Re: ....Question? Have They Found a Reason to go 'To the Moon and Mars' Yet???

Ordover@xxxxxxx wrote in
news:1144549540.716346.95500@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:


How about not comparing apples (rovers) to orange groves (manned
missions)? All manned missions are inherently sample-return missions,
while the rovers are incapable of returning anything. The cost
estimates for robotic sample return are considerably higher than the
rovers, ranging up to $8 billion (especially if you limit the
estimates to the more recent ones, which add costly
contamination-control measures).

First off, if you can send around -10- sample return missions for the
cost of -one- manned mission, the costs are still on the side of the
robots.

But the cost:benefit is on the side of the humans. The sample return from a
robotic mission will be measured in grams, while even a minimal human
mission will measure its return in the hundreds of kilograms. And those
samples will have been vetted by on-site humans.

But why do sample return missions at all? For the lower
cost - call it 500M - of sending a rover, you can do just about
anything you need to over time. You won't risk contamination by
bringing the sample into Earth's environment. Heck, you can split the
difference by doing a sample-to-Mars orbit robot, where the sample is
"returned" to an orbiting sat that has a ton more analytical equipment
than can be gotten to and from the surface.

Analysis of samples on Mars by rovers is limited by the instruments you can
attach to the rover. You'll never see, for example, a rover using a
scanning electron microscope on a sample like you can with a returned
sample. The microscope and its power supply are just too massive.

The Academy of Sciences in both the US and Russia disagree with your
assessment of Mars sample return, calling it the "necessary next step in
understandng Mars' geologic history and the possibility that Mars has been
an abode for life." Steve Squyres thinks so as well. Steve Squyres also
believes that the science performed by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers
during their first ninety days on Mars could have been done in one weekend
by an astronaut geologist. (And orbital mechanics dictates that even a
minimal surface stay for a human Mars mission will be ninety days or more.)

But what does Steve Squyres know about Mars rovers anyway. The mighty
Ordover hath spoken! :-)

--
JRF

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