Publisher:Pasadena, CA : Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2006.
Citation:Western Decision Sciences Institute 35th Annual Meeting, Waikoloa, Hawaii, April 11, 2006.
Abstract:
The need for sufficient quantities of oxygen, water, and fuel resources to support a crew on the surface of Mars presents a critical logistical issue of whether to transport such resources from Earth or manufacture them on Mars. An approach based on the classical Wildcat Drilling Problem of Bayesian decision theory was applied to the problem of finding water in order to compute the expected value of precursor mission sample information. An implicit (required) probability of finding water on Mars was derived from the value of sample information using the expected mass savings of alternative precursor missions.