Men on Mars

[Brigliadore]

Originally posted by tw
Eventually, when robots find a reason, then man will go to Mars.

Scientific American Magazine, has an article titled Why go to Mars? that has some of those "logical" reasons that TW is looking for on why to send humans to Mars vs robots. For those that don't want to read the 4 page article I am posting some quotes relevant to what we have been discussing.

"...A thorough hunt for any Martian life that might be hanging on--—despite the present harsh conditions--would also have to be undertaken by humans, according to some experts. Such life will be hidden and probably microscopic, says Pascal Lee, a research associate at the NASA Ames Research Center. "Finding it will require surveying vast tracts of territory," he explains. "It will take a high degree of mobility and adaptability." Robots might be up to the task sometime in the distant future, Lee concedes. But relying on them to survey Mars completely for life would take an unrealistically long time--"decades if not centuries," he believes.
To accomplish the same scientific goals as a series of human missions, far more robotic missions--and therefore launches--would be required. The greater number of launches would mean that the robotic program would take much longer, because opportunities to travel from Earth to Mars are rather limited. They occur only once every 26 Earth-months, when the planets are positioned so that the trip takes less than a year...."

"...Another reason why humans may have to be on site to conduct a thorough search for life stems from the fact that if any such life exists it is probably deep underground. Mars's atmosphere contains trace quantities of a strong oxidizing agent, possibly hydrogen peroxide. As a result, the upper layers of the soil are devoid of organic matter. So most strategies for microbe hunting involve digging down to depths where life or organic matter would be shielded from the oxidizing agent as well as from searingly high levels of ultraviolet light.

Upcoming probes will be equipped with robotic assemblies that can bore several centimeters into rocks or dig a few meters down into the soil. But barring any discoveries at those shallow depths, researchers will have to bring up samples from hundreds of meters below the surface, maybe even one or two kilometers down, before they can declare Mars dead or alive. Drilling for samples at such depths "most likely will require humans," says Charles Elachi, director of the Space and Earth Sciences Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif...."

"...Although a human mission would be more expensive, it would also be more cost-effective, Zubrin insists. He concedes that sending astronauts to collect geologic samples and bring them to Earth would cost about 10 times more than sending robots. But by his calculations the human mission would return 100 times more material gathered from an area 10,000 times larger.
On the other hand, Arden L. Albee, a former chief scientist at JPL and the project scientist for the Global Surveyor mission, cites a 1986 study by NASA's Solar System Exploration Committee that determined that a robotic mission could have accomplished all the geologic sampling carried out on the moon during Apollo 15. In one day during that mission, astronauts David R. Scott and James B. Irwin drove a rover 11.2 kilometers, collecting samples at five stations. They picked up 45 rocks, 17 loose soil samples and eight firmly packed soil "cores." A robotic rover could perform much the same work, the study found, but it would take 155 days to do so..."

I rest my case.

[xoxoxoBruce]

You're resting your case on Glenn Zorpette's opinion?

[Brigliadore]

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
You're resting your case on Glenn Zorpette's opinion?

No, but I was suddenly possessed by a dead lawyer toward the end of that post.

Have you ever tried to get dead lawyer off your clothing? Man thats a stain thats hard to Shout out.

[tw]

Originally posted by Brigliadore
Scientific American Magazine, has an article titled Why go to Mars? that has some of those "logical" reasons that TW is looking for on why to send humans to Mars vs robots.

Exactly the type of reasoning that fits description of 'logical reasoning'. Back to the point. It was not found in George Jr's proposals in part because the history of this leader is to not consult facts and reality.

Unfortunately the article is questionable based upon current and future technology. If life will be that rare and hard to find, then robots would be the only solution. Atmospheres of chlorine and sulfur make humanized searches extremely limited and difficult. Even attached picture - a moon type lander - is not practical in Mars' so extremely harsh environment. Mars makes wide area human searches unreasonable and robotize searches more practical. In that environment, only robots and advance technology sensors attached to robots could accomplish wide area searching.

However that is secondary to the point. The point is our leader (whoever it might be that makes proposals like this) is defective. Required is a strategic objective that is technically reasonable. None was provided. Man on Mars is not the issue. The quality of leadership - not even providing a reasonable strategic objective - is the issue.

Mankind is still struggling with LEO (low earth oribit) space. We cannot even get an ISS working. We cannot even maintain essential space tools (Hubble) designed explicitly for such maintenance. LEO is the simplist of space travel. It it took 30 aggressive years to get this far. Suddenly we will skip all the next challenges in 12 years?

