[LINK] "Humans vs. Robots: Who Should Dominate Space Exploration?"

[rfmcdonald]

Adam Mann's Wired Science article outlines the ongoing dispute between proponents of space exploration who favour manned missions and proponents of space exploration who favour robotic ones. In truth, I agree with James Garvin, quoted at the end of this excerpt, who points out that manned and unmanned missions are symbiotic, and I myself expect that as the technology necessary to support manned space travel beyond Earth's orbit advances (and becomes less expensive!) the mix of missions will shift towards manned ones.

A manned mission to Mars would almost certainly be more productive than a robotic mission, but at what cost? The robotic missions at least help outline the likely conditions and questions at affordable cost. Robotic missions are also much more durable--robotic probes have visited the planets of the outer solar system generations before any manned mission is likely to reach Europa or Titan or Neptune.

One note: if space probes suddenly became more autonomous, able to respond to their environment in a flexible way not far removed from the way that an actual astronaut would respond, manned space exploration could become less of a priority. What need would there be of it?

“In what was really only a few days on the lunar surface, the Apollo astronauts produced a tremendous scientific legacy,” said planetary scientist Ian Crawford of Birkbeck College in London, author of a paper in the April issue of Astronomy and Geophysics. “Robotic exploration of the moon and Mars pales in comparison.”

[. . .]

In terms of sheer scientific output, manned exploration of outer space has a good track record. More than 2,000 papers have been published over the last four decades using data collected during the manned Apollo missions, and the rate of new papers is still rising. In comparison, the Soviet robotic Luna explorers and NASA’s Mars Exploration rover program — Mars Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity — have each generated around 400 publications.

[. . .]

“I strongly disagree with his conclusions,” wrote engineer Adrian Stoica, who supervises the Advanced Robotic Controls group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an email to Wired. He notes that Crawford’s paper seems to focus on cost in terms of scientific output achieved.

The Apollo program was incredibly expensive — about $175 billion in today’s money — though it was not solely a scientific mission. It was mainly a geopolitical stunt during the Cold War to show American technological superiority over Russia, with science piggybacking on the ride.

The total amount spent on science over the Apollo missions, Crawford estimates, comes to about $2.09 billion in today’s dollars, making it comparable to or even cheaper than the recent $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory.

But contrasting manned lunar missions with robotic Mars missions is not the right way to go, wrote Stoica. A better analysis would use the potential cost of a manned Mars mission, which NASA estimates to be at least hundreds of billions of dollars.

Crawford counters that cost is not the biggest impetus behind his analysis. Instead, he wanted to bring attention to the sheer efficiency and legacy that the Apollo program achieved during its short time. If space exploration continues to focus on sending robots to other planets, “we will learn less about the solar system in the next 100 years than we will if we engage in an ambitious program of human exploration,” he said.

Of course, humans and robots each have their own advantages for exploration of outer space.

“There isn’t a battle between robots and humans — that’s comparing apples and oranges,” said James Garvin, chief scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “We send the robots as our pathfinders and scouts, and they open the frontiers so that we can decide where and when to send the people.”