-Caveat Lector-
And what if those robotic outposts have programs built into them for
autonomous evolution (ie growth and development)?
FWP.
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Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 20:44:17 EST
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Subject: IUFO: Permanent Robotic Outposts in Space
-> IUFO Mailing List
JPL Chief Predicts Permanent Robotic Outposts in Space
7.00 a.m. ET (1100 GMT) November 25, 1999 By Matthew Fordahl
PASADENA, Calif. — In a lecture that sometimes sounded more like science
fiction than science, a NASA official said the next era of space exploration
will involve missions that last for years rather than weeks and will
eventually pave the way for manned probes to the planets.
Edward Stone, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said he foresaw a
network of orbiting communications satellites on Mars as well as rovers that
drive around for miles and construct the robotic outposts.
"It's a logical next step," he said Nov. 16. "But it will depend on the
development of technology so that we can bring `up there' back here through
the power of communications."
Stone, chief scientist of the Voyager project to the outer planets and
director of NASA's lead center for interplanetary probes since 1991, made his
comments during the Carl Sagan Memorial Lecture at the American Astronautical
Society's annual meeting.
Stone did not mention the recent loss of the $125 million Mars Climate
Orbiter, which was managed at his lab, or the NASA investigation report that
criticized JPL navigators and managers for failing to catch the metric error
that doomed the craft.
The orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander, which is scheduled to arrive at the
Red Planet on Dec. 3, are part of the space agency's plan to send smaller
spacecraft into space more often and at less cost than in the past.
Rather than dwell on tight budgets, Stone suggested that the "faster, better,
cheaper" mantra espoused by NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin is actually the
natural course of space exploration.
The first probes launched to other planets in the 1960s proved the
technology, he said. The second-era spacecraft, which were launched in the
1970s and 1980s, were loaded with expensive instruments that were well suited
for global studies of the planets.
But the billions of dollars spent on massive probes like the Viking landers
on Mars as well as Voyager and Cassini to the outer planets were worth the
cost, he said.
"This era of going once a decade with these large comprehensive missions has
given us enough information so that we are now smart enough to ask the most
important questions," Stone said.
The $165 million Mars Polar Lander is part of the third generation of
spacecraft: It has a limited science agenda of searching for water and
studying the atmosphere — answering questions raised by the big probes and
proving technology for the next era.
A more in-depth understanding of other planets, including whether life was
ever present, will require robotic outposts over a period of years rather
than the current 30 to 60 days, he said.
Such missions will use existing energy sources on the planets rather than
importing fuel from Earth. A fleet of communications satellites will provide
nearly constant contact with home. And onboard instruments will drill deep
into the planet, unlike the literal scratching of the surface by today's
probes.
Stone, who did not make cost or time estimates, also predicted rovers will
explore the surface of other planets. Unlike Sojourner aboard Mars
Pathfinder, future vehicles will be able to cross much greater distances, he
said.
Sagan, who popularized space science in books and television before his death
in 1996, said the greatest benefit of exploration is that it helps people
understand their place in the universe.
"Perspective is the most fundamental return of what we get from exploration,"
Stone said. "Although we have just begun the third era of exploration, we
nevertheless have to have a large view of the future so that we can be
prepared and shape that future."
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© 1999 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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