![]() ![]() Humans are orders of magnitude faster than robots, who have to move slowly enough not to damage themselves and are constantly waiting for updated instructions from Earth. This Black Hole Could Help Us Build a Warp Driveīut once we overcome those challenges and finally get somewhere, the returns on investment start immediately.Solar Sails May Be the Future of Space Exploration.Astronauts Might be Able to Hibernate in 10 Years.We also have to bring those humans back-it’s generally considered poor taste to send astronauts on one-way missions-requiring even more fuel and resources. And human lives are exceptionally precious, meaning that we have to build multiple redundancies into our missions to ensure survivability in case of accident or disaster when it comes to life support systems, small accidents can quickly spiral into dangerous situations. While humans are lightweight compared to most of our probes, we require enormous amounts of resources-food, water, heat, space-to go along with us for the ride. Yes, we are insanely expensive to get anywhere. However, humans aren’t necessarily second-class explorers when it comes to space. We never have to worry about bringing it back. When the mission is over we can just let our probes sit on the surface of an alien world or plunge it into an atmosphere. Robots can also carry a variety of sensors outside the normal human senses, allowing them to study everything from x-rays to seismic motions.Īnd finally, to put it bluntly, robots are disposable. When individual components fail it’s doesn’t usually kill the mission-the loss of a single instrument is a major headache, but that’s it. Generally, as long as their power source remains viable, even in the face of some radioactive element or solar panel decay, the probe can keep working. They are lightweight (at least, compared to the needs of a crewed mission) and require relatively few resources. We’ve also designed our robots to be excellent explorers. The Perseverance mission to Mars, a much more distant and challenging target, totaled $2.9 billion, less than 2 percent of the cost of Apollo. For a comparison, the total investment into the Apollo missions reached over $175 billion, inflation adjusted. When it comes to targets nearer to the Earth, like the moon, Mars, and near-Earth asteroids, robots still offer distinct advantages over crewed missions. ![]() The half-ton spacecraft contained scientific instruments to map the surface geology and composition of Pluto and its three moons, investigate Pluto’s atmosphere, measure the solar wind, and assess interplanetary dust and other particles. The New Horizons mission to Pluto in 2008 was the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and the Kuiper Belt in the outer solar system. And while we haven’t visited Uranus or Neptune in over 40 years, we have sent one spacecraft, New Horizons, to Pluto and further outwards into the Kuiper Belt. The Galileo and Cassini spacecraft orbited Jupiter and Saturn, respectively, and the Huygens probe descended to the surface of Titan, the methane-soaked moon of Saturn. After the series of Pioneer and Voyager missions, which briefly flew by the four giant worlds of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, we have continued to launch missions. In the outer solar system our robotic achievements are no less impressive, especially considering the challenges in traversing the vast distances between us and the difficulties of the environments found there. We’ve taken samples of asteroids and comets and successfully returned those samples to Earth for further study. We’ve had several semi-autonomous rovers operating on the Red Planet, in addition to orbiters around Mars, Venus, and Mercury. Within the inner solar system, our trusted machine emissaries have landed on the moon, Mars, and even Venus (if only for only a few minutes). We have sent robotic probes to almost every corner of the solar system. As we look ahead to the next century of exploration, we’ll have to strike just the right balance of cost and scientific gain as we decide whether humans or robots should lead the way. We’ve buzzed Pluto and danced in Jupiter’s orbit. We’ve walked on the moon and roved on Mars. We’ve made great strides in the past half-century of exploration of our solar system, lead by both human and robotic exploration.
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