We rely far too much on cratering rates that are educated guesses, at best. Of course, I have no problem with that when it is all we have, I do have a problem when we confuse that with real, measured science.

That can and could have been done robotically.

Possibly, even probably, but really doing it (including all development plus the sum total of all Apollo traverses plus the large bodies of precisely located samples completely photodocumented with both up- and down-sun and across sun photos — bet most people reading this don’t even remember that was done! — plus the most valuable result of all (in my opinion), the personal and emotional observations resulting from actually being in the strange environment you are studying) is not likely to have cost appreciably less than Apollo. Go back and read Mr. Siddiqi’s comparison of what the Soviet’s achieved with the alternative given a similar level of technology — that is, comparing Apples with Apples.

I’d argue that the leap in capabilities going from Mars Pathfinder in 1997 to the MERS missions in 2004 was much, much greater than the increase in capabilities going from Apollo 11 in 1969 to Apollo 17 in 1972.

That is complete and utter nonsense, but since you along with everyone else refuse to look honestly at what Apollo actually accomplished, I’m not going to repeat what I’ve already said.

I don’t mean this as a personal attack [likewise, my comment immediately above], but the same argument applies to you. You apparently have some experience in geological field work, and view most of the value of human and robotic space exploration and science through that narrow lens,

Fair enough. Yes, looking at the history of science, I value direct measurement and direct personal experience far more than remote measurement and analysis. All have their place, but we value the latter too much and the former too little. Today, that appears to be a minority view — but that, by itself, does not make it wrong. It’s certainly possible I could be proven wrong, and none of us will probably live long enough to know who was right, but it is certainly fair and reasonable for me to stand by my position, here, and I continue to do so.

But no one is doing that. There have been numerous Mars missions since the Mariner program.

Of course, but they all of the Mariner program’s primary limitation. They are looking at a very tiny set of mostly relative data and attempting to draw sweeping conclusions — which, mark my words, will prove just as “correct” and “wrong” as the Mariner results. To do that is human nature, and it’s an essential part of science. But, when we confuse that with the far higher value of direct measurement and having the scientist fully immersed in the environment they are measuring, we are vastly over-stating what we have actually accomplished and under-stating the value of the latter.

Rocket scientist is a colloquial term for aerospace engineer. It has nothing to do with planetary scientists or any other type of scientist.

That was a joke. Sorry to confuse things with it.

Let’s get specific for once on this argument. What specific conclusions (not ongoing debates in journals but true conclusions published as facts in textbooks) about the solar system would you argue have been drawn on the basis of inadequate data? And why do you think that the data is inadequate?

I’ll get back to you on that. However, a part of the answer is, we don’t and cannot know. The scientists who concluded that Mars was a lunar-like wasteland from the Mariner flyby could not have known they were entirely correct but simultaneously (and that’s important) mostly wrong. Yes, Mars, like the moon and quite unlike Earth, is a regolith-dominated environment, but it is a modified regolith and that modification has proven all important. In the same way, we don’t and cannot know what or how the conclusions being drawn from the current robotic missions are wrong, we only (should) know that they are so limited that they almost certainly are largely wrong.

There is nothing wrong with the science, it is our failure to put it in a wider perspective, to recognize its limitations, that will get us into trouble later on. Look at the history of science, not just what we think we know today.

that’s 270 MERS rovers!

Not quite, since you’re (again) comparing the full cost of developing the Saturn infrastructure versus the incremental cost of adapting the Delta to Mars missions. The annual costs I in the next paragraph are a far more reasonable measure. Let’s also not forget that the MERS’ are optimized for science, while the Apollo project was optimized for something else and the science it achieved was on the side. An Apollo project optimized for science probably would have cost the same, but may have achieved rather more.

Apollo never became affordable or sustainable, while robotic exploration of the solar system always was and is still today

Huh? The annual costs of Apollo were (in very round numbers) two times an order of magnitude more than we’re spending on Mars each year today. I’ll buy that the latter is more affordable, but to say that spending half a billion every year (your figure) getting severely limited science on one planet “is affordable” by some absolute measure versus spending twenty times that per year getting far better science at an easier location “is not affordable” is nonsense. Both are tiny fractions of the nation’s disposable income, and the scientific value of each is a relative value judgment — on which we happen to disagree. Both are “affordable.” The real questions are, first, which do we value most, and, and a distant second, which provides better value for money. My argument boils down to, we made the wrong choice in the first, and the second is a far more complex and difficult equation than most people want to believe. It is a fair and reasonable argument, notwithstanding the received wisdom that Apollo was “not affordable” or achieved either no science or science of negligible value.

