Friday morning’s sessions of the Mars Society conference featured a couple of talks on the relative importance of science versus exploration. First up was Scott Horowitz, NASA associate administrator for exploration:
There’s a basic paradigm shift here from where we were a few years ago. We were “science driven, exploration enabling”; that’s the phrase we always heard. We are now exploration driven and science enabling, And a lot of people don’t like that. That’s just the way it is. That’s what we’re doing. We’re going to lead with exploration, but we realize the importance and value of science, and we’re going to enable science at every opportunity. So our challenge is to include the scientific community and not be exploration-versus-science.
Horowitz’s speech was followed by one from Scott Hubbard, the former director of NASA Ames, who took a somewhat different tack on the topic. Calling astrobiology the “scientific part of exploration”, he noted:
I really hope that what Doc Horowitz said is the way we go, which is to integrate science and exploration, because I’m very concerned that we are seeing today the bifurcation that began with the arguments long ago between von Braun and van Allen, where the human exploration contingent says we can do it only with people, and the robotic contingent says we only need robots. I think the answer is the two together, and I think it needs to be driven, in many ways, by the scientific underpinnings. I realize that there is a distinction between “science driven and exploration enabled” and “exploration driven and science enabled”. I think that one must be careful that we don’t end up with two armed camps battling over this area. I think we need to have a scientific part even if the impetus is to explore and see what’s there.
This is an important issue to keep in mind, since many scientists, particularly those threatened with mission and research funding cuts in the FY07 NASA budget, pin the blame squarely on the Vision for Space Exploration, even if other factors (shuttle, station, etc.) also contributed to the funding squeeze.
I believe that both of these individuals are wrong, and indeed most people who have participated in this debate.
As I have argued, the idea that science can occur in the absense of exploration, while not quite entirely wrong, is so limiting as to be meaningless. We have leaned a few facts about Mars, and less about the other planets, with our robots. But, it is a safe bet that we will not understand these worlds — in any sense of the term “understand” — until scientists and other people have walked and lived on these worlds. People who believe otherwise simply are not living in the real world.
Sending any conceivable clockwork robot into the Grand Canyon, while it might give you a few facts, in no way would allow you to “understand” the Grand Canyon. That takes geologists on site with the ability to explore a significant fraction of the canyon, to take photographs influenced by the emotional experience of being in the local environment, and to paint pictures and write symphonies. No robotic exploration could have allowed Antonin Dvorak to write the “New World” Symphony, yet this symphony was every bit as important as “scientific” facts in explaining the new world to the Europeans who stayed at home. No robot could have taken Muir’s photos of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which, again, were a vital part of our “understanding” of the West.
All of this is no less true of other worlds.
Science must support exploration and thus more science, or it is essentially and fundamentally meaningless.
— Donald
It is silly to talk about exploration without acknowledging the underpinning role of science. Spending billions of dollars to fly any type of mission – be it robotic or crewed – without rigorous application of scientific methods is meaningless and wasteful.
However, I don’t think the VSE intends to draw a distinction between exploration and science. Thomas Jefferson certainly didn’t when he charged Merriweather Lewis to visit with key scientists of the day before embarking on his expedition. The main goal of the expedition was to ascertain the resources associated with the Louisiana Purchase and facilitate economic expansion into this new frontier. (Sound familiar?) For this reason, Lewis applied a scientific perspective to all his observations to ensure that accurate conclusions could be drawn from what at the time was a significant national investment.
Another example is the oil industry. It is no coincidence that this industry is the largest employer of geologists and geophysicists in the world. Exploration for new reserves and energy sources demands the thoroughness of scientific observation and techniques to accurately assess new reserves and opportunities for economic development.
Therefore, the ongoing debate on whether science or exploration should take precedence is pointless. It also opens up VSE to criticism that it is just a gee-whiz joy ride for future astronauts, which it is not. The real issue is that NASA’s exploration efforts, all of which rely on science, are being re-vectored from accruing knowledge for knowledge’s sake to accruing knowledge that could lead to the eventual utilization and economic development of space. Science is at the heart of accruing knowledge in either case.
I fully agree, George. It certainly is not I who argue that we should do one without the other. Human exploration is science and is required for science, and science obviously is required to achieve human exploration.
— Donald
The problem is that most people, are looking at the Return on Investment, and they don’t see a differentation between Science and Exploration, and the unmanned probes do do great science. Therefore, as long as you are arguing for exploration, you will always have the manned vs unmanned debate. Human spaceflight will never be seen as necassary for exploration, even if you do get better science for your buck (something, mind you, I am not convinced of myself – I ain’t saying I am comepletely convince one way or another, but I’d be very curious to see how much we would learn from human space flight vs unmanned space flight, assuming we spent the same amount)
The point is, human spaceflight will NEVER be an seen as an intrical part of exploration. This is why we need top be talking colonization – you can’t do colonization without humans.