That’s reasonable. But there is little question that sending humans to safely do jobs that robots could do is VASTLY more expensive. The related question is precisely what sending humans to do that robots cannot do is worth that vast expense. Lots of handwaving here thus far. For scouting expeditions, in which basic environmental data and resource assays are needed, robots (whether telerobots or autonomous robots) seem to offer the most value. But that’s not what we’re doing.

The outpost based astronauts are going to be spending most of their time keeping the outpost running, and proving that humans can live in such outposts. Sound familiar? ISS with 1/6g. I cannot imagine that they will spend much time doing lab science, nor collecting samples for science or resource analysis. Again, echoes of ISS. As long as the prime short term goal is just proof that folks can exist on the Moon for longer than they had in the past, then I guess the whole thing makes some sense. If the prime short term goal is just proof that we have the smarts/courage to do it (again), then I guess it also makes some sense. But in either case, the strategic flowdown has never been clear. Marburger tells us that the White House’s view is that mining the resources of the solar system is our long range goal (nope, it’s not about fossils). For this, neither of those short range goals seems to apply. You’d think the important short term goal would be just finding stuff worth bringing back! How precisely are outpost astronauts going to do that in a way that robots could not? When that valuable lunar material is identified, then one can decide whether airbreathing roughnecks running bulldozers is the best way to get it into our economy.

So, my question is approximately what level of funding increase or (more likely) decrease, would a candidate support.

But it makes no sense to ask that question unless the candidate has expressed priority goals for space exploration. This hasn’t been done by either one. You establish goals first, and then argue for the funding to achieve those goals. In responsible policy development, goals come before budgets. If McCain/Obama were to say “Gosh yes, we need to double the funding for NASA!!” , we’d say “Amen!” But the first question the rest of the responsible electorate would ask is “OK, so why?”, and expect a really good story.

I fully agree. All I am asking for is that this trade study be done, but _without_ the preconceived notion that automation can do the job(s), and _with_ a realistic analysis of what jobs are necessary to successfully find multiple fossils and study their history and distribution. (And / or, for other much easier tasks, such as the detailed stratigraphy of lake or volcanic deposits.) I agree that this study has never been done, that it needs to be done, and I strongly suspect that the outcome of an honest study would not fully support my position but also would not come close to what most current space scientists appear to believe.

The human space flight community really has no incentive to do one.

Nor does the robotics community. In fact, if I am correct, they probably have more to lose, because for non science reasons, we are unlikely to complete abandon human spaceflight, but I think it would be politically possible to back off from at least the larger and most expensive automated missions — which, in fact, is what we’ve already done and what “everybody” is complaining about.

As to the rest, I do think science is a very important reason for exploring space, but long-term human survival (which, by definition, requires human spaceflight!) and resources exploration are much more important reasons. Indeed, a lot more science than we do now could ride on that last reason, just as a lot of ocean science rides on oil and other resource extraction from the oceans.

– Donald

The “machines” that already exist — astronauts, are fishing out these crumbly, delicate rocks with very relatively poor sensors (eyes behind helmet glass, with no convenient zoom or magnifying lenses), and with abysmal actuators (thickly gloved and minimally dextrous hands, which also reduce sensory input). These “machines” get tired, need food and water, tolerate malfunctions poorly, and are not considered in any way expendable. Telepresence is a rapidly developing technology, and the idea that “feet on the ground” makes for better scouting is just not quite as compelling as it used to be. Telepresence is how you couple the highest quality sensors and actuators to the highest quality intelligence, at low risk to the latter. Sure, for Earth-based field research, human in situ involvement is vastly cheaper than telerobotics. Not the case for space exploration. But that’s just my impression. I am not aware of any careful, independent trade study that has considered this for space science. The human space flight community really has no incentive to do one.

