Cost Benefit Analysis
Sojourner's portion of the Pathfinder bill was 25 to 40 million if I recall
correctly for 15 minutes worth of human geologist work. That works out to
being worth 328,500,000,000 for sending one geologist to Mars for 1.5 years
assuming 6 hours of science work per day and using the lower cost figure.
Far higher than any projected Mars mission cost for a 4 to 6 man mission.
The cost effectiveness of robots vs humans hould not be judged by the cost
of the trip to mars, but rather how much you get for the money spent.
Regards,
Mark