Robots and Humans across the Solar System

Over at Wired Science, there is a post with the fairly dramatic title Humans vs. Robots: Who Should Dominate Space Exploration  Now I enjoy Wired's articles despite their somewhat inflammatory titles. While this article has some interesting information, I dislike the false dichotomy between the two sides. Especially since the tech heavy readership (if the comments are anything to go by-and I know it isn't the best representation) do not understand geological field work in the slightest. The problem with robots are simply that they aren't people, they can have automatic functions and carry out experiments on other worlds, but they can't make snap decisions based on years of expertise.  In short, robots are tools, but there has to be people working those tools for them to be useful.

One of the main problems for robots is the delay between the robot detecting something, sending that to Earth, Earth receiving it, deciding what to do, then sending the instructions to the robot, the robot performing that operation, sending the results back to the Earth, and then the researchers ensuring that the robot did what it was supposed to do and then analyzing the data. As it can take several minutes for radio waves to travel from Mars to Earth, the delay eats up a lot of time; in addition, the rover teams always have to consider if the robot can accomplish its goals. Can the robot make it up the hill? Is the sand too loose for it to drive through? Are the systems operating efficiently? These questions eat up time, and if you read about the MER rovers you'll see stories about the rovers spinning their wheels for several meters worth of travel, but being stuck in the sand and not moving. These are problems humans can identify and fix quickly, without the need of caretakers back on Earth.

The article brings up a comparison of Apollo 17 (the only moon trip which NASA decided that a geologist might be useful) and the MER rovers, now I love the little guys; however, it took them eight years to cover the ground that the astronauts covered in three days, and at the end of the robot's leash were human experts. I don't mean to come down on the side of Team Human (though I guess I'd have to in a robot uprising) because the robots are an invaluable tool and extremely important for our understanding and future exploration of the solar system.

There is truth in the old saying "look before you leap" and that is where robots come in, we don't know exactly what is out there, thus rather than sending humans into the unknown without a clue as to what they are landing in, we send robots to scout the trail ahead. I believe the first Mars colonists will be extremely grateful for the information gained by the different rovers and probes that went before them, that information will be invaluable for telling us the dangers facing the first human explorers, and is vitally important. In addition, NASA has been experimenting with different robotic systems to help humans in outer space, Robonaut is already aboard the ISS working with astronauts, and the engineers at NASA have also developed similar 'centaur' systems which may be useful on other planets.

Although, I'm not sure that these robots can ever replace human explorers in the long run, as even compared to a burdensome space suit they are not as natural for an astronaut to use to collect samples or to operate heavy instruments like drills. While robots will most likely be a vital part of human exploration, they will most likely work along side humans, helping planetary geologists gather data and perform experiments. 

Especially if we expect to find life on Mars, we will have to rely on human explorers. Robert Zubrin, the president of the Mars Society, once commented that if you dropped a fleet of robotic explorers into Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado they wouldn't be able to find a single fossil, and most paleontologists I've talked to tend to agree with this as well. It will take meticulous human exploration, not weighed down by extensive lag times to conduct a thorough geologic investigation of the Moon and Mars. Robots will always be useful and at the forefront of planetary exploration. However, it will take the boots of trained geologists (of which there has been only been one) on the other terrestrial objects in the solar system before we can develop a clear pictures of the geologic processes throughout the Solar System.

Edit: Sorry but I realized yesterday that I had something I needed to add

Yesterday I watched the TAM9 Future in Space panel discussion, and as usual (I've seen it several times) really enjoyed it; however, one thing really bugged me. When they talked about human or robotic exploration of the planets, there was fairly diverse opinions, but they all agreed to some extent that the point of human exploration was to keep the public interested and that in the near future robots could do it better than humans. I won't comment on the feasibility of autonomous robotic telescopes in astronomy as I am not all that knowledgeable in that field. I would ask, though, that if they feel the need to comment on planetary exploration they would return the consideration and ask a planetary geologist. The problem is that the panel had two astrophysicists (three if you include Phil Plait but he didn't talk much), a cosmologist, and a mechanical engineer, but no geologists or planetary scientists.

