Telepresence — Our Best Bet For Exploring Space

Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute recently wrote an opinion piece for the NY Times discussing the limitations of our space technology. He makes the harsh point that transporting human beings to other star systems isn't a reasonable goal even on a multi-generational time frame. However, advances in robotics and data gathering could instead bring the planets and stars to us, and do it far sooner. Quoting: "Sending humans to the stars is simply not in the offing. But this is how we could survey other worlds, around other suns. We fling data-collecting, robotic craft to the stars. These proxy explorers can be very small, and consequently can be shot spaceward at tremendous speed even with the types of rockets now available. Robot probes don't require life support systems, don't get sick or claustrophobic and don't insist on round-trip tickets. ... These microbots would supply the information that, fed to computers, would allow us to explore alien planets in the same way that we navigate the virtual spaces of video games or wander through online environments like Second Life. High-tech masks and data gloves, sartorial accessories considerably more comfortable than a spacesuit, would permit you to see the landscape, touch objects and even smell the air."

Comments

Latency

[TheLink]

Uh... Aren't they forgetting the inconvenient slowness of the speed of light?

Unless they solve the FTL comms problem it takes seconds even for a short distance like Earth to Moon.

So if you are going to explore some far away place, telepresence will still require you to ship some human to the general vicinity.

Re:Latency

[LogarithmicSpiral]

You mean you still haven't figured out about the ansible?

Re:Latency

[Abcd1234]

Uh... Aren't they forgetting the inconvenient slowness of the speed of light?

Yes, because a member of the SETI institute never thought of that.

Honestly, Slashdotters really think *way* too highly of themselves... or way too little of the average scientist.

So if you are going to explore some far away place, telepresence will still require you to ship some human to the general vicinity.

No, because the idea isn't interactive exploration, in the sense that you remotely control the robotic probe in real time. The idea is that you collect massive amounts of data about a world, transmit it back, and then use that data to build a virtual model that you can then explore at your leisure.

Of course, such an approach will have limitations (if you decide you want to see what's under a rock, unless you knew ahead of time to turn it over, you'd have to then send instructions to a probe and then wait for the new data to come back). But its certainly an interesting idea, IMHO.

Re:Latency

[Joren]

Uh... Aren't they forgetting the inconvenient slowness of the speed of light? Unless they solve the FTL comms problem...

Using quantum entanglement, that may not be so far off. If it turns out information can be transmitted near-instantaneously, telepresence could become a reality. Available bandwidth would only be limited by our capacity to create and address these particles and how fast we can read and write to them.

Of course, that's a big "if"...

Re:Latency

[TheLink]

It's fine for exploring nearby places like Mars. But other than that it doesn't solve the main problem.

The nearest star is 4 light years away.

If we really want to explore space we should seriously figure out plans and methods to construct space colonies that can build space colonies - and maybe one day, ones that can survive interstellar journeys.

Then it doesn't matter so much how long we take to get to various places in the solar system or even the galaxy.

Re:Latency

[Yvan256]

... followed by a big "else" and a big "end if".

Re:Latency

[Sepht]

Earth-Sun takes 8minutes 20seconds. Not 8 seconds.

Re:Latency

[mfnickster]

Not exactly that long. Earth-Moon takes 1/4 of a second.

Which speed of light are you using? The moon is about 385,000 km from Earth.

Re:Latency

[Burdell]

Wow, I can't believe you've been moderated "Informative" with completely wrong information. Light travels from the Sun to the Earth in a little over 8 minutes, not 8 seconds. You are a little closer on the delay between the Earth and the Moon, but it is about 1.25 seconds, not .25.

Also, anything interactive requires a round trip, so for practical purposes, the delay is double that (about 16.5 minutes for the Sun and 2.5 seconds for the Moon).

Re:Latency

[timeOday]

Robotic exploration already accounts for 100% of our success in visiting other planets. We have a lot to learn before attempting colonization and natural resource exploitation, and space exploration isn't for the personal gratification of astronauts... therefore, whether we send people or robots, the only real goal is to send home information.

Re:Latency

[Teancum]

Robotic exploration already accounts for 100% of our success in visiting other planets.

Hardly. 100%? A dozen people made it to the Moon (arguably a dwarf planet... and called such by the astronauts who went there) and performed more and better science than all other exploration of the Moon by all previous and subsequent robotic explorations of that body. An additional dozen people... mostly aircraft test pilots... got to at least see the Moon close up.

