> You get extremely diminishing returns with probes. There's only so much you can do from orbit. Rovers are substantially more useful, but are extremely expensive.
I was talking about anything you can do without humans. Not just probes that stay in space.
> A big cost with rovers is the R&D and one-off manufacturing of the rover itself. With humans you have the added cost of life support, but 0 cost in manufacturing and development.
You could mass produce rovers.
The human life support is gonna be extremely expensive. So it's a bit silly to say that other than that, humans have 0 cost.
Rovers have the same '0 cost' component, from the humans remotely given them commands and guidance from earth.
I was talking about anything you can do without humans. Not just probes that stay in space.
> A big cost with rovers is the R&D and one-off manufacturing of the rover itself. With humans you have the added cost of life support, but 0 cost in manufacturing and development.
You could mass produce rovers.
The human life support is gonna be extremely expensive. So it's a bit silly to say that other than that, humans have 0 cost.
Rovers have the same '0 cost' component, from the humans remotely given them commands and guidance from earth.