Total Comments 1 | Start A New Comment

Post Info

Comment

Posted By: Dr Philip Moore Posted On: Aug 21, 2012 Views: 834

Robots Are Better Value Any science fiction reader since 1950 has grown up with the normality or inevitability of manned missions to Mars, but right now it's a dream for two reasons - money and robots. A quick internet search reveals cost estimates for a manned Mars mission in the range of US$20 - 40 billion in 2010 money. That sounds huge, but would just be feasible, if NASA did nothing else; absolutely nothing else. The budgets for 2009 and 2010 were both about US$19 billion. But these numbers are implausibly low and the error is exposed by the 2005 Bush era proposal to send men back to the Moon. That was estimated at US$104 billion (2005 money)or two to five times more! Another way to understand this is that in the mid-1960s, NASA's heyday, when it was spending US$5 billion/year, that was 4.5% of the US federal budget. Today, when it spends US$19 billion, that's only 0.5% of the budget. In reality 'Men-to-Mars' is going to imply a cost increase of about 4% of the American budget or ten times NASA's current spending. Lets keep the numbers simple, say US$200m for 6 years or US$1.2 trillion. That compares with the US federal deficit in 2011 of US$1.3 trillion. So in reality 'Men-to-Mars' will double the American deficit, which is not going to happen soon. Compare this with the success of the robotic probes, which are cheap, expendable, becoming more impressive with each iteration and don't need to come home. The robots have it.