The Age of Space Exploration

An anonymous reader writes "Wired describes over ten different probes launched (and about to be launched) within the decade."

Comments

If you want to explore Mars...

[Pan T. Hose]

...then hurry up before it's completely terraformed!

I, for one, would prefer...

[turnstyle]

I, for one, would prefer more robotics and AI, and less "people in space" for the time being.

Re:I, for one, would prefer...

[turnstyle]

Let me explain a bit more...

Bush's call for a manned mission to Mars is mostly a publicity stunt. And since the PR polling that followed his announcement indicated luke-warm support, you'll not be hearing make too much more noise on the subject.

Personally, I don't see such a need to send people into space, apart from the admittedly spectacular gee-whiz factor.

I've been amazed at what the Mars rovers have been doing, for months, on their own, and I also think that the application of robotics and AI "in the field" will wind up having practical uses back home.

All the "people in space" talk also winds up at odds (for share of a limited budget) with the "real" science that is trying to figure out the nature of the physical universe.

Re:I, for one, would prefer...

[Channard]

I, for one, would prefer more robotics and AI, and less "people in space" for the time being.

And I, for one, would prefer to see more the money spent - or some of it at least - on deep sea exploration. Perhaps we could compromise and have the depths probed by giant robot squid?

Re:I, for one, would prefer...

[Wyatt Earp]

"I've been amazed at what the Mars rovers have been doing, for months, on their own."

But they are not on thier own.

They are controlled from California and what one of them has done in 3 months could have been accomplished in a matter of hours by a human.

Walk out, grab rocks, take rocks back to lab module, walk out, grab rocks.

On Apollo 17 the Astronauts were able to walk around in locations much too rough for a rover to move.

Re:I, for one, would prefer...

[greening]

There are many reasons for a call to have manned missions to the moon and mars. Ever since we got to the moon (and eventually stopped), the US as a country doesn't have a common goal to set forth on. We did in the 60's. That's one of the few things that I will praise JFK for. Plus, there are massive inventions that took place then. A lot you enjoy still today (microwave oven, computers, et al). While sending up rovers to do the work is not a bad idea, it isn't the same as sending actual astronauts. Bush set forth the Mars plan as a very long-term goal. We are still a long time away from Mars. But, the moon is still possible with in a decade. (Maybe even less considering we are more technologically advanced than we were back then)

Incomplete and out of date.

[FTL]

To illustrate how quickly things can change in the field of planetary exploration, the details for the 'Messenger' probe to Mercury are already out of date. Liftoff has been postponed from May to July, and it will take a different route to get to Mercury. It won't get there until 2011.

The list only includes NASA, ESA and JAXA. Completely missing are the upcoming probes from China and India . Oddly, Russia doesn't seem to have anything planned.

Re:Incomplete and out of date.

[Zarhan]

Also, New Horizons is not an orbiter, it will simply fly past Pluto and get the data. Afterwards it may check out some nearby KBO as well.

Re:Incomplete and out of date.

[VanillaCoke420]

There's another Mercury probe too, BepiColombo. And I'm surprised we haven't heard more about the Japanese asteroid sample return mission in the mainstream media. It's more interesting than that.

Re:Incomplete and out of date.

[CheshireCatCO]

That doesn't illustrate how quickly things are changing, the postponing only occured a few days ago. It just represents unfortuante timing for the release of the article.

However, there is at least one glaring (to me) error: Cassini. Cassini doesn't arrive until July, so postpone your orbital insertion parties from June (which is what the article claims). And don't hold your breath on Huygens's launch into Titan: that doesn't occur until, I believe, the fourth orbit. (This is a change of plan from the original orbital plan. When they discovered the failure to account for the Doppler shift in the probe transmitter, they adjusted the first several orbits to make everything work out. However, the change of plan occured about two years ago, so it's a bit odd that the author of the article didn't find this out.)