There are a whole lot of reasons to send actual people to these places... and information that comes from somebody who is there sensing the environment with their own nervous system and capable of seeing, feeling, and otherwise sensing things that simply aren't or can't be identified remotely.

Futhermore, simply being in a different environment and having to face new challenges that other people haven't coped with before creates new thought processes (new neural pathways) and forces you to think in ways that creates additional knowledge.... and often those new ways of thinking can be applied to existing problems in a new context. Getting other people to other planets... and yes, even other star systems (eventually... as technology and space technologies permit) can do nothing but help improve nearly everything that we hold dear to ourselves as human.

BTW, I sure hope that at least some exploration of space is for personal gratification. Hell, I know it is.... that is why they put up with the bureaucratic bullshit, red tape, government committee meetings, press conferences, doctors probing in places you never knew existed in the first place, and all of the other headaches to spaceflight.

One shuttle astronaut that I read about had the experience of being able to face away from the Earth, the Shuttle, and all of the equipment he had for about 10 minutes during an EVA while the rest of the crew was putting away some equipment and dealing with some other tasks. The view of the heavens he was able to experience for that brief moment of time with nothing between him and starlight but a think piece of Lexan (and an inch or so of air) was a breathtaking experience this astronaut claimed made the whole experience of becoming an astronaut worth the effort. Other astronauts have said the same thing during their "break" times where a common privilege is to simply gaze at the Earth during one complete orbit. We need more people to enjoy these simple pleasures that come from spaceflight.... and I hope that poets, writers, and artists of all other types can experience something of that nature eventually and be able to give the rest of us a glimpse of what that sort of experience is like.

You could even argue that the modern environmental movement; global warming concerns, oceanic pollution, nuclear winter, ozone depletion, and much more; was initiated because a few astronauts had the privilege of being able to see the Earth rise up over the horizon while orbiting the Moon. NASA gave them instructions to take pictures... as many as they could click with their cameras (including cameras mounted remotely on their vehicle) of the surface of the Moon. But when these guys saw the Earth come up... they realized on the spot with no other instructions that they had to get some photos of the Earth as well. Even today, these are some of the most heavily requested photos from NASA and are arguably the most duplicated images in the history of mankind. These images would not have been made if it weren't for a person in orbit around the Moon to make them.... the bureaucrats planning the mission on the ground never thought of making them.

Don't even get me started on how limited the robotic missions have really been... even though what has been accomplished with the robotic missions has been incredible. There is a role for robotic exploration, but there is a role for a physical presence of human being in space as well.... and not just in low-earth orbit.

Re:Latency

[Runaway1956]

A large enough asteroid impact could cause the earth to look like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt

I doubt that mankind would survive such an impact today.

The purpose of a lunar colony, in and of itself, is NOT to ensure the survival of such an impact. In all likelihood, the same impact would make the moon uninhabitable, sooner or later. (without the earth, the moon will probably not maintain a stable orbit around the sun, not to mention the debris raining down on the moon)

Rather, the lunar colony provides experience and knowledge applicable to building more colonies further out in the solar system, which will help to ensure mankind's survival.

Ulimately, the goal is to put man onto planets outside the solar system. Today, THAT is a near impossibility. But, if we are afraid to tackle the difficult project of colonizing the moon, we will certainly never achieve the near impossible.

Re:Latency

[tukang]

I always find it easier to remember numbers like 384, 192 etc. which are sums of powers of two.

Good news. Every number is a sum of powers of two.

We need a warp drive...

[drolli]

really.

'Human'

[FlyingBishop]

The real first step in exploring the stars will be re-evaluating what it means to be human. This article assumes that our descendants will be flesh-and-blood, with all of the weaknesses that that entails. But why should we bind our offspring to the ancient, easily-corrupted, and not so easily amended DNA that we ourselves use, when we could give them minds of silicon and arms of steel which fold up in an instant to sleep for the journey from star to star? Or better still, why not send a simple automaton, and transmit its brain at the speed of light? Human is as human does, I suppose, and the human era will quickly draw to a close if we decide that human must mean flesh and blood.

Re:'Human'

[Anonymous Coward]

I find your idea fascinating, may I subscribe to your newsletter?

Human exploration IS worthwhile IF...

[kulakovich]

...you are interested in something other than sports, iPods, and Coach bags.