Space Shuttle was started in early 1970s; working in the 1980s and 1990s. Shuttles should be moving to retirement. We should be designing for MEO travel or maybe even HEO - which is a major challenge. X-39 should do MEO - but I don't even know if that is being planned. IOW replacements for space shuttle, if started today, will not be ready for well after 2010. Space craft take on the order of 10 years to develop for simple missions such as LEO and robots to Mars. That means two generation vehicles after Shuttle starts about 2020 for use in 2030 and 2040. Only then are we really to discuss interplanetary missions.

Mankind is working only in earth orbits. Technology procedes in steps. HEO manned flight (as Shuttle does LEO today) will be a major accomplishment. Currently we cannot even get halfway to our communicaton satellites, let alone ship massive cargo to an LEO ISS. Long before we do a moon or Mars mission, HEO travel must be as practical as Space Shuttle is today. Well beyond 2015.

Much technology to be advanced and conquered. It requires a leader who can propose 'real world' strategic objectives. Which keeps coming back to the same problem - leadership. The missing strategic objective that should be planning both a purpose and replacements for Space Shuttle.

Look at those dates. Where is a Mars mission possible in 2015. Therein lies the great leadership failure of a president who failed to even first consult the experts. His name happens to be George Jr. That name being irrelevant. The problem being that an American leader is so incompetant as to not first learn our technology abilities and difficulties.

Currently we are so barely in space that the ISS is 'dragged down' by earth's atmosphere. ISS must be repeatedly put back up by the shuttle - because we are hardly in space. Man is only in LEO because we have so much work to do. Any responsible leader would have understood this. Many a great nation has been destroyed by following leaders who worship fiction - no real vision as demonstrated by this Mars mission.

Its not about man on Mars. Its about a leader who cannot even be bothered to first learn the facts. A Mars mission in 2015 is unreasonable. A leader would define purpose and design of a next generation space craft for the next 30 years - so that man can get out of LEO - low earth orbit.

Meanwhile, kudos to Brigliadore for posting logical reasoning. Now we must teach our leader the concept.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally posted by tw
Meanwhile, kudos to Brigliadore for posting logical reasoning.

She linked to an article that basically said what many of us, including myself, have been saying throughout this discussion. Does the appearance of information in a magazine suddenly cement it as fact in your mind? The argument for Mars is no more logical just because it appeared in printed media, you've just chosen to ignore the logic in this thread.

Kudos to everyone else for posting logical reasoning. Now we must teach tw the concept.

[elSicomoro]

For someone who evangelizes logic, doesn't tw seem overly emotional at times?

[elSicomoro]

Opportunity has landed!

[wolf]

I had the good fortune of sitting down at the computer at exactly the right time ...

Live NASA TV was broadcasting mission control.

VERY cool.

I think the martians will get this one too, though.

[hot_pastrami]

Syc pointed me to it just a minute after it landed... very cool.

[elSicomoro]

My RealPlayer connected just as it was landing...fucking awesome!

Should we be concerned about the fact that Al Gore and Ahnold are at the JPL right now?

[tw]

Originally posted by hot_pastrami
She linked to an article that basically said what many of us, including myself, have been saying throughout this discussion.

The article provided numbers - not wild speculation such a 'launch for Mars in 2015'. Article provided factual background which those other posts did not. Not to say the article drew valid conclusions. But at least the author could draw from hard reality - not wild speculation.

For example, using those hard facts, we add that a moon robot could spend 115 days, many times over, collecting and analyzing samples whereas the men must grab only what they can find right then, and run. Men in the example were in a relatively mild environment - vacuum. Men being far more limited in a chlorine and sulfur environment that robots can thrive in. These hard facts added to what the SciAm article posted meaning hard conclusions can be drawn.

Men cannot stay and keeping working. Men cannot collect subsurface samples; machines being required anyway. Ok. When the article was written, some abovev facts were not yet known. But facts provided by that article can be used for further analysis because they were not based upon speculation, wild assumption, or popular myth.

Again take the 1 man doing 115 times more work. It assumes robots will not advance. Already robots are playing soccer - which was not even considered possible when that SciAm article was written. Already the 1 man day verse 115 robot days has substanically diminished.

Those other posts instead used a "John Henry" reasoning that machines will never replace man. Replacement is happening everywhere from telescopes to deep ocean study, to inside microprocessor development, to nuclear power operations, to deep space exploration because man can no longer do the jobs well enough. Men can no longer go where robots do. Example. Automobiles no longer can be constructed by man. Some environments too hazardous either to man or man too hazardous to the product. Tolerances no longer possible by man even running the machine. Computerized robots are now the only way to make or assemble many car parts. 'Robots are superior' also applies to current and 2015 Mars missions. That conclusion does not even consider the extraordinary less cost.

