Human Spaceflight Should Drive Evolution

It is a serious dilemma that faces space exploration policy makers: establish a foothold in low-Earth orbit and plan new manned missions to the moon, or concentrate on robotic exploration of planets such as Mars?

source

What do you think? Should we stay put on earth,
or continue to travel farther and farther away from earth?

Hmm that's a good question, there are a few pros and cons to either argument. Robotic probes are much cheaper comparitively to sending humans to, say mars, they are obviously low risk and we could send large numbers of different machies to carry out different research and experements. Also they obviously wouldn't require any of the human nessesities such as food, water, shielding for harsh space conditions etc, etc. Also given how quickly we're making giant leaps in robotics and A.I. it it plausible that there is no need for us to travel to other celestial bodies because of what we can achieve with these probes.

But then theres the other argument, why send humans? Well we may be able to send probes to other planets but they are rather clumbsy and slow, only covering short distances slowly and taking low resolution photos. They are also prone to failure and even a simple error could compramise them, such as just getting stuck on a rock or harware malfunction. With humans it would be much easier to explore the surface of a planet, 200 degree ultra high definition vision, capable of capturing 2.7 million colors and not to mention we are infinitely more adaptable and agile; it would obviously be alot less tedious just to leave your craft and cover a kilometer in an hour as oppose to taking a month for a rover.

We would be able to cover vast distances on mars using rover vehicles and would be much more equipped to carry out scientific experements on the surface of a planet especially if we established a temporary or permanet outposts. Not to mention it's our nature to explore and learn, if we don't start somewhere we'll never develope the nessesary skills and knowledge to travel there ourselves, just look at how much we learned from going to the moon, point in case.

But theres also the obvious drawbacks such as the massive effort and man power needed, and the resources, wowie; it obviously wouldn't be a good idea right now due to the recession! Hope that helps!

-29.

Edited foa gramma G.

[edit on 22-1-2009 by 29083010384959]

Originally posted by 29083010384959
Also given how quickly we're making giant leaps in robotics and A.I. it it plausible that there is no need for us to travel to other celestial bodies because of what we can achieve with these probes.

The progresses in AI are not that big, although the robotics have become extremely advanced.

They are also prone to failure and even a simple error could compramise them, such as just getting stuck on a rock or harware malfunction.

What about the previously stated "giant leaps in robotics and A.I."?

With humans it would be much easier to explore the surface of a planet, 200 degree ultra high definition vision, capable of capturing 2.7 million colors and not to mention we are infinitely more adaptable and agile; it would obviously be alot less tedious just to leave your craft and cover a kilometer in an hour as oppose to taking a month for a rover.

We may have high definition vision, but we cannot share what we see with other people or record high definition images. We are more adaptable, we are more agile than some robots but we are less efficient than other robots at specific tasks.

Also, if the hardware on the robots may become faulty, people can get sick, and a broken bone on Mars, for example, would not help the mission.

We would be able to cover vast distances on mars using rover vehicles and would be much more equipped to carry out scientific experements on the surface of a planet especially if we established a temporary or permanet outposts.

Do you mean that a person on a rover can cover longer distances than an robotic rover?

The progresses in AI are not that big, although the robotics have become extremely advanced. That's your opinion the progress isn't that big, I happen to think in just the last 15 years AI has grown in leaps and bound, take the DARPA grand challange, having a rover that could be given autonomous commands to carry out by a mother satalite that were pre-programmed by our engineers would reduce having to control and look after more mundane aspects of the mission, such as software the could automatically get the rover from point A-B without having a human behind a computer navagating around every rock, day in and out untill they reach the location.

What about the previously stated "giant leaps in robotics and A.I."?

Yes that's true were making very quick progress in those fields but right now it's neither Robotics nor AI that makes the mistakes, it's us, it's usually just dumb luck or simple human error of something that was unforseeable, by that I meant even just one error on the rover such as an error in the code or the malfunction of one component could waste millions. There are also cases of rovers doing much better than we expected such as the Spirit and Oppertunity rovers which were designed to last for 90 sols and ended up lasting 15x longer than that.

We may have high definition vision, but we cannot share what we see with other people or record high definition images. We are more adaptable, we are more agile than some robots but we are less efficient than other robots at specific tasks.

Yes, but we would be able to share what we see with our crew mates, and use dedicated cutting edge camera technology to capture the images and send back to ground control instead of being stuck with lower resolution cameras that probes are usually equipped with due to design restrictions. And name for me ``specific jobs that robots could do better`` I`d love to see some examples. And we are much much more agile than machines, here`s an example from wiki regarding the Spirit rover. ``As of sol 1736 (November 20, 2008), Spirit's total odometry was 7,529 metres (4.68 mi). Wow, big numbers, it took the rover 1736 days to cover 5 MILES, that`s nothing! A human crew could cover that in one day on some type of rover vehicle.

[Quote]Also, if the hardware on the robots may become faulty, people can get sick, and a broken bone on Mars, for example, would not help the mission.
I didn`t go out of my way to mention that because I though it was obvious, we could tend to each other and take care of the injury on the ship or base camp, robots obviously couldn`t fix each other.

Do you mean that a person on a rover can cover longer distances than an robotic rover?

Yes, I though that was quite clear.

Originally posted by 29083010384959
That's your opinion the progress isn't that big, I happen to think in just the last 15 years AI has grown in leaps and bound, take the DARPA grand challange, having a rover that could be given autonomous commands to carry out by a mother satalite that were pre-programmed by our engineers would reduce having to control and look after more mundane aspects of the mission, such as software the could automatically get the rover from point A-B without having a human behind a computer navagating around every rock, day in and out untill they reach the location.