You’re using a hypothetical to prove that human exploration is better for planetary science, when the reality is that no human exploration, for the purposes of planetary science or otherwise, has been conducted for decades.

Unfortunately, this is entirely true. It does not change the fact that I think the conclusion that you and most people draw from this is dead wrong.

— Donald

Fair enough.

“All the rovers can say on Mars was, there was standing water at some unknown time in the last four billion years”

Not true. Thanks to the MERS data, the timeframe for extensive Mars surface water is much narrower than four billion years. Try 300 million years, 3.8 to 3.5 billion years ago.

“We have yet to caugh up even one measured date at any location on Mars.”

Not true. We have thirty or so (and growing) Mars meteorites ranging in age from 165 million to 4.5 billion years old, with most having formed less than 1.3 billion years ago. We’ll have more and better samples if NASA can ever afford to pursue a Mars sample return mission again.

Even without such samples, scientists have dated three major epochs in Mars history and their associated surface formations using cratering rates and other dating methods:

Noachian Epoch (3.8 to 3.5 billion years ago): The Tharsis bulge and extensive surface water, for example, date from this period.

Hesperian Epoch (3.5 to 1.8 billion years ago): Mars lava plains date from this period.

Amazonian Epoch (1.8 billion years ago to present): Olympus Mons dates from this period.

I’d also note that it was not Apollo or human space exploration per se that enabled accurate dating of the Moon. It was sample return and radiometric dating in Earth laboratories. That can and could have been done robotically.

“By any definition, that is reconnaissance, not science.”

Says you. No actual scientist (space scientist or otherwise) that I know of would define science as the dating of rocks, especially on a planet that also harbors an atmosphere, a hydrosphere, and maybe even a biosphere. Science is about understanding the fundamental processes of nature. Geological dating, along with many other types of observations, helps reveal these processes. But it is the means, not the end, and only one among many means for doing so.

“Also, Apollo-17 did three traverses in as many days, not one in three years.”

Again, time is not the critical factor here for doing better science. Diversity of samples is the critical factor for doing better science, which is a function of rover range. And the Opportunity rover has exceeded the range of the Apollo rover traverses by over 30 percent and growing.

“Likewise, the learning curve during Apollos 11 through 17 was both far, far faster and far more comprehensive, than it has been in the history of lunar and planetary rovers, on Mars or anywhere else.”

Although three years longer, I’d argue that the leap in capabilities going from Mars Pathfinder in 1997 to the MERS missions in 2004 was much, much greater than the increase in capabilities going from Apollo 11 in 1969 to Apollo 17 in 1972.

“They are not outside observers looking at human exploration in a wider picture, they are only looking exclusively at their own field.”

I don’t mean this as a personal attack, but the same argument applies to you. You apparently have some experience in geological field work, and view most of the value of human and robotic space exploration and science through that narrow lens, when in fact these activities involve much, much more than geological field work. Members of the AAS planetary science division are arguably looking at a wider picture than you just by virtue of the fact that planetary science involves much more than geological field work.

Again, not a personal attack. I would just caution using the old diddy about stones, glass houses, and all that…

“It’s like looking at Mars with Mariners and drawing conclusions — you can do that, but you’ll be (mostly) wrong.”

But no one is doing that. There have been numerous Mars missions since the Mariner program.

“We are drawing way to many conclusions on the basis of totally inadequate exploration, and claiming that we understand something about the Solar System.”

Let’s get specific for once on this argument. What specific conclusions (not ongoing debates in journals but true conclusions published as facts in textbooks) about the solar system would you argue have been drawn on the basis of inadequate data? And why do you think that the data is inadequate?

“Apparently, it really does not take a rocket scientist to see that there’s something wrong in that — since the rocket scientists out there seem unable to look beyond their own immediate activities.”

Rocket scientist is a colloquial term for aerospace engineer. It has nothing to do with planetary scientists or any other type of scientist.

“Regarding the Delta, let’s compare…”

I honestly don’t know what else to do here. You asked for an apples-to-apples comparison of mission costs that included launch vehicle development. I provided such for Delta II, added it to the MERS mission costs, and showed that it’s still a fraction (practically a fragment) of human mission costs. Yet you still argue — in the absence of any data showing otherwise — that human and robotic mission costs are somehow comparable. I don’t know what else to say here, other than that position is just plain wrong and at odds with the facts, unless you can produce some cost data showing otherwise.

“We have not continued to develop Apollo techniques — we abandoned the learning curve — so we do not know what could have been achieved by continuing to use vehicles we had already developed.”

This argument is not relevant. Apollo never became affordable or sustainable, while robotic exploration of the solar system always was and is still today. You’re using a hypothetical to prove that human exploration is better for planetary science, when the reality is that no human exploration, for the purposes of planetary science or otherwise, has been conducted for decades. I would not forgo the data from robotic orbiters, landers, and rovers for non-existant human explorers.