It is not like there wasn't any highly qualified scientists with experience with public speaking or outreach that they could have contacted. In fact, Dr. Jim Bell is the president of the Planetary Society (thus he works with Bill Nye) and is on the same facility as Dr. Lawrence Krauss, so it seems like somebody could have gotten a hold of him for this. In addition, the Planetary Society's great blogger Emily Lakdawalla has her degree in geology, there is also Dr. Bell's student, Dr. Ryan Anderson, who blogs at Martian Chronicles at the AGU blog network and the MER Principle Investigator and author Dr. Steven Squyres. I don't see how none of these people were tapped for this panel. They all would have provided a different point of view than those present, and I would think that they could have provided some interesting insight into future planetary exploration.

As any immediate future in Space will involve landing on rocky bodies which planetary scientists are already studying, it again is strange that any panel discussion on this wouldn't include somebody with a background in both space science and geologic field work. I hope that any other organizations that decide to hold similar panels will include planetary scientists or geologists as astronomers usually don't do field work.

However, if you have not seen the video please do so, it is highly entertaining and very informational.

When My Optimism and My Cynicism Collide:

A lot has already been said about Newt Gingrich's promise of a moon base; however, I still want to talk about it because I sort of agree with the two ways this statement has been met-optimism and cynicism. First lets go with cynicism, it should be obvious this is shameless pandering from a politician who will hedge back and forth on science insulting it or complementing it depending on when it suits him. I am almost positive that if he was elected he would either forget all about or make a half-hearted attempt which wouldn't work. I think The Crux had one of the best cynical responses, and I have to agree with all of their points; however, I don't have to like it.

We should always meet all claims of politicians with skepticism, and just because they pander to our interests (or our dreams) doesn't mean we should throw away our rational thought and embrace them. I do not think many, if any, space professionals, students, or knowledgeable public took these promises at face value, though judging by some of the comments r/space the interested public did, and that's not good. It is very easy for politicians to play to people's emotions on a subject like this, and we have to be careful and not be taken for a ride. So it is a good thing that many people like Neil deGrasse Tyson are coming out to temper expectations. Newt's plan is unworkable, and anybody who pays attention to the space industry knows it won't work.

One last thing about Gingrich, in an early speech he criticized NASA as an overblown bureaucracy and said they have had "failure after failure" well maybe NASA, like any government agency has a lot of red tape, but are the Mars Exploration Rovers failures? They have outlasted their warranties by an incredible amount. They were supposed to last three months, and their mission duration is now measured in years.

Last year when I told my friends, family, and coworkers that I had an internship with NASA they were astounded and impressed. Why? Because NASA is on the frontier of science, they are the dream. It is the only government agency that continues to inspire everyone from small children dreaming about the moon and stars  to college students planning their careers in STEM fields to old men and women thinking about the changes they have seen and the changes yet to come. If you dismiss NASA, you are ignorant of what they have accomplished and I pity you for living in that darkness.

Okay, on the optimistic side I want a moon base! A moon base is an amazing idea, and those of you interested in engineering or space science should go wide-eyed and misty just thinking about it. That was my initial reaction when I heard Newt's statement, then I crashed back down to reality.

However, I couldn't stand the hyper-cynical reactions many people had after the speech, many people who are fascinated with space had a visceral reaction to the speech. And understandingly so, because here is another politician offering something we love for votes with no intention to follow through. Though I can see some good coming from this speech though, maybe a lot of Americans may remember that they love space and they want this base. When they remember they may come looking for information on it, and be exposed to some amazing science and learn a thing or two (or hundred).

Let's not let our cynicism overcome us, this is important and a permanent human presence on another world is something we need to do, not just to prove we can do it, but to give us the ability to do amazing science and to start our manned exploration of the solar system and beyond. And if you don't think our government is investing enough in exploration write to your representatives and tell them so, and if they don't vote the way you want, vote them out. At this point, if we can change a few minds on capital hill that would be an improvement.

An article on io9 has some amazing reasons why; however, I want to go farther. We don't know much about the moon, there is only so much remote sensing and a half a dozen manned missions can tell us. What we need to really understand the moon are boots on the lunar surface. We need planetary scientists doing field work to further our understanding of the moon and how the Earth-Moon system formed. In addition, this will be valuable experience for Mars. Not just in how to live and work in the isolated environment of space travel, but also the development of new scientific tools and field techniques that will be needed. Planetary geologists will need new ways of taking measurements because a space suit isn't as easy to move around in as a flannel shirt and cargo pants. We have been studying the Earth for centuries and we still don't understand every geologic process on it; we need field planetary geologist to map the structure and features of the moon, and then we need field versions of every imaginable discipline of planetary science to really understand the moon. Then we will have to do this for every planet or moon that we want to understand and we can land on, and the adventure will be incredible.