A bit optimistic

[hyperherod]

Mars Science Laboratory: Still in its planning phase, this mission would establish a long-term roving laboratory on Mars dedicated to studying the planet's environment and composition. The launch could take place as early as 2009.

I know it states that's the earliest date, but doesn't that seem a bit too optimistic? 2009 isn't that far away, and if it's a 'long-term roving laboratory' I'd imagine it would take longer than five years to set up - and just how long is long-term, anyway?

Re:A bit optimistic

[johnjay]

If they design it right, all they need to design thoroughly are "long term" and "roving". The lab could be relatively simple at first. They can send more and better lab modules later. The rover would just go to the landing site, swap modules and continue on it's work.

"Long term rover" seems do-able today. Use the currentrover's platform and convert it to nuclear power.

(The thing that continually impresses me about the rover missions is that, regardless of how much great science the current rovers are doing, NASA seems to finally have a good system for getting probes to Mars. If I ran the world NASA would have Mars-Rovers coming out of factories and firing those things over to Mars twice a month. Every state university in the country would have its own rover it could order around.)

Re:A bit optimistic

[GileadGreene]

Mars Exploration Rover (aka Spirit and Opportunity) managed to go from "approval to proceed" to launch in around 3 years (mid-2000 to mid-2003). And they built two of them. If MSL is already in the planning phase (actually it's been in the planning phase for a while now) then there's a reasonable chance that they could get something built within the 5 year timeframe suggested by a 2009 launch date. Hopefully with a little less stress on the project team than the MER team faced :-)

I don't recall exactly what the intended mission duration of MSL is, but IIRC "long-term" counts as anything that is significantly longer than the 90 sol lifetime MER. My understanding is that MSL will be returning to using radio-isotope thermoelectric generators (rather than photovoltaic cells) as the primary power source for the rover - thus the long life compared to the curent set of rovers.

Re:A bit optimistic

[flewp]

If I ran the world NASA would have Mars-Rovers coming out of factories and firing those things over to Mars twice a month. Every state university in the country would have its own rover it could order around.

"Battlebots: Mars" anyone?

Physics

[dolo666]

Let's face it, the use of rockets and pressure-based engines is why we can't really get to deep space yet. Until we find a really safe method for infinite travel (mass transfer) I have to agree that robotic probes are the way to go, until infinite travel is possible. Flying hulks of mass through space, and requiring that these ships support human life is the bottleneck for research. We don't need people anymore, whereas in the 60's we did.

Soon we'll know all about the space around us, and maybe then we'll find some intelligent extraterrestrial life to sponge from! :)

Re:Physics

[turgid]

Marvel Comics are rarely a good source of scientific education.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

[tverbeek]

Scheduled for launch by NASA in August 2005, this orbiter will be equipped with what NASA calls the "most powerful camera ever flown on a planetary exploration mission." It will take extreme close-up images of Mars' surface.

With Spirit and Opportunity practically shoving their lenses into the dirt, I'm not sure that "extreme close-up" is the best way to describe photos taken from orbit.

why we need space-exploration

[N3wsByt3]

We all heard the reasoning for abolishing space-exploration (particulary human-based) before, and I think the major flaw in all these 'arguments' why we shouldn't go into space is that they always set economic factors as a premise.

But, although economic viability is important to create a mass-usuage of space(travel), I fail to see why it should be the only possible motive to start exploring space. It's a pretty narrowminded, materialistic and typical capitalistic view on things. It's the same view that makes progress on medication for very rare diseases, or for diseases that are prevalent in continents that are poor, so slow: corporations can't see how they are ever going to get profit out of it, so they all turn their backs on it.

If ppl (including states) are only going to do something when they are sure of an immediate profitable return, the world has become a sad place. (And we should leave it the sooner ;-)

Arguments based on such a viewpoint fail to recognise other incentives apart from economical ones.

The reason why we shouldn't (only) rely on robots? You can explore, but you can not colonise with robots. The will to explore is deeply entrenched in the human race, but with a reason: it has survival advantages.

