to "scout out a good homestead" is just the most bass ackwards way to achieve that goal that I have ever heard of.

Your four Hummerbots will barely scratch the surface of Mars, and there is nothing important that they will find out that can't be found with a single spy satellite like we routinely use on Earth that are capable of 1-10 cm resolutions and perhaps even better.

There is no need to waste $100 million and 50 years on an unnecessary Lewis & Clarke expedition better suited to the 18th century.

I mean if you really want a colony--then just DO IT! What are you really afraid of?

And that's what bugs me most about your arguments. Not only are they chicken-little and so totally incoherent that they aren't worth responding to except for the sake of the 4th grader lurkers who don't know any better, but they are also buzzkilling, enervating, soul-sucking, woosified
FUD!

Dude, get a spine!

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