It seems to me that a good balance between the visceral excitement of having human boots on the ground and rovers like Curiosity would be humanoid telepresence robots, operated by people in orbit...
It seems to me that a good balance between the visceral excitement of having human boots on the ground and rovers like Curiosity would be humanoid telepresence robots, operated by people in orbit of Mars.
Perhaps the biggest issues with robots on Mars is you can't operate them real time. You'll never be able to have a phone call with someone on Mars, the speed of light simply doesn't allow it. Instead they operate the rovers by giving them simple commands and have them trundle forward a fraction of a meter at a time. The robot takes photos of its surroundings, beams them back to Earth, the operators on Earth assess the path in front of the rover, and they give the rover its next set of short instructions.
But if you had people in orbit, they could operate rovers in real time. And remote telepresence technology is getting better and better each year. It's a technology that has a ton of application back home on Earth, so it will continue to see advancement. By telepresence, imagine a human-shaped robot that you operate through an elaborate VR setup. VR is mostly audio and video now, but tactile feedback is definitely a feature that is getting worked on and will have a lot of demand in the future. It is not hard to imagine by the end of the century, if not long before, that we will have robots and VR setups good enough that they truly make you feel like you are walking around inside the robot you're piloting. This sort of thing would absolutely require human operators to be within reasonably close range, such as in orbit. But it's the kind of thing that is very likely to be not only possible, but commonplace by the end of the century. Such remote telepresence would be very useful for dangerous industries like mining, fire and rescue, and deep sea work. It might even have weirder applications like long-distance international commuting. Maybe Japan and other rich countries solve the core policy challenge of their aging population (needing more workers but not wanting to bring in immigrants) by having millions of people beam in and remotely operate humanoid robots avatars. In short, really good telepresence technology is something that has a ton of applications here on Earth. By the end of the century, it isn't unreasonable to expect you will be able to remotely pilot a humanoid robot with low enough latency and high enough fidelity that it truly feels like being there. The humans can stay in orbit, and they can send down robots so convincing that it feels like standing on the surface. Hell, it might feel better. Such systems, suitably developed, could enable you to feel the very Martian wind on your skin. An astronaut could "walk" across the surface of Mars, fed a stream of sensations that made it feel like they themselves were walking across Mars comfortably in jeans and a t-shirt. No need for a bulky space suit. You can feel the Martian dirt between your own toes.
And the great thing about robots? You can thoroughly sterilize them before sending them down. Built out of suitably durable parts and electronics, you could simply heat the entire robot up to a temperature to kill any living cells. Sterilize the robots then send them down. And NASA wouldn't even have to put in all the money to develop such sterilizible robots. Telepresence robots that can be heat-sterilized would be a fantastic tool for caring for patients with communicable diseases.
In a way, I think this approach might be the best of all worlds. You don't have to worry about contaminating Martian life, as you keep humans and their bacteria off the planet entirely. You get the benefits having humans on the scene to be adaptable and deal with the unexpected. You even get some of the romantic benefits that putting boots on the ground would have. People will be operating these robots, and in a very real sense have the full visual, audial, and tactile experience of being on the surface of Mars. And this even preserves some of the romanticism that comes from Mars being so far away, the joy of human exploration, etc. You will never be able to operate such a remote robot avatar from Earth. If you want to do this, you are going to have to go to Mars in person. You can't just remotely operate such a robot avatar from a rig in your spare bedroom. Only explorers, actually willing to risk their own life on a perilous journey, will be able to operate such avatars.
This doesn't eliminate the very real issues the article brings up about life support systems. But these are the type of thing that will be developed over time. Human presence in space is only going to grow, whether from space tourism, public and private science and research, or zero gravity manufacturing. Orbital life support systems will get better and better as we build more and more space infrastructure. Building one optimized to work on the surface of Mars will be a very different challenge, but this option, keeping the astronauts in Martian orbit, would sidestep this. Such a mission could use the same life support systems developed for use in Earth orbit, with the exception of the increased radiation risks of interplanetary travel.
I think this might be the best option. We have a pretty clear path over the next few decades to really, really good remote telepresence robots. There will be a lot of demand for these on Earth, thus NASA or other national space agencies will only have to worry about customizing and hardening them for Mars use, not building an entirely novel technology from the ground up. Suitably built, such robots could also be thoroughly sterilized before sending them down to the Martian surface, thus avoiding the risk of contaminating a pristine Martian biosphere. And in a very real sense, the astronauts in orbit of Mars would themselves be landing on the Martian surface. They would pilot robotic avatars that made them feel as though they were on the surface, and the robot would react as quickly to their commands as their own bodies do. In a very real sense, they would be on Mars.
With all the dramatic improvement we're seeing with VR and telepresence technology, simply waiting a few decades seems like the best option. Mars has been there for four billion years; it's not going anywhere in the next few decades. If we're patient enough, it might by the end of the century be possible to send people to explore Mars without ever setting foot on it.
