NASA Outlines Plan For Next-Gen Space Robots

CWmike writes "Imagine a team of robots — some rolling on wheels, some walking on two legs — working alongside astronauts on the surface of Mars, scouting previously unseen locations, measuring the parameters of a new base or constructing a building. Now picture astronauts driving across the Martian surface in a vehicle. When the astronauts get out and begin their work, they can flip a switch to turn the vehicle into an autonomous robot that goes off to undertake projects on the planet. Whatever work the next generation of NASA-developed space robots does, it will be done in conjunction with their human counterparts. Terry Fong, director of NASA's intelligent robotics group, said that's the image that a lot of the US space agency's engineers have in mind as they work on the new robotic rovers. In comparison, the Mars rovers on the Red Planet have been working alone for years. 'We're working on a new use of these robots — robots to support human exploration,' Fong said. 'NASA is now thinking, "How do you go about sending humans to the moon or Mars or elsewhere? How can you use the combination of humans and robots to do exploration better?" I think it's a really, really fundamentally different approach.' Fong said he's hopeful that the next-generation robotic rovers will arrive on the moon or on an asteroid within five to 10 years."

Comments

Simpler solution

[jwietelmann]

Why don't we just wait for the space robots to find us?

Imagine a funded space program

[joelsanda]

Aren't we going to be relying upon other countries just to cart stuff and people to and from the ISS after the space shuttles hit the Smithsonian?

Re:Imagine a funded space program

[Jeng]

Shuttle doesn't launch interplanetary missions.

We aren't launching robots to the ISS.

Re:Imagine a funded space program

[downix]

Why would we when we have so many options we can use instead?

Re:Imagine a funded space program

[Nyeerrmm]

While those quotes are correct, and I agree with them, they don't disagree with what I'm saying.

There was a mismatch between goals and funds. You can interpret this to mean that they need more money, but hoping that Congress opens the purse-strings for something that doesn't get many votes isn't a proper plan for exploration. NASA has funding, they just need to use it more wisely. Something like Constellation is only going to happen with Apollo-level funding, which while as you and I know would be very good and not too draining, this is not politically viable.

And the comment about a lack of mismanagement is referring to the program managers at NASA. They were given a task, and they performed admirably to do the best they could do at what was an impossible task. The mismanagement I refer to is from the political leadership going back 30 years. Post-shuttle NASA history is littered with cancelled programs that attempted to do ridiculously hard things without getting the basics right. The Constellation program (which never really sought to fulfill the goals set out by Bush, who never called Griffin on his shenanigans) was only feasible under Bush's promise to get more money out of Congress -- a promise he never came through on and didn't try very hard for. Griffin took him at his word and never had a descope option to handle the inevitable problems when that didn't go smoothly. All of this leaves us trying to build something to go to the moon on a shoestring budget when NASA seems to have forgotten how to build a manned spacecraft at all.

We need to step out of the shadow of Apollo and figure out what actually works under modern budgets with modern political pressures.

Re:Imagine a funded space program

[khallow]

Pegasus: 443kg to LEO Minotaur: 580kg to LEO Athena: 1896kg to LEO. This might just be enough to get a single astronaut to the ISS. Getting him/her home is another story. Taurus: 5500kg to LEO. Two up, maybe one down. Falcon 9: Not operational yet. Delta IV: 25,800 kg to LEO. Enough to lift an Orion module to ISS... barely. Atlas V: 29,420 kg to LEO. Again, enough to lift an Orion module, but nothing much beyond that.

Delta II: 1989
Delta IV: 2002
Delta IV Heavy: 2004
Pegasus: 1990
Taurus: 1994
Athena: 1995
Atlas V: 2002
Falcon 1: 2006
Falcon 9: pending, 2010?
Minotaur I: 2000
Minotaur II: 2000
Minotaur IV: 2010

The thing to notice here is that with the exception of a few rockets from Lockheed Martin and Orbital Sciences (including the very popular Delta II), every commercial US rocket currently flying has started (I include launch failures in the above list) in the last ten years. In particular the big payload rockets, Delta IV and Atlas V both started in 2002, eight years ago. Why have NASA develop an HLV when we have an active launch market that already has shown it can develop rockets? While DIRECT and the "not Shuttle C" options look like means to quickly convert the Shuttle stack into a viable cargo launch vehicle for a much lower cost than Ares V, it's not clear to me why we should go that route when we can encourage commercial launch vehicles to enter this area.

My view is that instead, NASA should work its current manned approach around 15-25 ton launch vehicles. Then order larger vehicles around 50 or so tons once NASA has demonstrated a willingness to help establish a manned market in the 15-25 ton range.

Signal delay doesn't require being on Mars

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

A manned mission gets simpler and cheaper if it doesn't have to go in and out of the Martian gravity well. Land the tele-operated machines on a one-way trip, keep the human operators in orbit. No life-support mass to lift off the surface, no fuel mass to lift the life-support mass off the surface, no deadweight mass of rocketry to lift both off the surface (and accelerate them to escape velocity!), all of which need to be multiplied by lots and lots to get the total launch pad mass on Earth.