Re: Four years of Mars exploration

"Paulf Foley" <paulfxfoley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:13plc2ehutur3f6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



A manned mission to mars would be a massive undertaking, and obscenely
expensive. The robotic mission is cheap, therefore it wins the
cost/benefit prize. The manned mission is a gamble, the robotic mission
is a proven winner.

And you know what? NOT going is even cheaper. Therefor I propose not going
and saving the most money.

Therefore by your definition it wins the cost/benefit prize.



Yup. Spirit has traversed a total of 7.5 km, Opportunity 11.6 km:

<http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/traverse_maps.html>

The average traverse on *each* Apollo EVA with rovers was 10.1 km:

<http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-30_Extravehicular_Activity.htm>


It's not a race. Rolling past landscape is not the point. Oh wait, in
the Apollo mission it was the point. Astronauts go to the moon, they
bring a little car with them and go for a drive. How American! It was a
stunt, just like hitting the golf ball was. Or planting the flag.

Hardly. You may want to read exactly what they did on those EVAs, why the
sites were selected, and why certain sites weren't. The J missions were
primarily focused on science and the rover was the best way to maximize the
number of sites that could be visited.

I suggest To a Rocky Moon by Don Wilhelms.





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Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html


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