A species that doesn't colonise new territory and adapt, will perish. I think it's paramount that humans always keep their adventurage spirit and keep exploring and expanding, because the moment we will go "ah, let's sit back in our sofa's and let our robots/droids do it", we're basically finished, even when not being aware of it at that moment.

Re:why we need space-exploration

[filekutter]

This makes me think of humanity-as-virus and the need to find fresh hosts to perpetuate the species. Could this 'will to explore' also be an instinctive trait within the viral forms we fight daily here within our own bodies? We consume natural resources and so far, NOT to the benefit of the host. Is this not the actions of a virus? Though I admit that to go to the stars has been a deep and obsessive wish of mine, I am also concerned about allowing such a dangerous life-form to escape the gravity-well. Being self-aware does not mean we have carte-blanche to infect the solar system and then the galaxy. A self-aware virus would inherently view its own perpetuation as a good and natural progression, regardless of the actual outcome of its spread.

Do I hear you proposing....

[millahtime]

"Until we find a really safe method for infinite travel"

Do I hear you proposing an open source warp engine project?????

Interesting trends

[spellraiser]

"The '80s were very dark for exploration," said Friedman. "We only started to see a resurgence in the '90s under (then NASA administrator) Dan Goldin."

Friedman attributed the Reagan administration's focus on manned spaceflight as the primary reason for the lack of planetary missions in the 1980s.

Interesting that this decade NASA seems to be focusing on both unmanned and manned missions.

Let's just hope there will be funds available for all these plans; although I personally would sacrifice manned projects in favor of unmanned ones if it came to that. We have plenty of time later to take such bold strides - for one thing, we really need better methods for entering orbit than the current, wasteful method of simply burning loads and loads of fuel that has been practised since the inception of space flight. This would, of course, benefit unmanned missions as well, but in my view it is absolutely crucial for the viability of manned missions.

Here's hoping for JIMO

[Mukaikubo]

I really, really want to see a nuclear-powered orbiter studying the Jovian system for years on end...

Space...

[Paddyish]

Not to be corny, (too late, I know) but it seems that the bright periods in human history are often during the full-scale exploration of a new frontier.

I certainly hope that, despite the article's point that manned exploration takes away from true exploration, eventually this trend of new probes leads to more of a human presence beyond the pale blue dot. I want my kids / descendants to look across a huge expanse of space back at their home and think how strange it must have been to be limited to a single planet.

Right...

[Short Circuit]

And how many of these are going to actually go to completion?

Funding, politics, it's all horrible.

V'ger

[Mick Ohrberg]

I wonder if we'll ever see a Voyager 6...

Re:Planet of the Apes

[Rune Berge]

But if we send monkeys, maybe one day they will be the dominating species, then invade earth and become president

But will anyone notice the difference?

Space. The final frontier ...

[gomel]

(complete the punch line)

Space. The final frontier ...

Probes certinally make more sense.....but

[MrIrwin]

In the "race to space" NASA put all it's efforts into putting a man on the moon, whilst the russians (with more modest resources) launched higher risk unmanned spacecraft and probably learnt more.

They did not get a man to the moon but they did get thier explorer there, learnt that there was nothing much to learn there, and left it to the US to go and play golf.

Now the US and ESA are into probes, learning more at low cost, but not able to send anybody into space.

Ironically the russians, whilst lagging behind NASA and ESA in probes, are now the only ones able to reliably transport people.

There is a lot more collaboration nowdays of course, but I still think a lot more is needed to get the right contrast between men and probes. Perhaps different agencies should take up different specialities.

We now have a constant shower of probes on mars.....but whenever they **may** have found something interesting we are told that only a **manned** mission can really confirm the facts.

Dare I say that perhaps the quickest and cheapest way to get a man to mars would be to pay the russians to do it?

Re:Probes certinally make more sense.....but

[cosmo7]

This is so profoundly wrong. If the Russians didn't want to land men on the moon, why did they announce in 1962 that they intended to do just that?

