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s1ngular1ty2 t1_ixezqlu wrote

Reply to comment by failurebeatssuccess in Realistically speaking When do you think we will land humans on Mars? by EnaGrimm

That's not true. A human can do lots of things a robot can't. Although it probably won't happen in our lifetime if ever. You are correct in saying it is probably not worth the cost. We could send a dozen rovers for the same cost. They aren't as good as a human, but they are still worth sending. I personally feel sending people is far too risky and costly. We can just send more advanced robots as they are invented. Eventually they could be as capable as a human. They are definitely more durable and can stay far longer on the surface. It would cost too much to keep people for any long period of time on the surface so even if they are better at tasks they have less staying power than a fleet of robots.

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failurebeatssuccess t1_ixf5640 wrote

>>That's not true. A human can do lots of things a robot can't.

I don't think we are saying different things. I wasn't talking about current technology. Robotics is accelerating at a faster development rate than space travel. Ditto for autonomous AI. In 20 years time we won't be much closer to sending a human to Mars, but we will have some serious bit of robot hardware to send. It will be machines that colonise mars not humans.

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s1ngular1ty2 t1_ixf5bgi wrote

A trained geologist would be infinitely superior to a robot but it is just too expensive to send a person to Mars so it's better to send a lot of cheaper robots.

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