As it mentioned on page 39, it did not examine precursor missions.

Instead it went on to assert, based on no evidence, that there would be areas of minimum biological risk, and then recommended that manned exploration be limited to these hypothetical areas.

I heard it said that neurotics build imaginary worlds, and that schizophrenics live in them.

It is too bad that earlier Soviet studies of this problem were not available to or ignored by the committee. The required precursor missions require the use of robotic rovers equipped with artificially inteligent robotic vision systems and autonomous control systems.

ep