Mars InSight Mission To Launch In 2018, After $150M Failure and Delay (arstechnica.com)

Reader wbr1 points to Ars Technica's Wednesday report that NASA has announced a 2018 launch date for its InSight mission to Mars, two years after its original launch date; the date slip gives engineers time to fix problems with the spacecraft's seismometer system. Adds wbr1: "Even with the failure and extra cost, I think this is the type of mission we should be doing more of. We need more landers and rovers, everywhere we can put them. The science benefit is high, but the cost is magnitudes lower than launching meatbags and all the attendant support they need."

Comments

The case for humans in space

[sjbe]

I think this is the type of mission we should be doing more of. We need more landers and rovers, everywhere we can put them.

I agree.

The science benefit is high, but the cost is magnitudes lower than launching meatbags and all the attendant support they need.

Sigh... Getting tired of this meme. The science value of sending robots versus sending people DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU ARE STUDYING. Some lines of scientific inquiry it is clearly more economically efficient to send robots. For a different set of problems it is more valuable to send people. In fact there are some problems that you literally cannot study with robots. (Human physiology not the least among them) While I agree that robotic probes are hugely valuable and we should send more, it doesn't follow that there is no value (scientific or otherwise) in sending humans into space. Yes sending people is expensive and difficult. But the good news is that we learn FAR more by sending people. We have to develop all sorts of technology that would otherwise never come about. We are forced down avenues of inquiry that would never come up on any robotic mission. And we can study things that cannot be studied by robots. By all means, keep sending robots but shutting down human spaceflight is both shortsighted and ill advised.

Re:Humans AND robots. Not humans OR robots

[hey!]

There are things that cannot be easily or productively studied with robotic probes, not the least of which is human physiology and biology.

All of which could be studied in orbit. Now if you set human biology aside just for a moment, it would be more precise to say "some things are easier to study with human-run experiments than robots." The key point is that that set of things is a function of mission duration. Some things that are most efficiently done by humans on the Moon would be more efficiently done by robots on the Mars. Some things that are most efficiently done by humans on Mars would be more efficiently done by robots on Europa.

The problem is that the things that can only be done by humans on Mars would cost beyond what anyone wants to pay for a realistic mission, and a half-assed program that gets axed when the true cost of success becomes undeniable is a waste of time and money.

I'd like to see humans on Mars, but I think the shortest path to that happening starts with a sustained and regular program of robotic exploration. With experience we'll get better at getting things there cheaply and landing them there reliably. Then at some point an acceptably risky manned mission will become a financial possibility. But we won't do it because it's the most efficient way of doing Mars research, robotics will continue to advance as fast or faster than our space capabilities. The reasons for doing a manned mission will be a question for anthropology and political science, not economics or engineering.