IOW because the article bases conclusions on solid examples and facts, then the errors in those conclusions can be logically discussed.

The article does provide logical reasonings for its conclusions. That was not the case in challenged posts. One hard fact made most obvious - a Mars flight in 2015 is not even close to reality - if only based on time it takes for simple robotic spaceflights. In fact a 2015 spaceflight is so far from reality that only a fiction writer (and not a leader) could have proposed it. Even a space telescope takes twelve years to build - not including upfront planning - for operation in an environment that is, relatively, extremely friendly. Notice the difference. Hard facts are provided to justify a conclusion.

Real world examples on which a conclusion is based. No wild speculation that because we went to the moon in 1970, then going to Mars will also be simple in 2010. That is junk science reasoning; not used in the Scientific American article. Big difference in what some posted here and what that Sciam article said - even though that Sciam article did not know of or forgot to mention other important points. Example: the robot at now less than 1/10th cost can stay there working for far more than 115 days - thereby doing more productive work. A point we can now make because the author provided a basic fact - with numbers. Hard facts that those 'speculations leading to conclusion' posts did not provide.

Please fee free to post numerical facts proving that robots cannot do the job. Please don't insult me by reposting 1990 robots as proof that 2010 robots cannot do the job. If a robot cannot do the job, then put up good technical facts. Show us how a robot with IR, UV, visible, X-ray, Radar, and sub-IR vision can locate and find less than a human.


hot_pastrami - you posted four reasons why we should put a man on Mars. They were all wild speculation without any supporting facts. One was based on classic myth. Note the difference between how the SciAm article supported its claims and how you reached mostly for popularly held beliefs - or myths. The SciAm article used hard facts to reach a conclusion. You simply speculated, as demonstrated by four reasons to put a man on Mars. That is the difference between your post and what she posted.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Well it did use numbers. Whether they are good numbers (hard facts) or not, is worth investigating. These numbers had to have sources. Hopefully the sources had no axe to grind.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally posted by tw
hot_pastrami - you posted four reasons why we should put a man on Mars. They were all wild speculation without any supporting facts.

Well, let's revisit my "List O' Wild Speculations," shall we?:

Originally posted by hot_pastrami
1. Improve our space-travel capabilities and methods, which will be necessary when we eventually travel BEYOND Mars.
2. Allow the execution of scientific tests which robots cannot be designed to feasibly perform (core samples, etc).
3. National pride in the accomplishment.
4. All the incidental knowledge which is gathered by such intense, focused research (like the TONS of useful everyday stuff that was developed using data from the Apollo missions).

The first statement is obviously true, even to the dimmest bulb on the strand. We WILL learn more about human space travel by developing space travel. This is not "wild speculation."

The second statement is supported by the linked article, the one which you say is "logical":

...researchers will have to bring up samples from hundreds of meters below the surface, maybe even one or two kilometers down, before they can declare Mars dead or alive. Drilling for samples at such depths "most likely will require humans," says Charles Elachi, director of the Space and Earth Sciences Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif

The third, I guess you could call speculation, though not really all that "wild." It's a damn safe bet to speculate that the nation will feel pride if Americans tread on Mars. I know I would, and I know a huge majority did when man walked on the moon.

The fourth, the incidental knowlege, is also pretty much a given, which has been demonstrated time and time again... focused scientific research DOES provide all kinds of useful technology... atomic bomb research brought us nuclear reactors, the space program has brought us TONS of stuff (besides Tang and velcro), etc.

The fact of the matter is, all of your posts on this thread are primarily made up of two kinds of statements.... off-topic statements, and demonstratably false statements. You ignore most of everyone else's points except those which you (wrongly) think you can effectively argue.

I am bored of arguing wth you about this. It is verbal masturbation, and it is accomplishing nothing.

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by Beestie
We don't need humans on Mars. Why can't we design robots to do the job?

My reaction to Bush's Mars proposal was a big eye roll. I like Bush as a person and as a leader but his idea just reeked of "here's a grand idea from me and its BIG and BOLD and VISIONARY and Kennedy-like!"

Despite whatever merit the idea might have, I don't think now is the time and I really don't think we need to send humans to Mars yet. Consider, just for a moment, what would happen if we lost a crew on Mars. Are we ready for that risk? Not in my opinion.

Completely agree. Why not focus on what people NEED to have right now? More money for funding for medical research and new technology in the medical field and having it more accessable to doctors and hospitals (major personal interest in that). And maybe a faster turnaround time in research...people need medications NOW not 10 years from now.

Here's another eye roll to people that want to spend big money on big ideas that not everyone is even going to be able to take advantage of.

[juju]

He is focusing on needs. He NEEDS to get re-elected. :)