Yes, that is my opinion, the opinion of someone that has been following (although not as close as I wanted) AI for the last 10 or 12 years.

If you look at the end of that page about the DARPA grand challenge you will see that this was not a great leap from the 1994 VaMP, and in simulators that type of challenge has been carried out since the start of AI.

What has really changed is that the hardware is much faster and smaller, the sensors are much better and they used GPS to navigate on the DARPA grand challenge instead of using just radar and imaging as the VaMP.

There are also cases of rovers doing much better than we expected such as the Spirit and Oppertunity rovers which were designed to last for 90 sols and ended up lasting 15x longer than that.

One of the reasons for those rover's success is the fact that they had their software updated several times.

Yes, but we would be able to share what we see with our crew mates,

That's not good enough, we need the data to study things, not the opinion of someone about what he/she saw, and that would be what we would get in a situation like that, it's very hard to be completely neutral while describing something we have never seen, and what we may consider more interesting in some "scene" could be considered unimportant by other people that would find more interesting something to which we did not even looked a second time.

and use dedicated cutting edge camera technology to capture the images and send back to ground control instead of being stuck with lower resolution cameras that probes are usually equipped with due to design restrictions.

That is the problem, design restrictions.

If you compare the restrictions between a robotic mission and a manned mission you can see that if we use just half of the restriction of a manned mission on a robotic mission we would be able to do much more.

For example, if the manned mission would return with all the data, they would need only storage space, not a high bandwidth connection to Earth to send back the results, but the restrictions on the temperature and radiation (for example) imposed on the cameras would be more or less the same.

And name for me ``specific jobs that robots could do better`` I`d love to see some examples.

You have RiSE, that can climb vertical walls.


Or the Inchworm Deep Drilling System, developed (or being developed) by the same company that made the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) for the rovers.

They can also reach places we cannot (like the rescue robots) and endure conditions we can not (extreme heat, pressure, explosions).

And we are much much more agile than machines, here`s an example from wiki regarding the Spirit rover. ``As of sol 1736 (November 20, 2008), Spirit's total odometry was 7,529 metres (4.68 mi). Wow, big numbers, it took the rover 1736 days to cover 5 MILES, that`s nothing! A human crew could cover that in one day on some type of rover vehicle.

If it's "on some type of rover vehicle" then it's not a human characteristic, the physical advantage is from the "rover vehicle", not from the fact that was a human on board.

I didn`t go out of my way to mention that because I though it was obvious, we could tend to each other and take care of the injury on the ship or base camp, robots obviously couldn`t fix each other.

Robots can fix each other, they just have to have that capability included in them, there is nothing against that. Some robots can fix themselves and/or build copies of themselves (but for that they would need access to the parts).

Do you mean that a person on a rover can cover longer distances than an robotic rover?

Yes, I though that was quite clear. It was not clear enough to me, English is not my native language and sometimes I have doubts about what other people mean.

As I said before, if you take a rover that was supposed to be manned and turn it into a robot (like those cars in the DARPA grand challenge) there is nothing that forces them to have a smaller range and/or speed, unless the electronics bring some limitations that the presence of a human being would not bring, but considering the DARPA challenges I think that is not a problem, even today and with limited resources like those teams had.

MY thought is, If the government is willing to dump trillions into failed banks and such, why not dump trillions into progressing the space program.

The space program is the only thing right now that looks to produce real results and advancements, to keep the US strong world-wide.

I think this could speed up any progress that we have going thus far.

Sorry Armap but I didn't even read your responce, I really dont have the time to debate pointless topics about my opinion on sending either men or machines to other planets, that's the one thing I dont like about this website, everyone wants a debate. By the way, everything you've said hasn't changed my original opinion. Don't even know why I replied.

Have a nice day.

reply to post by Cio88


It's not trillions, NASA only gets billions.

Clear distinction.

Think of space travel as a spiritual freedom rather than a burden to get there. There is plenty of newer technologies that could let us live in space while quickly getting to terra firma to farm or whatever. If the Greys exist, and the stories of there homeworld, perhaps mars is true, then they are a space race living on ships?

Think of it as a melding of self knowing and external curiosity and drive. humanity has created a cununndrum "Kiff, we have a cunundrum"-Captain Brannigan Futurama,

anyway society has made so many earthly problems that the transition to this self knowing will be paved with wars and divides. Because people are arrogant, selfish, stupid, childish in general because of money and dependencies, temporaly wrong

[edit on 26-1-2009 by mastermind77]

Originally posted by 29083010384959
Sorry Armap but I didn't even read your responce, I really dont have the time to debate pointless topics about my opinion on sending either men or machines to other planets, that's the one thing I dont like about this website, everyone wants a debate.

Considering this is a discussion forum, I thought anything that is posted is open to discussion, but if you do not want that I suggest you write it at the end of your posts, in that way you will save people the trouble of writing their answers.

By the way, everything you've said hasn't changed my original opinion.

What I said was not meant to make you change your opinion, just to show you that you may have based your opinion in data that is not up to date.

Don't even know why I replied.

I don't know that either, but I know that, in the future, I will probably never answer any post made by you.
(The probably is just because I may forget your strange user name and answer one of your posts )

PS: obviously, all of this is pointless if you don't read this answer.