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Mars 2020 Landing Site Selection

Frida Space

By Frida Space
in Science & Spaceflight

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Nibb31

Nibb31

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Then send two rovers.

At the cost of how many unmanned missions with the same science capability?

Sure, we don't need to rush through things. But if we send astronauts to Mars, they'll probably be there for a good eighteen months. That's plenty of time to cover a lot of ground.

Don't forget that the astronauts will only be doing effective work for a fraction of that time. Out of an 18 month mission duration, they will spend 6 months asleep, 2 months eating and 4 months doing maintenance work just to stay alive. An unmanned rover can hang around for maybe 10 years. For the same price as a manned mission, you could send a swarm of unmanned rovers to cover pretty much every spot of interest on the planet. No more landing site dilemmas.

There simply is nothing that a manned mission can do that an equivalent unmanned science mission can't do for a fraction of the cost and risk. By the time we get to the point where we can send a manned expedition, around the 2030's, unmanned rovers will only have even more advanced AI and higher mobility, which will reduce the gap even more.

In fact, the only scientific reason to send humans to Mars is to study how to send humans to Mars. Circular arguments are hard to justify.

As I said, the real benefit would be the inspiration value. The science, while also great, would just be a bonus.

Absolutely. Now all you need is to put a price tag on that inspiration value. How much are the taxpayers willing to pay for "inspiration"? Try asking real people around you, not just the space geek crowd.

To get things done, you need a measurable return on investment. In the 60's, NASA's goal was to kick the Soviet's ass in the context of the Cold War. Demonstrating the supremacy of the USA over communism was the return on investment, not "inspiration" or some other fuzzy concept, and politicians were willing to give NASA an unlimited budget to do it.

If your goal is simply "inspiration" (whatever that means) then there are much cheaper ways than to spend $100 billion on a Mars mission.

Nowadays, NASA's mission has shifted, and the only rational motive for space exploration is science. And the best return on investment for science is to send unmanned missions. You might not like it, but there's no dodging the cruel reality of today.

Then let's set things straight. Involve the public with every aspect of the mission: the astronaut selection process, picking the landing site, the construction of the hardware, etc. Educate people. Yeah, the Flat Earth Society will keep screaming fraud, but people (well, most of them) are more reasonable than we give them credit for. We just need to show them what we're doing, why we're doing it, and where it will lead. People will listen.

That's what NASA is trying to do. Just look at the comments on their Google+ feed or Youtube channel and you will see that they are fighting an uphill battle there.

Edited by Nibb31
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Esme

Esme

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Some very interesting information in this thread, thank you people!

For myself, I'd like to see inside Noctis Labrinthus, Coprates or the edge of of the inside of Hellas close-up, although I can understand why the latter mightn't be so interesting to geologists at this point. it should be a tad safer landing there due to slightly thicker air, though. Another place I'd like to see investigated is one of the polar chasmae. However, that lake site shown by the OP looked very interesting too!

Others have mentioned the possibilities of aerial recconaisance. That'd be nice, but I suspect for now ground based rovers will give a better scientific return for the effort. It's a shame teh atmosphere is so thin, as I;d love to see a ground rover supplemeneted by one or simple two balloon probes with, say, something like a pressure sensor, GPS, camera with at least a couple of filters -a spectroscope would be ideal, not sure how small they can make those nowadays. but even if it was just pressure sensor, GPS and camera (which can be done in something the size of a Raspberry Pi), it'd be interesting to see where the winds took it. I would imagine the power supply would be the major problem, bearing in mind that its mass has to be lofted as well as that of whatever instruments are used, in a very thing atmosphere.

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NSEP

NSEP

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On 11/20/2018 at 3:57 AM, Nightside said:

Looks like they should be able to bag at least 3-4 biomes from there.

Thats like 256 science points right there. Maybe they can unlock a NERV with that.

They should be called geomes, there isn't much 'bio' on Mars, neither is there any on planets in KSP other than Kerbin.

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KG3

KG3

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On ‎11‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 7:51 AM, NSEP said:

Thats like 256 science points right there. Maybe they can unlock a NERV with that.

They should be called geomes, there isn't much 'bio' on Mars, neither is there any on planets in KSP other than Kerbin.

I've heard that this mission is looking for more specific signs of life then what they have been able to look for in past missions.  How are they going about this differently this time?  Are there any plans to try to culture a sample of soil like they did with the Viking missions?

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Ozymandias_the_Goat

Ozymandias_the_Goat

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On 11/26/2018 at 8:28 AM, KG3 said:

I've heard that this mission is looking for more specific signs of life then what they have been able to look for in past missions.  How are they going about this differently this time?  Are there any plans to try to culture a sample of soil like they did with the Viking missions?

Yes, this probe is going to look for direct signs of Ancient microbial life, where as previous missions have attempted to search for organic molecules that suggest that mars was once habitable, and may still harbor life.

Anyway, the rover will look for sites that have carbonate minerals, a sign of long-term chemical reactions between water and water the atmosphere, and then seeks signs of microbial life akin to fossils. As well as that, there is the obvious need to account for the fact that Martian life may have been significantly different from Terran life, but that is more of an issue for researchers back on earth than for the rover.

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