Re: Space travel by humans is not possible now

Fred J. McCall wrote:
Ian Parker <ianparker2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
:
:I don't think the criterion should be the level of intellect. What we
:want for space is manual dexterity. :

You need a lot more than that.

:
:To me the overiding objective is the use of the resources of space. To
:do that you need a manufacturing capability. :

And you're not going to do that without people on scene. Even the
most automated factories need people on scene to do things the robots
can't.



You can't send people "on the scene" because there is no way the
life support cqn be sent to Mars using existing technology and realistic
budgets.

Compare:

4 years Mars exploration with 2 robots:
Price: 1 shuttle flight (1 billion)

1 year of human presence in Mars
Price ????
Probably around 400 billion, i.e. 400 shuttle flights
http://members.cox.net/jhaldenwang/mars.htm

It is completely out of the question for current budgets.


--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32
.

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