The Russians did not land men on the moon because their plans were politically hashed and once they had developed a vehicle it was too late.

Re:Probes certinally make more sense.....but

[MrIrwin]

I think the current state of the art is that the russians **do** have a mothballed but tested project that is up to manned lunar mission standards.

They are also able to shuttle people back and forth between the ISS.

NASA has managed to lose the plans to Saturn V, and has a space shuttle that is semi-retired long before a sccessor will be available.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, they can launch lots of little payloads but have never been anywhere near manned mission like payload, and don't appear to have any interest in developing for manned missions.

That's how I see it.....but I live in a country that has never made it's own spacerocket and has no national pride.

Re:Probes certinally make more sense.....but

[kirkjobsluder]

They did not get a man to the moon but they did get thier explorer there, learnt that there was nothing much to learn there, and left it to the US to go and play golf.

I just got done reading The Big Splat by Dana Andrews. The book is a history of human knowledge about the moon with a focus on the impact theory of the moon's origins. It highlights the fact that we really did not know much about what the moon was made of, until the Apollo missions recovered geologic specimens. What we learned from Apollo was a necessary prerequisite for all of the planetary science that followed.

Re:Probes certinally make more sense.....but

[GileadGreene]

You do realise that NASA launched a metric crapload of probes in the early days of the "space race", right? Things like Pioneer (of which there were several), and Mariner (of which there several). The Surveyor (IIRC) probe that the Apollo 12 mission deliberately landed near. Others I can't remember right now. To characterize the early US space program as focusing on manned missions only, is a gross distortion of the facts.

Re:Probes certinally make more sense.....but

[MrIrwin]

I was reffering to Energia which was slightly more powerful than Saturn V but less payload (Russians have a bit of offset from the equator!), and it was succesfully launched.

I think strictly it is considered a booster, anyway, see the link for the details.

AFAIK, this was used to lift the Russian clone of the shuttle, but I think Glasnost put an end to that program.

Re:Probes certinally make more sense.....but

[lommer]

Um, if you read the page you linked to, it says that the four test-launches of the N1 that they did were all miserable failures - maybe this also had something to do with their decision to kill the plans?

Re:Probes certinally make more sense.....but

[another_henry]

NASA has managed to lose the plans to Saturn V

This is an urban myth which I would like to dispel.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SATURN V PLANS
Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, the Saturn V blueprints
have not been lost. They are kept at Marshall Space Flight Center on
microfilm. The Federal Archives in East Point, GA also has 2900 cubic
feet of Saturn documents. Rocketdyne has in its archives dozens of
volumes from its Knowledge Retention Program. This effort was initiated
in the late '60s to document every facet of F-1 and J-2 engine
production to assist in any future re-start.
The problem in re-creating the Saturn V is not finding the drawings, it
is finding vendors who can supply mid-1960's vintage hardware (like
guidance system components), and the fact that the launch pads and VAB
have been converted to Space Shuttle use, so you have no place to launch
from.
By the time you redesign to accommodate available hardware and re-modify
the launch pads, you may as well have started from scratch with a clean
sheet design.

No Europa missions ?

[EpsCylonB]

I was sure that I read something about NASA planning a probe to go and study europa but this list doesn't seem to mention it. Potentially this is one of the most interesting places in out solar system, it would be great to get some more infomation about it.

Also it is nice to see a Venus mission, I personally think Venus is a much more interesting planet than mars. It would be cool for mars to attempt a venus rover despite the obvious challenges.

Re:No Europa missions ?

[EpsCylonB]

Such as Mars not having intelligent life, much less space technology? :-)

Doh!, I meant of course that it would be cool for NASA to attempt some kind of venus lander/rover.

Re:No Europa missions ?

[red floyd]

would be cool for mars to attempt a venus rover despite the obvious challenges

Such as Earth blocking the view? Where's that Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator? Delays, delays!

Re:No Europa missions ?

