Quote:
quote:Originally posted by terryp
I don't understand your logic of sending 'hundreds' of under-engineered rovers, accepting that many will fail, but some will survive. (Kinda like sending a dozen Qs vs. one HT.) That's terribly wasteful, both in terms of the cost to transport many times the weight, and in the amount of junk left behind. Why not engineer it right the first time and send one?
Segway - What's holding you up?
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because the difference of price of a "perfect" rover vs. a "good" rovers is not "half", but "1/100th"
the total cost of NASA mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity (all inclusive) was $800 million
the NASA plan for moonrovers will cost $400 million with probably only four rovers launched
if you build moonrovers with military-grade parts instead of NASA standards, they may cost less than 1,000,000 each but you must accept that part of them will fails or work for less time than planned
moon is too big to explore with four rovers, it need hundreds rovers (with different "generations") to explore
100 "perfect" rovers at $100 million each = $10 billion
140 "good" rovers at $1 million each = $140 million
despite 30% of them will fail, the "medium" cost of each "good" rover will remain LOW... less than $1.4 million each
the cost of the launch for each "perfect" or "good" rovers is the same (around $30 million up)
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