Here's our previous discussion. (It was before the new crowd got here, though.)
It seems to me that a good balance between the visceral excitement of having human boots on the ground and rovers like Curiosity would be humanoid telepresence robots, operated by people in orbit of Mars.
Perhaps the biggest issues with robots on Mars is you can't operate them real time. You'll never be able to have a phone call with someone on Mars, the speed of light simply doesn't allow it. Instead they operate the rovers by giving them simple commands and have them trundle forward a fraction of a meter at a time. The robot takes photos of its surroundings, beams them back to Earth, the operators on Earth assess the path in front of the rover, and they give the rover its next set of short instructions.
But if you had people in orbit, they could operate rovers in real time. And remote telepresence technology is getting better and better each year. It's a technology that has a ton of application back home on Earth, so it will continue to see advancement. By telepresence, imagine a human-shaped robot that you operate through an elaborate VR setup. VR is mostly audio and video now, but tactile feedback is definitely a feature that is getting worked on and will have a lot of demand in the future. It is not hard to imagine by the end of the century, if not long before, that we will have robots and VR setups good enough that they truly make you feel like you are walking around inside the robot you're piloting. This sort of thing would absolutely require human operators to be within reasonably close range, such as in orbit. But it's the kind of thing that is very likely to be not only possible, but commonplace by the end of the century. Such remote telepresence would be very useful for dangerous industries like mining, fire and rescue, and deep sea work. It might even have weirder applications like long-distance international commuting. Maybe Japan and other rich countries solve the core policy challenge of their aging population (needing more workers but not wanting to bring in immigrants) by having millions of people beam in and remotely operate humanoid robots avatars. In short, really good telepresence technology is something that has a ton of applications here on Earth. By the end of the century, it isn't unreasonable to expect you will be able to remotely pilot a humanoid robot with low enough latency and high enough fidelity that it truly feels like being there. The humans can stay in orbit, and they can send down robots so convincing that it feels like standing on the surface. Hell, it might feel better. Such systems, suitably developed, could enable you to feel the very Martian wind on your skin. An astronaut could "walk" across the surface of Mars, fed a stream of sensations that made it feel like they themselves were walking across Mars comfortably in jeans and a t-shirt. No need for a bulky space suit. You can feel the Martian dirt between your own toes.
And the great thing about robots? You can thoroughly sterilize them before sending them down. Built out of suitably durable parts and electronics, you could simply heat the entire robot up to a temperature to kill any living cells. Sterilize the robots then send them down. And NASA wouldn't even have to put in all the money to develop such sterilizible robots. Telepresence robots that can be heat-sterilized would be a fantastic tool for caring for patients with communicable diseases.
In a way, I think this approach might be the best of all worlds. You don't have to worry about contaminating Martian life, as you keep humans and their bacteria off the planet entirely. You get the benefits having humans on the scene to be adaptable and deal with the unexpected. You even get some of the romantic benefits that putting boots on the ground would have. People will be operating these robots, and in a very real sense have the full visual, audial, and tactile experience of being on the surface of Mars. And this even preserves some of the romanticism that comes from Mars being so far away, the joy of human exploration, etc. You will never be able to operate such a remote robot avatar from Earth. If you want to do this, you are going to have to go to Mars in person. You can't just remotely operate such a robot avatar from a rig in your spare bedroom. Only explorers, actually willing to risk their own life on a perilous journey, will be able to operate such avatars.
This doesn't eliminate the very real issues the article brings up about life support systems. But these are the type of thing that will be developed over time. Human presence in space is only going to grow, whether from space tourism, public and private science and research, or zero gravity manufacturing. Orbital life support systems will get better and better as we build more and more space infrastructure. Building one optimized to work on the surface of Mars will be a very different challenge, but this option, keeping the astronauts in Martian orbit, would sidestep this. Such a mission could use the same life support systems developed for use in Earth orbit, with the exception of the increased radiation risks of interplanetary travel.
I think this might be the best option. We have a pretty clear path over the next few decades to really, really good remote telepresence robots. There will be a lot of demand for these on Earth, thus NASA or other national space agencies will only have to worry about customizing and hardening them for Mars use, not building an entirely novel technology from the ground up. Suitably built, such robots could also be thoroughly sterilized before sending them down to the Martian surface, thus avoiding the risk of contaminating a pristine Martian biosphere. And in a very real sense, the astronauts in orbit of Mars would themselves be landing on the Martian surface. They would pilot robotic avatars that made them feel as though they were on the surface, and the robot would react as quickly to their commands as their own bodies do. In a very real sense, they would be on Mars.
With all the dramatic improvement we're seeing with VR and telepresence technology, simply waiting a few decades seems like the best option. Mars has been there for four billion years; it's not going anywhere in the next few decades. If we're patient enough, it might by the end of the century be possible to send people to explore Mars without ever setting foot on it.