If your society can't be bothered, you're damned to spend more willingly on the NFL each year than you begrudge the entire space program.

Enjoy your cell phone.

kulakovich

Re:Human exploration IS worthwhile IF...

[canadian_right]

The long term goal of all space exploration should be a permenant human presence on another planet, Mars most likely. All the science is great, but I want the human race to survive if the Earth takes a big hit.

Re:Human exploration IS worthwhile IF...

[Nyeerrmm]

Simple. If it takes longer than ~8 years to get benefits from an expensive project, it becomes much harder to get funding, at least in the US. Also, if development takes more than 8 years on something high-profile and expensive, there's a good chance you lose funding at the start of a new administration. Doing this would take longer to even get going. I'd venture a guess that in other countries there are similar election-cycle limited periods for project funding. In other words, we'd need a completely new structure for the way we conduct this kind of business, something thats better able to (forgive the phrase) stay the course as well as better able to see and understand very long term benefits.

Also, we have no data on maintaining systems that would last that long autonomously, so while you could theoretically make something capable of getting there and braking into orbit, its unlikely you could build it to have a reasonable expectation of success. That of course is a technical problem, so solutions are out there; the political problems are the ones that'll kill you.

Round trick tickets?

[palegray.net]

Put me on the first ship that isn't coming back. I think the prospect of living out your life as part of a colony on its way to who-knows-where in the cosmos is a pretty neat idea.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Sooner or later

[Jane Q. Public]

we are going to have to put some human beings somewhere else besides this one ball of rock.

Saying that even multi-generational ships are not "a reasonable goal" begs the question (and is debatable... after all, this is an "opinion piece").

Reasonable or not, eventually it will be done. I have nothing against robotic explorers, but only as precursors to something better.

Idiots

[SuperKendall]

Not the proposal exactly (well with latency actually yes), but...

Robot probes don't require life support systems, don't get sick or claustrophobic and don't insist on round-trip tickets.

They also can't use intuition and years of training and curiosity combined to go, "hey what's that" as they glance over to the side at something a rover would have just rolled past.

We could learn more in a day of manned exploration of Mars for example than we have with the entire exploration effort to date.

Humans are too flexible not to send out for exploration, and I hate to say it but far cheaper to build (though again you have the issue of latency).

I also refuse to believe we'll never be able to freeze and re-animate a living person hundreds of years later, though that will take a good long while to get right.

Misleading article

[janoc]

Unfortunately, the author doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. He seems to be talking about sending a probe, collecting information and then building an offline environment to explore, not a real-time remotely-controlled robot. That is actually a potentially feasible task. It has only one major flaw - it is not telepresence.

For telepresence ("feeling being present in a remote place") you need to be able to have real-time response to your actions, not only watching what essentially amounts to a souped up QuicktimeVR. The interactivity is not optional and that doesn't come from VR goggles and gloves but from the realtime feedback look. Which is obviously missing, unless your want to do something like use alien planet data for playing CounterStrike or be happy with 6.47*10^11 ms ping ... (that is the roundtrip time to Epsilon Eridani mentioned in the article - 10.5 light years away).

It is a pity that people talk about virtual reality and related fields without even understanding the basics - but that is the consequence of media hype surrounding this field, together with people calling non-immersive, often even non-interactive applications "virtual reality". Computer games, SecondLife, QuicktimeVR are not VR, period - you cannot really achieve meaningful feeling of presence there. Of course, it sounds and sells better if you stick a gee-whizz sticker on the box ...

When the robots land, what they'll find is...

[Alaska Jack]

More advanced robots, that we developed (along with much faster propulsion systems) in the decades since the originals were launched.

Hat tip: Carl Sagan, I think. Or maybe Azimov.

    - Alaska Jack

Re:Ignores time dilation

[CrimsonAvenger]

(A) What is the maximum acceleration that the human body can withstand?

Who cares, we're not going to be accelerating at much more than 1g in any case, and probably a great deal less.

(B) At that acceleration, how long does it take to reach a significant fraction of c?

0.95c is about turnover speed for a 1g trip to Alpha Centauri. It'll take about 21 months to reach that speed, and another 21 months to stop. So Alpha Centauri at 1g is about 3.5 years away.

Everything else is farther, of course. But not a lot farther, since you've done the slow part already. Twenty years can get you anywhere in the galaxy at one g.