Geotimes Home | AGI Home | Information Services | Geoscience Education | Public Policy | Programs | Publications | Careers
Until now, space exploration has involved either robotic or human expeditions.
We launch probes to distant worlds to collect scientific data. Closer to home,
humans regularly travel to Earth orbit after having once ventured to the Moon.
Robotic missions are relatively inexpensive, costing, on average, several hundred
million dollars apiece. By contrast, human exploration is extremely expensive.
To place the first humans on the Moon consumed, at one point, about 5 percent
of the annual federal budget and took nearly a decade to complete. The price
tag for a human expedition to Mars — a goal that generates broad public
interest — is many tens of billions of dollars; and reaching that goal
could consume at least another decade.
Mars beckons for exploration, robotic or human. The United States has committed
a focused program, with launches scheduled every Mars opportunity. Europe, Japan
and Russia also have developed missions. Mars is special because of the prospect
of life — life past may have been there, life future will certainly be
sent there. The human goal of understanding ourselves drives us there.
But the robotic program appears to be a dead-end; as missions get more complex
and expensive, they get cancelled. Three times in the last 20 years, development
of the Mars Sample Return mission was begun, and three times it was cancelled
as soon as the cost was estimated.
Human space exploration is in worse shape. No one knows where it is leading.
The space station is variously argued as the “next logical step,”
without saying to where; or others see it as a super-expensive science laboratory
without much science interest. The Columbia accident has once again prompted
calls for defining a purpose for human space flight — one that justifies
its risk and public expense. We submit that the only task that can provide such
justification is the exploration of new worlds and discovery of new knowledge
about ourselves.
Rather than argue about whether human or robotic exploration is preferable,
a third way bridges the gap, providing pathways for both human and robotic programs.
The Planetary Society has dubbed this approach Mars Outposts.
Mars Outposts would consist of specially designated research sites on the Red
Planet, equipped with permanent communications, navigational systems, and other
technologies to support intensive robotic missions and, most important, vicarious
public participation. The areas would become, in a sense, martian Antarcticas,
places of high scientific interest where researchers from around the world could
collaborate to learn about the planet.
At the sites, rovers, balloons and other probes would comprehensively investigate
the surrounding terrain. Thanks to continuous signals broadcast to Earth and
distributed through the Internet, humans worldwide would be able to participate
in the exploration of the planet. For instance, via camera lenses on a rover,
students could explore the landscape and command the vehicle, maneuvering through
dry river basins and through the polar regions. Mars is a magnificent place.
A deep swath cutting across the face of Mars dwarfs America’s Grand Canyon.
Olympus Mons rises more than twice the height of Mount Everest.
With Mars Outposts, the whole world could collectively experience the thrill
of exploring another world. We could all become the Lewises and Clarks of Mars.
Beyond the intrinsic value of each robotic step, the Mars Outposts approach
incrementally establishes the infrastructure needed for human expeditions and
thus greatly reduces costs and increases safety. The outposts could become future
landing sites. The same communications and navigational systems used for the
robotic probes could later support a human mission. The robotic infrastructure,
for instance, could facilitate the production and storage of propellant and
also breathable oxygen produced on Mars from the planet’s thin, carbon
dioxide atmosphere — thereby reducing the payloads launched from Earth
to support initial robotic sample return and subsequent human exploration and
return to Earth.
Additionally, the outposts would allow scientists and engineers to determine
the tasks best accomplished by robotic technologies and those more appropriately
performed by humans. The new paradigm of human-machine symbiosis could be built
step by step.
Humans will travel to Mars; we just don’t know when. The next step toward
realizing this dream could be aboard the International Space Station —
conducting research there on keeping humans healthy in space over extended periods
and preparing them for the long and arduous expedition to Mars. The station
also could be used to develop habitat technology for a martian crew.
As the space station is an international endeavor, so, too, will be a human
expedition to Mars. And so, too, would be the Mars Outposts. Together, all would
share the costs, risks, and opportunities of robotically learning about Mars
and progressing to the human phase. The outposts would catalyze the transition
to direct probing of the habitability of Mars.
It is a propitious time for the U.S. president to initiate the Mars Outposts
program. Five probes are heading to Mars this year from the United States, Europe
and Japan, to join the two already there. The United States is in the throes
of making a decision about what to do about human space flight after Columbia,
and what to do with the space station. A sense of purpose, a goal, is needed.
We are alive at a time when we are able not only to dream about distant worlds
but to explore them together. Those dreams are wishes, which we badly need in
the face of so much present-day strife and conflict. Ours is the first generation
of the Space Age. It can be our fortune to reach into the heavens as one and
open our eyes upon a new world.
|
Geotimes Home | AGI Home | Information Services | Geoscience Education | Public Policy | Programs | Publications | Careers |