I would love for Gingrich's plan to work, because by the time the moon base was up and working I would be finished with my doctorate and I still young enough to work there. I want that, we live in the future and we should have a moon base.

NASA Tweetup: The Pretweetup-Wednesday

A few weeks ago when I found out that I was picked to attend the Mars Science Laboratory with NASATweetup, I was ecstatic as I would not have expected to have been chosen in a million years. However, I am a college student, and as a college student I do not have much money, so I would like to thank my parents and Aunt Marty for providing me with transportation and lodging for the event.

Originally, MSL was supposed to go up on Friday, so we were going to have the first round of speakers and a tour of KSC on Wednesday then nothing on Thursday and the final round of speakers and the launch on Friday. However, due to a battery malfunction the launch was postponed to Saturday. Changing my travel schedule to accommodate this was actually pretty difficult, and I realized just how isolated my little corner of the world is as it was very difficult to find flights coming back this way on the Sunday after the launch. However, registration and the tour was tentatively still on Wednesday so I had no qualms about going early, and I had never been to Florida and this would be only the second time I had been on the East Coast so I was excited to see something new.

One thing I do have to confess is that I'm not a very social person.  In large groups, I have a tendency to sit in the back and keep quiet and it usually takes me a while to feel comfortable around new people and I usually don't start talking until I feel comfortable. So when I arrived in St. Louis around noon and saw the tweet that all events had been postponed until Friday I was scared and thought that I would spend the first two days alone. Luckily, I couldn't be more wrong.

First off, NASATweeps are awesome people, besides the fact that they, as a prerequisite, are Space Nerds, they are incredibly kind and giving. From @conductor222 driving nearly an hour away from the Pre-Tweetup dinner to pick me up from the airport and driving around, to literally everybody stopping and saying hi if they saw you wearing your NASATweetUp badge; every space tweep demonstrated immense kindness and compassion, and on top of that each and every one of them was very interesting to talk to you, as they liked to talk about space which is one of the two coolest conversation topics(the other being geology).


So the Tuesday before the Tweetup passed without incident, I reached my hotel room watched NASA TV for a bit, and went to sleep. Wednesday started slowly @conductor222 picked me up and then we went and picked up @libbydoodle (who thankfully let me use her photographs as mine suck). We found KSC pretty easy; however instead of going to the press accreditation building we went to the employee badging office.

Wrong building

Correct building

They may look similar, but they were on different roads and a fair distance apart (if the press accreditation building was the bulls-eye on the dart board, we hit the wall). After we registered and met some of our fellow space nerds, we then decided to go take pictures of the Astronaut Hall of Fame (it wasn't open yet and it took us a bit to remember and decide to go to the Visitor Center.

 We took a lot of pictures, but the area basically boils down to these three sites, at least on the outside. We then decided that we should go check out the Visitor Center as it was open. I don't think any of us knew how much there was to do there, and how it would consume all our time (in a good way, like a whale with an amusement park in its stomach).

The Gate way to Nerdvana

They were ready for the holiday season

As were the Astronauts

We didn't have a solid plan when we entered the gates as there was so much to do.  We ended up seeing a 3-D Imax movie about the ISS (highly recommend it) then there was lunch. Afterwards we decided to pay our respects at the Astronaut memorial

Astronaut memorial

The memorial is amazing.  First off it is huge, and as you can (somewhat) see it has a mirrored surface with the names of the astronauts engraved into the surface and lit from behind. This creates an amazing effect which makes these heroes name seem to be floating among the clouds.

An engraving of those who have gave their lives in the pursuit of discovery

Here we then met up with @ridingrobots and @french_marc, two other NASATweetup participants, and were able to get a picture with one of them!

@ridingrobots was taking the picture

Afterwards we wandered over to the rocket park which is amazing, I have seen the ones at JSC and the Space History Museum in Alamagordo, but this puts both to shame by the shear size and quantity of the rockets.

I am still fascinated by the Saturn V

This is where we made a mistake, and wandered into the gift shop. You see, I usually have pretty good impulse control; however, I lose this when I become surrounded by amazing space memorabilia.

You look so inviting; little did I know you would take all my money!

