Mars, One Explorer, One Way?

[nerp]

So, what is it that humans can do that a robot can't be built to do?

Write killer space poetry?

 

[DrPizza]

It's only because of leaps forward in automation that robots on Mars are useful at all. The it takes 24 minutes for someone on earth to see what the bot sees, tell it to do something about it, and see what happens. I mean imagine if your PC were like that; 24 minutes between loading a page, logging in, and seeing your bank statement. Productivity is incredibly low unless tasks are simple enough to be automated. At some point we'll want to move beyond testing rocks and driving from one crater to another and the complexity of tasks will move beyond what can be automated efficiently.

Also, robots are very purpose-built, which makes them very cost effective for what they do. But, if you want to do 20 different things, you send about 10 different robots, and that takes time. If you really want results quickly, robots aren't the way to go.

24 minute breaks is not a very long time, especially since robots don't to stop to eat, sleep, etc.

 

[Jeff7]

Recall when the MROs scratched the dirt to reveal a white substance? There was much debate and discussion about whether or not it was water ice or something else. A human wouldn't need a complicated set of tests and hardware to determine if it was a frozen liquid or a rock. Humans can make judgments, deductions, and think on their feet. Even with the most sophisticated software available and the most expensive, high tech hardware that money can buy, a human can still the do the job better.

All the probes, orbiters, rovers, and landers that have been sent to Mars have had one ultimate goal, to determine what a manned mission would require to be successful. Future probes all expand and augment the capabilities of probes already there and of probes to be launched by other nations.

(The MRO is an orbiter. You want the MERs. )

Some problems though - 1) You'd be in a spacesuit, so you're wearing the thickest gloves you've ever used, and you can't really feel or touch what you're looking at. Is it a rock? Or is it a dirt-encrusted chunk of ice? You probably shouldn't just take off a glove to see if it'll melt or not.
2) The available spectrum. The rovers can see a lot better than you can.
Human eyes vs robot eyes.
(Page with full-res.)

And again, where's the break-even point? Ok, so the robot can't do some simple things we can. But it's also a lot cheaper to launch a small army of robots than it is to get a few people there, alive.

Step one is to build a colony on the moon and use it as a launching point.

Not really. To do that, first we'd have to build a colony there, as well as a spaceship, and a launching platform. And the fuel will have to be sent there as well. That alone would be an incredibly expensive undertaking. Then you'd have to take all those relayed supplies (rocket, fuel, etc), and launch them into space again to get to Mars. Not terribly efficient.
The easiest way to make a lunar colony would be to launch some kind of small, self-replicating nanobots there, to replicate the necessary components a few molecules at a time. All you need to do is get a few grams of them to the surface, and then simply wait. Oh, and they'd need to be invented first.

It's only because of leaps forward in automation that robots on Mars are useful at all. The it takes 24 minutes for someone on earth to see what the bot sees, tell it to do something about it, and see what happens. I mean imagine if your PC were like that; 24 minutes between loading a page, logging in, and seeing your bank statement. Productivity is incredibly low unless tasks are simple enough to be automated. At some point we'll want to move beyond testing rocks and driving from one crater to another and the complexity of tasks will move beyond what can be automated efficiently.

Also, robots are very purpose-built, which makes them very cost effective for what they do. But, if you want to do 20 different things, you send about 10 different robots, and that takes time. If you really want results quickly, robots aren't the way to go.

The 24 minute lagtime need not be terribly crippling. Yeah, it's slow in some cases, but you can work around it to a degree. Give the rover a target off in the distance, and have it begin an analysis once it gets there. Then check in on it while it's performing the analysis. And given the solar power source that the MERs use, time spent sitting idle can usually be time spent recharging batteries.
The MSL will hopefully be more fun though - an RTEG means it can work far more frequently.

I think that as the desired tasks become more complex, artificial intelligence will also become more capable. Yes, it would be nice to have a person there to deal with things right away - but it wouldn't be cheap.

 

[Jadow]

it's a step towards a goal, and it makes perfect sense, economically, and for research. If we can start the process now, and realize that settling Mars makes no sense...then what would be the point of waiting until the return technology is feasible if we already know that colonizing Mars is impossible, or unreasonable?

I don't know if this is the same guy, but I heard a former NASA scientist advocating the one-way trip several months ago in an NPR interview. His argument was very reasonable.

Until Montana, Canada, Siberia, Alaska, etc... are all full, colonizing Mars is unreasonable

 

[DrPizza]

Until Montana, Canada, Siberia, Alaska, etc... are all full, colonizing Mars is unreasonable

The concept that the purpose of colonies on the moon or other planets would be because we're running out of room on Earth is pretty silly. The reason to colonize other planets is because, well, to colonize other planets & expand our influence further from this rock. We already have multiple solutions to the population problem on earth: the pill, condoms, etc. Unfortunately, certain religions would rather our population grow beyond our capability to support everyone.
Anyway, getting a person off the Earth requires a massive amount of energy.

 

[Jeff7]

The concept that the purpose of colonies on the moon or other planets would be because we're running out of room on Earth is pretty silly. The reason to colonize other planets is because, well, to colonize other planets & expand our influence further from this rock. We already have multiple solutions to the population problem on earth: the pill, condoms, etc. Unfortunately, certain religions would rather our population grow beyond our capability to support everyone.

And there's the whole big "all your eggs in one basket" deal too - if Earth decides to do another one of its 90%+ Extinction Rate Events, well, I have a feeling that most of our technological progress is going to be gone, especially since so much of our data is stored on relatively volatile media.

 

[destrekor]

And there's the whole big "all your eggs in one basket" deal too - if Earth decides to do another one of its 90%+ Extinction Rate Events, well, I have a feeling that most of our technological progress is going to be gone, especially since so much of our data is stored on relatively volatile media.

That'd be like... a modern Alexandria fail. Except, * 9000.


We should do something about that.

If we can't/won't send people anytime soon to other planets to make civilization parity, I have an affordable idea for the somewhat near future.

Digital archives... in space.

Shoot out like 3 or 4 massive satellite-like bodies, with relatively massive digital archive stores, encased in 100% radiation-proof tombs. Throw one at the Moon, one at Mars, and have one or two near Earth. Possibly sitting at a Lagrange Point (maybe even next to that planned Hubble Space Telescope replacement).

That way, if anything happens, we can eventually recover our past. Maybe inside also include a computer, and a simple-picture instruction list to connect it.

How do uneducated get them to return from space?

Rockets attached to the digital tombs with an antenna that is to receive a ping every so often from Earth. The on-board computer would be set to fire rockets and navigate to Earth after a specified time without an automated signal.
Maybe even have a secondary rocket that awaits on-board sensors determining contact with atmosphere, and have that rocket expel colorful fireworks from the body (away from the reentry trail). That way, even the most primal human survivors would be like "ooo, rahhh, follow it!" in their native grunts and shrieks. We do like shiny things after all.

 

[Gibsons]

And there's the whole big "all your eggs in one basket" deal too - if Earth decides to do another one of its 90%+ Extinction Rate Events, well, I have a feeling that most of our technological progress is going to be gone, especially since so much of our data is stored on relatively volatile media.

Volatile? Hah! All my data is safely archived in 250MB zip disks.

 

[xanis]

Won't stir or motivate the public like a manned mission would. Part of the idea here is to stir up the same pride and emotions that the US saw with the Apollo Moon missions. A robot doesn't do that. Mars has already seen plenty of robots, rovers, landers, and orbiters. Time for people to actually do it now.

We have a winner. Sending a human to Mars isn't about the money. Could robots do one or more of a human's tasks cheaper and more efficiently? Sure, but that's the point.