But let’s not lose the thread here. Candidates should be called upon to give their
assessment of why space exploration is important to the nation, whether by humans or robots, and flow down to some overreaching goals. That is NOT, in and of itself, a science question. (Marburger has fleshed out that assessment for this administration, and it seems to be about commercializable resources. He3 anyone?) On that basis, a followup question would be how to best accomplish those goals. That first question could also explore whether the candidate thinks that space science is, in fact, a high priority goal for space exploration.

Perhaps the mistake make by Science Debate 2008 was to title their question “Space” instead of “Space Science”. Their presumption was that exploring space was all about doing space science, which is not the case.

Robotics are most suitable for work off-surface because everything we put there is man-made and thus robots can be properly programmed to manage whatever might come up with the hardware. But once you start interacting with natural surfaces, you enter the world of the unknown, which human judgment is best suited to handle.

While I can imagine zero-g experiments involving unknown outcomes that could merit human involvement, I’ve always kept Erichke’s point in the back of my mind when contemplating robot vs human task assignments.

One possible pavement-laying advantage of Mr. Lassiter’s suggestion of telerobotically exploring the Moon: such an infrastructure (and lessons learned) could get us exploring Mars in a similar way, potentially a bit faster than landing humans on the surface. Think about it: we hammer out all the challenges of telerobotically exploring multiple sites on the Moon from Earth while we dispatch an Orion crew (with an extended hab module) to an Earth-crossing asteroid. The next stage could (essentially) combine the two with a human trip to Phobos that has its crew telerobotically exploring multiple sites on Mars from orbit.

Just a thought…

But hey, a teleoperated robot can dig around, pick up a rock and let operators back on Earth look closely for fossils in it.

Really? To find a fossil on Earth, requires scouting wide areas for likely rocks; being able to select, hold, and handle many thousands of oddly shaped samples with wildly differing textures; and observing all of them from any angle and at any scale. It also involves being able to cleanly cut samples of any size along any axis; examining each cut at a wide range of scales and wavelengths; and doing sophisticated on-the-fly pattern recognition to recognize any fossil. A single geologist with a limited set of tools can quickly and efficiently do all of these tasks in any order over and over, as often as necessary. Where is the telerobot at any price that can do most of them at all, let alone efficiently? One example: where is the telerobot that can pick up a block of crumbly sandstone mostly-buried in dust without destroying it? How much money are we going to waste trying to invent machines to do all of these tasks, when it is probably cheaper just to send and support “machines” that already exist. Then, finding the second fossil will be no easier, nor will the third or fourth; and then we need to study their distribution, stratigraphy, and history.

Likewise, material on the surface from the deepest layers underground will be on the rims and central peaks of the craters, so the ability to rapidly and repeatedly climb steep slopes covered with lose regolith and talus will be required. Astronauts can do that with relative ease. (Even Apollo astronauts handled more than twenty-degree slopes, and new-generation spacesuits will have greater mobility.)

Most space scientists clearly have little or no experience with field work. You folks are dreaming, pretending that something is easy which would be so difficult to do successfully that transporting humans to Mars will seem easy by comparison.

– Donald

– Donald

Minus their modern technological extensions (computers, comm links, testing and logging equipment) that make them so productive, I really don’t see that ISS astronauts are using their brains to make science possible any more than the Apollo era astronauts did. You’re saying that ISS astronauts are smarter? Hmmm.

Another point. Telerobotics is a rapidly advancing field, with strong commercial applications. So telerobotic agents on, say, the Moon, run by capable operators here on Earth through high bandwidth comm links, could compete strongly with in situ humans for doing science there. That is not easily extensible to Mars, however, as light time becomes a limiting factor in closed loop systems. But hey, a teleoperated robot can dig around, pick up a rock and let operators back on Earth look closely for fossils in it. What control you lose in light time, you may gain back in time on-station.

I would like the candidates to say “I’ll use humans where we need to use them, and I’ll use robots everywhere else.” But with the understanding that this “need” may extend well beyond scientific research.

– Donald