I wanted one of everything (so I guess I did control my spending...a bit)

 @libbydoodle and I ended up spending way too much time in the gift shop and I ended up with a meteorite.

My Precious!

After an undisclosed amount of time, we left the gift shop (I really don't want to tell you how long) and wandered around a bit.  Eventually our wanderings brought us to these two amazing people

who we initially mistook as LEGO employees, which would have been really cool, but you know what assuming makes out of 'u' and 'me'. They were two engineers with decades worth of experience on the shuttle. We ended up talking to them for almost an hour which was one of the most inspirational and informative personal conversations I have ever had, and definitely the most of my conversations with strangers. They talked about the importance of hard work and STEM fields; they talked about their experiences from accidentally sitting on the shuttle toilet while moving components into the ship to the procedures they followed in their jobs. My favorite, though, was how they kept coming back to how you have to move forward, how you can't become complacent with where you are, instead you have to always be moving forward. While this was directed at the Shuttle and the 30 years we spent in the same place, their advice resonates with anybody at any stage of your life. You can become complacent and never strive to improve your lot in life, or you can push forward and achieve new and amazing things.

After about an hour, we had to cut our conversation in order to make it to Dr. John Grotzinger's talk about the geology of Gale Crater (MSL's landing site).  It was an interesting and informative talk and made me even more excited for Curiosity to start finding new evidence about early Mars. I also got the opportunity to ask him questions about graduate school and I received some advice about what I should do to get ready.

Some interesting slides from the talk

Dr. Grotzinger, if you are reading this, I would like to apologize for cornering you and asking about grad school

We then were able to explore the Explorer building which had some of my favorite exhibits

Like these awesome posters (does anyone know where you can buy copies?)

And an awesome mockup of Curiosity!

Then, as we are very much adults, Libby and I did the most grown-up thing possible; we played with LEGO blocks! NASA and LEGO were having an event where they were encouraging creativity among kids by having them build their own space themed LEGO designs. These ranged from the highly practical to the highly fanciful

Yep, these kids are having an amazing childhood

@conductor222 had already tried her hand at building, so we felt that we should try to do something as well, which were were pretty enthusiastic about so we hopped right to it. The best part was when the two engineers we talked to earlier stopped by and ended up helping Libby with her rocket and explaining what parts of the rocket would do in real life.

Libby's rocket

And I built a rover with a robotic arm. Its collecting a sample

By this time, we had filled up our day with as much space nerdery as the operating hours of the park would allow, so we headed back to the car for dinner with more space nerds and to rest up for tomorrow. But as we left, we were treated to a beautiful view of rocket park at sunset which was a great way to end the day.

The Fallibility of Heroes

I have a personal hero, and like all humans he is flawed. However, he is flawed in such a way that I have to question my admiration of him, and I am left wondering what I should think.

I have looked up to Harrison Schmitt for a few years now for a few reasons.  First he is the only geologist to walk on another world. Which is an amazing feat, and one that I dream about repeating myself (I doubt this would ever happen). As planetary geology is my dream field, this is the most amazing thing one could do in my eyes, actual field geology on another celestial object, and this alone would make him one of my favorite scientists of all time. I even have a poster taken of the Apollo 17 mission on my wall, I don't know if Dr. Schmitt is the astronaut pictured but there is a 50/50 chance that it is, and I like to think it is him.

This is the image I'm referring to

Dr. Schmitt and I also share something in common, in that we are from the same state, not only from the same state, but we are both from small, southern New Mexican towns whose entire economy rested on the exploitation of a limited resource (copper for him, oil for me). Maybe this isn't the strongest connection; however, growing up I saw the people around me and thought that my home town was like a black hole and the people born or raised there were already past the event horizon. I honestly feared for years that I would never escape, that no matter what I did, there would be no way out. Thus the idea that there were people from the crappy and poor areas of my state (one Political Science professor at my school  referred to much of southern New Mexico as the Third World within the First World) had lived the dream filled me with hope and confidence that I was not already past the event horizon, that there was a way out.

However, Dr. Schmitt is a Climate Change denier, a position I find irresponsible and uninformed. He has tried to do a tremendous amount of harm to the good science done by the climate scientists; I wouldn't be so upset about this if he wasn't a good geologist, but his body of work is impressive and he rightly won accolades earlier in his career. Thus to the uniformed his presence among the deniers seems like damning evidence.

