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To: John H K
There's no means on the Rover to 1) Get a closer microscope pic or 2) specifically analyze the chemistry of the "rotini" as opposed to the surrounding rock.

That's why you gotta send a man to do a rover's job.

59 posted on 03/01/2004 9:56:49 PM PST by Rightwing Conspiratr1
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To: Rightwing Conspiratr1
That's why you gotta send a man to do a rover's job.

We sent unmanned landers to Mars before the Apollo missions, and their data was CRITICAL in designing the lander and choosing landing sites.

It's not some either-or thing.

And for the cost of a single manned mission, we could pave Mars over in Rovers like this.

Frankly, from a PURELY SCIENTIFIC standpoint, and factoring in likely advances in robotics in the next few decades, there's no reason to have any manned missions at all from a strict cost-to-science done ratio.

The problem is that people look at it emotionally rather than rationally. I do support a manned Mars mission because of the emotional aspect.

Even though you'd make a lot more scientific discoveries spending the manned Mars mission money on hundreds or even thousands of rovers, nobody would ever actually SPEND that much money unless it was a manned mission.

63 posted on 03/01/2004 10:08:53 PM PST by John H K
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