Anything happening with Venus? Rovers etc.

[Aethon]

No those are from M(ars)S(cience)L(ab) - Curiosity is a nickname.

At the risk of derailing the thread, those photos (and the Venera photos on the previous pages) reinforce in me that we don't need manned missions to inspire people.

Not to inspire I agreee, however as I said in another recent post, all of the amazing things accomplished by the fabulous MSL (Curiosity) in it's almost two (Earth or one Martian) years on the surface, could have been done by a human geologist in less than a Martian day.

[jfull]

Did we ever determine whether or not Venus is still geologically active?

I mean, its surface is has been shaped by so much EXTREME volcanic activity that its hard to believe that its gone totally quiet...

[Aethon]

Rather than typing all this stuff out and being asked for a source, I like to cut out the middle man and do this :

http://news.discovery.com/space/active-volcanoes-revealed-on-venus-140317.htm

Hope that's cool.

[Nibb31]

Not to inspire I agreee, however as I said in another recent post, all of the amazing things accomplished by the fabulous MSL (Curiosity) in it's almost two (Earth or one Martian) years on the surface, could have been done by a human geologist in less than a Martian day.

Probably not. To perform the same kind of work, a human geologist would need a 500 kg of lab material, a mobile lab, and some heavy life support equipment. He would have to drive his mobile lab, prepare for an EVA, egress the rover, pick up his sample, ingress the rover, take off his suit, and run his experiments. He'd also have to stop to eat and sleep and would only be operational half of the time.

He would also have to remain in a safe radius around his Mars Ascent Vehicle and would only be able to stay on the surface for a few weeks or months. The whole expedition would cost $100 billion.

For the cost of a manned mission, we can send hundreds of MSLs to all sorts of different places and get decades of scientific data out of them.

[rkman]

the amazing things accomplished by the fabulous MSL (Curiosity) in it's almost two (Earth or one Martian) years on the surface, could have been done by a human geologist in less than a Martian day.

Even if true (needs citation), it would still cost a lot more than the MSL/Curiosity mission.

"Estimates of cost have ranged from $6 billion to $500 billion for various crewed programs.[4][5][6]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_mission_to_Mars

"The total cost of the MSL project is about US$2.5 billion"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory

[BadLeo]

What manned missions do that rover missions will never is to add human drama. A real life novel of a struggle of humans that put their lives under extreme risk to the benefit of mankind. That kind of thing sells like water on the Sahara and attracts media attention to everyone that might sponsor it. Great deal.

[Nibb31]

When you're planning a multi-billion dollar space mission, the last thing you want is drama.

(Unless you're the producer of Defying Gravity)

[BadLeo]

Hahaha, of course you don't want a new Apollo 13, but the drama is not exactly created by the people on the mission, but by the media. Manned missions have an appeal for drama that generally unmanned missions don't. Look how much fuzz the first manned american missions to space, then to Mun Moon created. When things cooled down, Apollo 13 lighted that drama fire again, because what was getting routine was shown as something far from routine. Media knows that the potential for human disaster sells, even if no disaster comes. I hate that, but it's how media works.

[Aethon]

http://www.space.com/26542-venus-express-survives-atmospheric-dive.html

[Streetwind]

Nice. I can only imagine how much that will help future Venus missions.