[Biotech9]

"All these worlds are yours except Europa - do not attempt a landing there" Signed, God

WTF?

[Moderation abuser]

"Infinite travel"? How do these things get modded insightful?

Re:WTF?

[BDew]

Because it's slashdot. Anything that says robots are better than humans gets modded up.

not at all

[N3wsByt3]

The treat to conquer new grounds is not a tell-tale sign of a virus, but of life in general.

And frankly, the exploration of earth (or its ecology) is hardly that of a virus killing it's host, though the ultra-greens may often portray it that way. Earths' ecology ALWAYS changes; species appear and dissapear, and those that are most suited (and have spread the most around the globe) have the most chance of surviving.

The fact that a lot of current change is done by humans, may give it an air of artificiality, but to that idea I don't subscribe. Humans are still biological identies, and as such, need an ecology to survive in. 'Nature' or 'the world' does not care what particular ecology it sustains; as long as there is biological life, it exists, period.

Your premise that being self-aware is not a reason to colonise the solar system and then the galaxy is based on...what? I would claim it DOES (though it would not excuse us from being responsable - to alien life - while colonising).

If alien life is not omni-present on the planet, but only in small niches, I think it's worth considering to protect those niches, or create articial enclosures to preserve it - but still go on with the colonisation. Things would only be different if it's a planetwide alien ecology, or if there is alien sentient life involved.

As for your argument that it does not benefit the host; allow me to contradict. The mere fact that we would colonise other planets and introduce earths' ecology there, would augment the chances of earths' 'nature' to survive...therefor, it would benefit from our actions.

Infact, viewed from the point of 'Nature' (if it had a viewpoint, that is ;-), we, humans, could be seen as merely the spermcells of Earth, and are the means to propagate itself so that the galaxy will eventually contain myriads of earths.

Re:Solid State Age

[Tmack]

Last I heard, we were in the middle of the information age. The Space Age started back when Sputnik was launched and ran through the 70s when the cold war was pushing the race to the moon etc... The information age then took over with microprocessor developement in the 70's, TCP/IP and fiber optics.

Tm

Re:Don't you just love it!

[robsimmon]

Actually, the current record for "most powerful camera" around mars goes to Mars Global Surveyor's Mars Orbital Camera, launched in 1996, which itself was a duplicate of an instrument on the failed Mars Observer (1993).

Re:Don't you just love it!

[gloth]

Darn, I'll admit, you got me there...

The best achievable resolution is apparently better for Mars Global Surveyor, if not by much though: 1.5m vs 2m. The claim to fame of Mars Express seems to be the way that these hi-res shots are embedded in the low-res shots that they take to map the whole planet, which allows them to actually pin-point where the hi-res shots were taken, which, as some claim, is often difficult for the Margs Global Surveyor shots.

Anyway, good point made!

but we don't need humans in space

[kipsate]

Upfront: I am against manned space flight at the current state of the art.

Cost. Manned space missions are an order of magnitude more expensive than unmanned missions. This means that for the price of (God forbid) a manned space mission to Mars, ten or so smaller missions such as stated in the article could have been performed.

Effectiveness. Manned space missions are not as effective as often thought. The extra weight that the Space Shuttle has to carry just to accommodate the astronauts in space already consumes a significant part of its available payload capacity. This is at cost of available room for experimental equipment. Most experiments can be designed such that they can be done by robots.

Danger. Why risk lives?

I know that GWB in his Great Vision would like to see the flag of the U.S.A. proudly wave on Mars. This would cost billions of dollars - if it is possible at all (for starters, two years of accumulated radiation would surely kill the astronauts). And the main reason would be prestige, just like it was for the moon missions, as NASA admits:

"the most persistent justification for the moon race was the matter of prestige" .

NASA's budget is crippled by the costs of the manned space station ISS - which are between 60 and 100 billion dollars. Enough is enough!

mackenzie not andrews

[kirkjobsluder]

Should not post before first coffee of the morning. The Big Splat is by Dana Mackenzie, not Dana Andrews.

of course not

[N3wsByt3]

We don't need the pyramids neither, nor all those great buildings and artworks, nor any luxery, etc.

