Geologists make up the most vocal group of proponents for manned missions. Compare that to the high success rates of astronaut crewed missions – almost 90%. Take the Mars exploration programs: out of 31 missions by the USSR, Russia, the US and Japan since 1960, all but 10 failed and only 5 met their original goals. This repeated testing of results becomes difficult with unmanned mission failure rates. They need further missions to run different tests and, the cornerstone of all good science – verification by repeatedly testing the same area over time. Even worse, the data is often completely unexpected leaving the scientists at a loss to explain the results. Raw data is useful but often raises more questions. Today’s robots cannot start up new lines of investigation. Although these probes gather important data, much of it is ambiguous for lack of the probe’s ability to do follow up tests.
To save money and reduce failure rates to a minimum, robotic probes are stripped down to essentials. Part of the problem is the limited abilities and scope of each robotic mission. Ironically, it is the same people who run the unmanned space missions that are clamoring for human crewed missions to follow them up. It’s in field study that scientist crewed missions could do better. Most agree that, for basic survey missions, robotic probes produce dramatic results.
While no scientist can deny the value of robotic space exploration, many feel the need for complementary manned programs.
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