It is becoming more and more evident that the position held by Schmitt and others like him is both wrong and dangerous. We see the effects all the time, pacific island nations looking for places to evacuate after the sea swallows their home, heat waves, storms; the evidence is so solid that the pentagon has become concerned that it poses a risk to national security. At times like these we need our best and brightest to look at the evidence without bias. It is pointless to bicker about the reality of  situation, when its consequences are already barreling down on you.

I would like to remember Dr. Schmitt as the type of person I want to be, a brave explorer who advanced the cause of science both by increasing our knowledge about the universe and by keeping scientific progress close to our hearts and in our imagination. However, these wonderful things that he did are tainted by his recent actions as a politician and I cannot separate the two, though I wish I could.

I won't take the poster down, though, because at the moment it was taken, he was doing something noble and beautiful, something that I can still strive to emulate and surpass.

For more information here is NASA biography, and in the interest of fairness, his biography on desmog blog as well.

Tour of the Lunar Lab

                I don’t really remember when, but at some point last year I realized how different the geology of Mars, Venus, and the Moon are from our home planet, not just their lack of plate tectonics, but also the strange features and processes that seem to exist, separate from our own experiences. At the same time, I was researching graduate schools and trying to figure out what I would want to study when I got there. Lucky for me, somehow those three factors converged and I learned that it was possible to major in Planetary Science, so I changed my plans for the future, and decided to study the planets. Now I don’t know exactly what I will study, but there are enough unanswered questions to go around, so I’m not really worried, I just want to learn one of those questions.

                With a new goal for the six plus years once I graduate, I started looking for opportunities to participate in real research, and while on a whim I started looking at possible NASA internships. While I do have faith in my own abilities, that faith does not extend to my resume because it was not that impressive when I started applying to different programs. I have never had any experience working in a scientific field and I go to a very small school that is not known for its STEM fields; however, I applied anyways, but I honestly didn’t expect to hear back from them. They did call back, first for an interview, and then I was emailed about a great opportunity during the summer.  I worked with Crew Earth Observations, building a database of astronaut photography of volcanoes.  So I spent this last summer in Houston, working a dream job.

                Let me first say, if you are a STEM major and you do not have any opportunities on the table for next summer, look up NASA SOLAR and apply for something. NASA has set up a one stop shopping initiative for interns, thus you can fill out one application and apply for as many opportunities as you possibly can. It was a wonderful experience, and the Education office there does an amazing job to provide lectures and learning experiences beyond just what you worked on. However, by far my favorite opportunity was a suited up tour of the Lunar Sample Lab.

                I had the opportunity to gain first-hand experience of the tools and processes used to examine and study extraterrestrial materials, and I was amazed by the thorough processes utilized to prevent contamination. First, we gave up our cameras so they could be sterilized, and then we went into the first room which we had to put booties on before we came in. Then we went through a series of rooms each time upping the amount of protection we had before we finally reached the lab. Each room is pressurized slightly more than the one before it, so any contaminants floating in the air would be blown out of the room when the door was opened. Once inside the Lab, everything was inside containment boxes, so a pair of thick rubber gloves provided even more protection to the samples. The most striking thing to me was the intense protection given to every sample.  They are hermetically sealed to prevent contamination during storage, and the samples are not opened until they are safely sealed in one of the containment boxes, and only then could scientists examine them. In addition, every bit of every rock has to be kept track of, and unless the researcher has express permission to perform a destructive test, the weight of the sample at the beginning must match the weight of the sample at the end. The people who run the lab and gave us our tour were both highly professional and very friendly; at one point we had a conversion about mineralogy of the rocks and the processes that formed them. In addition, they explained that the unique processes on the surface of the moon (such as micro-meteorite impacts) cannot be duplicated in laboratories which led into a joke about the moon hoax people. If I could get an internship in that lab next summer I would jump on the opportunity in a heartbeat; it was an amazing opportunity.

And now pictures to prove I was there! (Really I was, I didn’t Photoshop any of them)

Hands on experience with a containment box

Tools inside the containment box

This is from memory, but I believe this is the Genesis Rock

Observing the Genesis Rock under a microscope

Basalt from the Moon

Close up on another sample of basalt

More Lunar basalt

The black cube in the bottom right corner is used to show the original orientation of the sample on the Moon!

Three Pieces of Lunar Basalt

This is a station used to cut the samples

If you can't tell, this tour made me excited

Well I didn't use Photoshop, so technically I told the truth