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