The only thing we 'need' is food and shelter.

Based on what we truelly 'need' thus, we should go back living like cavemen.

But ofcourse, we don't, and the reason is that we, as humans, look beyond our immediate needs and have (and should have) grander visions.

What you say is what I already indicated: economics (and also the ratio of costs/science output) is less good with human spacetravel then robotic ones. Contrary to some zealots, I do not dispute that.

But, as I have said, I do not think one should measure everything in terms of economic benefits. Even if you could send a hundred, or a thousand robots for the price of one human mission, it still would not change the fact that robots can't colonise planets, and augment the survival chances of the human race (and earths' ecology) through interplanetary spreading.

Re:of course not

[kipsate]

You talk about interplanetary spreading and the fact that robots can't colonize planets. You are implying that a single, very expensive manned Mars mission would be the first step into colonization and interplanetary spreading, and that they augment the survival chances of the human race.

This really is hogwash. With what we know now, we can not terraform Mars, nor can we routinely transport many people from earth to Mars. Note that in my original post, I talked about the "current state of the art". In the future, yes, who knows. But not now. Putting someone on Mars is not going to change that. It is not going to increase the survival chances of the human race one little bit.

FYI: Mars is almost as hostile an environment for humans as is the Moon. High radiation, almost no atmosphere, no air pressure. There might be water, but that's also true for the moon.

Your arguments about not needing houses and so on are demagogical. No, we do not need anything besides food, some heat and air. But surely, life becomes a lot more pleasant with houses, cars, tv's and internet. Now, how would life become more pleasant when a man walks on Mars? For the cost, other research which has much higher impact scientifically, and thus also in terms of space exploration, than one Mars mission. How about research in ion-engines, or other methods to thrust space vehicles that can reach speeds that may make travels to other solar systems once possible? How about detecting earth-like planets with a successor of the Hubble? We need to make choices.

I would have agreed with you if you would have admitted that men on Mars gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside on yet another great achievement of the Human race, and, if you are from the USA, on yet another great USA achievement. Maybe this feeling is worth to you a lot. Maybe for many people. But please do not try to defend it with hogwash arguments about interplanetary spreading and survival of the human race.

Japan is attacking the moon?!

[shiwala]

"Lunar-A: Originally scheduled to be launched in 1999 by Japan's Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science, this lunar orbiter mission was delayed because of a failure during testing. When it is finally launched this August, the orbiter will map the surface of the moon and lob two missile-like probes designed to penetrate and study the moon's interior."

WTF?! Did they clear this with anyone?! I guess the thing that catches my attention is the phrase "missile-like". I wonder if the probes will be Aibos?

Too bad W is gutting space science at NASA...

[Dr. Zowie]

Did you notice that most of those missions were already launched? The budget projections for NASA are out for the next few years, and (at least for unmanned exploration and space science) they're not pretty.

NASA just cancelled an entire line of six spacecraft -- the Solar-Terrestrial Probes -- that have been on the drawing board since the mid 1990s. The Explorer line of missions is delayed indefinitely. Science funding is level for the next two years, then drops rapidly.

Meanwhile, countries like Japan, India, and China are building their space programs with vigor and dedication. Japan -- a nation the size of California -- will nearly match our rate of new scientific launches over the next decade.

The reason for the cuts in scientific launches at NASA is W's new manned-but-not-funded spaceflight initiative, which is diverting resources from the comparatively inexpensive scientific missions.

Titan's Atmosphere 'Thin'?

[cmholm]

Another error in the brief mention of Huygens: Titan's "thin" atmosphere. The surface pressure is estimated to be 4 to 10 times as high as Earth, although fscking cold.

And don't hold your breath on Huygens's launch into Titan: that doesn't occur until, I believe, the fourth orbit.

Which means we only have to wait until December '04.