“But it is certainly more than any robotic set of missions could have achieved at the moon, even using today’s vastly superior technology.”

The numbers just don’t support that. In today’s dollars, not including the Mercury, Gemini, Lunar Ranger, or Lunar Surveyor programs that it built upon, the Apollo program cost $135 billion. The MERS mission, even when its share of Delta II launch vehicle development costs above and future mission extensions are included, will probably come in well under $1 billion. We could buy 135 MERS missions (that’s 270 MERS rovers!) for the cost of the six Apollo lunar landings. In terms of diversity of data, sheer size of data, range, research time, etc., that many MERS-type rovers just absolutely overwhelms the productivity of the Apollo missions.

We could play with these numbers and add sample return capabilities to the rovers, but lunar sample return missions are also estimated at about $1 billion each — that would only cut the number of MERS rovers back to 135.

We could also play with the numbers the other way, take advantage of cost efficiencies through mass production, and probably double the number of MERS rovers/sample return missions back to 270.

I’d also point out that with the Moon being so close, these missions could be operated in real time, reducing costs associated with automation, greatly increasing operational efficiency, and providing researchers with a very close facsimile of actually being on the lunar surface.

The point is that the disparity between robotic and human capabilities, on a per dollar basis, is just too great. No doubt that on-site human researchers are more capable than comparable numbers of automated or tele-operated robots. But the cost efficiencies of robots just blows away the costs of keeping human researchers on site. An army of robots — heck just a squadron — will outdo a similarly costed human mission every time. And again, we can actually afford to send the robotic explorers, but have not been able to afford (budgetarily, politically, or otherwise) the human explorers.

If you have data showing otherwise, please share it. But I just don’t see how else to interpret the numbers as they stand.

“there are far higher reasons for human spaceflight than science alone.”

On this we agree. All prior arguments about human versus robotic space exploration for the purposes of science aside, I would still support a (cost-effective!) human space exploration program. I would just never cut robotic program to pay for human programs, especially on the basis of science.

As always… my 2 cents… FWIW.

I’m afraid that I agree with that.

If so, then why invest so much effort in arguing for “far lower reasons”.

First, I overstated myself. I don’t consider science a “far lower” activity; it is one of many important activities and probably necessary for most of the others.

However, “colonization” and “industrialization” don’t really need my defense, here, but real science apparently does. Space scientists have let self interest bring them to a set of beliefs that are clearly wrong when seen in a wider context. Thus, they place priority on activities that will give them extremely limited answers in the short-term, but will certainly fail to answer our wider questions about the inner planets. We need to give priority to concepts — if not specific projects — that could provide real answers about detailed geological and biological history on other worlds — and achieving those answers will certainly involve a significant human presence, and probably a large one. Yes, robots are cheap, but they cannot and will not do the scientific job, so it doesn’t really matter how cheap they are or are not.

— Donald

If so, then why invest so much effort in arguing for “far lower reasons”.

DONALD: That does not change the fact (as I see it) that you would also get better science, and that if you are going to explore space solely for scientific reasons, you need a large human component and that the latter is the most important element.

If you ignore budgetary and political realities (that no one part of the scientific community can claim the lion’s share of the nation’s scientific budget) then I agree with you.

But if your primary purpose is “science”, for the “sake of science”, and if you admit the reality of budget limits, then I agree with conventional wisdom of the scientific lobbyies. Robots are a better investment.

Justifying a $100+ Billion investment based on your argument that humans do better science is fundamentally flawed.

However, if we do decide that we should send humans to the far frontier for other reasons — as I think is inevitable (the real questions are “when”, “who” and “how”) — we should pursue scientific objectives when we go.

Let me put your argument in historical context. The exploration of this planet has been driven by two fundamental drivers — fear and greed. Curiosity has always been secondary at best to one of these two factors.

– Al

I wouldn’t trust Bill Gates with the definition of anything, except maybe money and bad software. According to the compact Oxford English Dictionary on my desk, the full version of which is at home but is widely considered the ultimate authority on the English language, reconnaissance is defined as, “> Military observation of a region to locate an enemy or ascertain strategic features. > Preliminary surveying or research.” From Latin via French. To explore is defined as, “> Travel through (an unfamiliar area) in order to learn about it. > Investigate or discuss in detail. > Examine by touch.” Also from Latin, via Middle English and French.

I stand by my use of both words.

Exactly. The rover did science roughly equivalent to Apollo — evidence of liquid water on the surface of Mars billions of years in the past versus evidence of the Moon’s billions of years of age.

