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As wonderful as the rovers are, one astronaut with a camcorder could do all they've done in an afternoon or two.

At 1000 times the cost. What you fail to consider is that an ongoing series of unmanned missions would have advancing technology, each building on prior mission knowledge. A dust storm would be a learning experience, not a national tragedy.

And the corollary benefits would be in remote imaging, expert systems, pattern recognition, etc., not "how do we keep people alive in a hostile environment?"

Imagine sample returns, and Omnimax movies of Mars to thrill the masses, instead of inarticulate government employees retelling their experiences second hand.

After 100 missions over 20 years, we may be ready to consider manned missions, or we may develop the wisdom and knowledge to realize that it would be a mistake to try.

> At 1000 times the cost.

Really? An unmanned Mars mission will run you $200 million or more. The currently planned manned Moon/Mars program should cost about $100 billion... but that gives numerous lunar missions for that price as well as Mars missions.

> What you fail to consider is that an ongoing series of unmanned missions would have advancing technology

Not substantially, and not ina direction that is especially helpful. Yes, robots will get better, but so what? That doesn't help us colonize Mars or the asteroids.

> A dust storm would be a learning experience, not a national tragedy.

What makes you think a dust storm would be a "national tragedy?" What makes you think that danger makes opening an entire New World not worth the risk?

> Imagine sample returns, and Omnimax movies of Mars to thrill the masses, instead of inarticulate government employees retelling their experiences second hand.

And what makes you think a manned mission won't involve sample returns and Omnimax movies? With unmanned, what do you get movies of? Robots. Whoopadeedoo. With a manned mission, you get movies of explorers. I believe I know what would be of greater value.

> After 100 missions over 20 years, we may be ready to consider manned missions, or we may develop the wisdom and knowledge to realize that it would be a mistake to try.

Gah. Thinking like that is what stalled the space program starting *before* Apollo 11. Had we had policy-setters with both balls and vision, there'd be permanently manend Mars bases by the '90's.

The only purpose for robots is to pave the way for Man.