Moon is part of Mars

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[LastPoet]

It's similar to the batsign or the thundercats call.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Makes comic book sense.

[Anomalocaris]

Do you find this uplifting?

A future astronaut looks for signs of ancient life on Mars, pictured in NASA concept art by Pat Rawlings, 1996.

Some other people find building replica of noah’s Ark uplifting too.   I do not propose that “uplifting” can often be a sufficient justification for colossal investment of limited collective resources of humanity if one is interested in, ta some level, sound custodianship of humanity’s future .


The issue is never whether a robot could earn a PhD in field archeology, field geology, or field paleontology.    Although I think he chances that one able to do so can be made in the next 50 years or so is actually quite good.

The question is can a robot be a efficient eyes and hands of a not one self contained PhD, but any appropriate team of such PHD at 1/10, 1/100, or even 1/1000th the cost of putting an actual PhD in situ.

For the same cost, can a fleet of robots explore 10, 100, 1000 times as much of mars with the same consideration and discernment as any PhD because such PhD are managing the robots, as a single suited PhD on mars?

What is more, when the first PhD To inevitably meet a grisly end on Mars gasps out his last in his breached suit and beneath an avalanche of interesting mars rocks that may have piqued his interest out of superficial resemblance look like misshapen obelisk, or an owl’s skull,  would the nation that thumped it’s collective chest at his touch down continue to think the “uplift” worth the cost?    Ronots can be, and has been, written off and replaced, often with better and more capable replacements, many times already. 

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It's similar to the batsign or the thundercats call.

Doesn’t call or signify much of anything if it’s always showing what it shows according to a rigid predictable schedule.

[Succubus]

Time for a dose of reality. We're not going to Mars, not in the foreseeable future. Why?

Nobody knows how to do it.

So where does it in that article mention that humans have too weak computers to go to Mars?

What? We don't send computers to Mars. We send robots, if you meant robots, you should have said robots.

I took this:

Humans already have all the computer tech they need to land on Mars,

To mean humans have worked out how to do it.

The article mainly talks about how it is impossible today to land big payloads on Mars - something I already said in previous posts.

It must have been deleted for some reason.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What? We don't send computers to Mars. We send robots, if you meant robots, you should have said robots.

The robots have computers. They'd be junk without them.

[Anomalocaris]

What? We don't send computers to Mars. We send robots, if you meant robots, you should have said robots.

The robots have computers. They'd be junk without them.  

[LastPoet]

Doesn’t call or signify much of anything if it’s always showing what it shows according to a rigid predictable schedule.

Short story: back when I used facebook, a friend of mine posted a pic of two palmtrees with the sun above and the full moon below, in the middle of the trees. To his GF. I told him that shot was shopped.

Its me. If you are to be romantic, better do it right.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

$55 billion over 10 years sounds like a bargain.  But how much more could be done robotically for the same money over the same period?  My guess is 'quite a lot' (Opportunity's total cost was about $400 million over 15 years). If the $55 billion dollar figure is reasonable, that's the equivalent of just over two hundred Opportunity-type landers.

I've been mulling over this statement since I posted it, and I've decided that it's both a little unfair and arithmetically off.

Obviously, we wouldn't sent two hundred Opportunity-type landers to Mars.  Given that robotic and computer technologies are advancing by leaps and bounds, we'd clearly send better landers.  They'd have greatly improved cameras, 'brains', mobility and power sources.  They'd be less likely to succumb to mechanical failures, less likely to tumble into a ravine.  Naturally enough, this would add to the cost.  Furthermore, it isn't reasonable to expect the new landers to match Opportunity's operational lifetime of 15 years.

So, let's double the cost to $800 million each and halve the lifetime, rounding down.  $800 million over seven years works out to about $114 million per year per lander.  For the (highly optimistic, in my view) price tag of $55 billion to send humans to Mars, we could send almost 70 Opportunity-Plus landers to Mars.

And the number of astronauts and mission specialists put at risk would be nil.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

For the same cost, can a fleet of robots explore 10, 100, 1000 times as much of mars with the same consideration and discernment as any PhD because such PhD are managing the robots

I strongly disagree.  You know how PhDs are - they'd farm it out to grad students. 

Boru