Not exactly at all. Apollo provided precise dates for many major events on the moon, and detailed chemical analysis of many different locations. All the rovers can say on Mars was, there was standing water at some unknown time in the last four billion years, and even that is by inference rather than direct measurement (although, less I be misunderstood, I do think it is fairly solid inference). We have yet to caugh up even one measured date at any location on Mars. By any definition, that is reconnaissance, not science.

Also, Apollo-17 did three traverses in as many days, not one in three years. Likewise, the learning curve during Apollos 11 through 17 was both far, far faster and far more comprehensive, than it has been in the history of lunar and planetary rovers, on Mars or anywhere else.

the 1,400+ professional members of the Division of Planetary Sciences at the American Astronomical Society will tend to disagree.

I know they do. They are not outside observers looking at human exploration in a wider picture, they are only looking exclusively at their own field. It’s like looking at Mars with Mariners and drawing conclusions — you can do that, but you’ll be (mostly) wrong. We are drawing way to many conclusions on the basis of totally inadequate exploration, and claiming that we understand something about the Solar System. Apparently, it really does not take a rocket scientist to see that there’s something wrong in that — since the rocket scientists out there seem unable to look beyond their own immediate activities.

Regarding the Delta, let’s compare the operations cost of a single Apollo mission — the flight and flight hardware alone — with a single Mars rover mission — the flight and flight hardware alone. Or, let’s compare the entire cost of developing the Saturns and Apollo spacecraft with the entire cost of developing the Delta from ICBM to date plus the automated technology needed to land on Mars and operate there. That is a fair comparison of the real cost of the two programs. True, with either measure, the rovers are going to be a lot cheaper — but not anywhere nearly as much as is generally claimed. Compare that with the very limited science they or their descendents are capable of doing compared to first-generation Apollo mission, and the cost per unit science is not clearly dramatically less. We have not continued to develop Apollo techniques — we abandoned the learning curve — so we do not know what could have been achieved by continuing to use vehicles we had already developed. But it is certainly more than any robotic set of missions could have achieved at the moon, even using today’s vastly superior technology.

Al: but as you continue to promote “science” as a (the?) justifying purpose,

While it may sound otherwise, that is not actually my argument. I fully agree with you that there are far higher reasons for human spaceflight than science alone. That does not change the fact (as I see it) that you would also get better science, and that if you are going to explore space solely for scientific reasons, you need a large human component and that the latter is the most important element. I am not arguing that we should cancel automated exploration of Mars. I am arguing that we should put it in perspective — that it can never answer our major geological and biological questions and that, therefore, missions should be seen as preparation for future projects that possibly could answer our major questions — and, as anyone who has done field work (or looked at the generally sorry history of entirely non-experimental “sciences”) will know, those missions will not, and probably cannot, be solely robotic missions.

— Donald

I have mostly kept quiet on your “science” arguments because I love science. But I need to speak up.

In my opinion, your proposed strategy to promote/defend “human exploration” based on the “scientific benefits” is extremely weak at best, and fundamentally flawed at worst.

The real reason for “human exploration” is not for the science — although we will get science benefits as tertiary “spin offs” — but to expand the sphere of human civilization into space. This means … 1) permanent human settlement, and 2) to “incorporate the Solar System into our economic sphere” (ala Marburger).

Zubrin makes a *much* stronger and more effective argument for the human exploration of Mars (or any other location in space for that matter) — to create the second branch of human civilization.

Putting “flags & footprints” on Mars, and spending several orders of magnitude more money — for the purpose of “science” — is a bad idea. More important than my opinion, asking our politicians to do so, based on this reason, will almost certainly fail.

Not only is Apollo on Mars is a really bad idea, but as you continue to promote “science” as a (the?) justifying purpose, you increase the risk that Apollo on Mars will be the outcome, as bureaucracy’s have an amazing ability to mess things up. Setting up the initial requirements is critical.

For that reason, we should either go to Mars (and the Moon) with the purpose to permanently extend human civilization to those places, and design the strategy from the ground up for that purpose from the beginning, or (if we can’t summon enough national vision, will and commitment) we should continue to send robots.

– Al

Thanks for the correction. I thought Obey carried the objection, but you’re right that it originated with Frank.

“As for the limited impact, actually I am guessing that it would influence the selection of of SBIR contracts, which is PRETTY DAMN OBJECTIONABLE.”

Good point. Hundreds of millions of dollars annually at stake there. Agreed.

As for the limited impact, actually I am guessing that it would influence the selection of of SBIR contracts, which is PRETTY DAMN OBJECTIONABLE.

I agree that Dr. Zubrin should advance a carrot + stick message, but I’m not going to fault them for vigorously defending their vision.