[PIF]

Its attitudes like yours which killed the manned space program and hold the rest of us back 40 years later. Just remember that when you send your pet Roomba out, daring to venture beyond your safe place, that you may find it reports back only what you asked it to find - nothing more. And so those fossils ground off in search of some rock strata were lost forever.

[Covenantor]

Attitudes like mine?

I ask a simple question twice.

I’ll repeat it. “And exactly what sort of useful data would a human, clad in protective gear, acquire that robot instrumentation could not?”

Apparently I was mistaken in assuming that you would understand that all the mass required for human vistation, which includes a habitat of some sort, breathing scrubbers, food, tools, human compatible equipment, medical supplies, etc. for any stay. What about a return trip? All that mass comes at enormous cost on the launch pad.

You seem to think that human explorers will be trekking all over Mars like Lewis and Clark at will. Any extra-habitat exploration will of necessity be limited by breathable air, heating and cooling and so forth. What’s that walking range, rhetorically speaking?

That sets up the feasible walking radius from the habitat. Then what? Plant the flag and call for the ultimate uber ride home after taking some small core samples, the curious small bits?

Again, what can be learned from visual and whatever tactile observation can bevlearned by a human on site that will provide data that a far ranging rover or even a platoon of rovers can not provide better and more accurately?

Or do you think that the habitat will be mobile (jumping ahead of you in case you were thinking, “Oh well, they’ll have a Martian ATV.”) Mass, mass, and more mass.

Thanks for playing kiddo, binge out on all the Star Trek episodes and films for the holidays. It will be so soothing for you.

Merry Christmas