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For
thousands of years, standardization has been a defining characteristic of
Chinese culture. From the Terracotta Army, produced in the 3rd century BCE by
hand, to modern manufacturing methods that incorporate machine automation,
modular design has allowed us to increase extensively our capacity to provide
goods to a rising global population, all while retaining elements of
individuality. The ability to use the same pieces for a variety of
configurations means that elaborate, updateable, interchangeable goods can now
be assembled piecemeal from smaller, more easily mass-produced parts. When
Henry Ford popularized the concept of the assembly line in the early 1900s, it
perhaps marked the beginning of the modern era of mass production. And in the
century since, both our knowledgebase and technical capacity have grown
exponentially, giving us unprecedented access to view and experience the
wonders of the universe. At this very moment, there are astronauts orbiting roughly
250 miles above the Earth’s surface in the International Space Station! We have
a view of the cosmos that is virtually unfathomable even by modern standards. But,
with as much progress as we made in the 20th century, and with the ever-growing
rate of progress made thus far in the 21st century, humankind is bound
to explore much more of the universe as it becomes technologically accessible
to us; namely, our own solar system. So, what should we be sending out into the
solar system?
The
answer to this question depends upon what we are trying to find out. It presently
costs around $10,000 per pound to send materials and people into space. Thus, it
can be argued that the impetus for design already
is that of carefully balancing efficiency and instrumentation so that cost can
be minimized. With the advent of nanotech, 3D printing, smaller memory systems
with much higher capacity, radioisotope power, and countless other technologies
made possible by discoveries throughout the 20th century, the call
to reduce size while increasing functionality has never been easier to respond
to. (The cell phones we so nonchalantly carry around in our pockets have far more computing power than that of
the computers used to land astronauts on the moon!) However, due to the nature
of exponentially increasing technical capabilities, even the Mars rover
Curiosity is only as sophisticated as technology developed long before its
launch in 2011. So, we have a very important hurdle to jump over when designing
for otherworldly exploration; that is, once a project is approved and funded, deviation
from the approved plan is highly unlikely. Therefore, even if new technology is
developed while the project is being built that might enhance functionality,
the likelihood of that new technology making its way into the project is extremely
low, if not non-existent. There might, however, be a way around this problem if
we embrace the concept of standardized interchangeability.
Now
that practically all our instrumentation has been digitized and is much more
compact, the idea of standardizing orbiters and rovers is more than feasible--it's inevitable. The
idea is to build a single chassis that can have instrumentation easily and
readily changed to fulfill objectives specific to each world the rig will be
sent to. The Rapidly-interchangeable Orbiter/Vehicle Exploration Rig, or ROVER,
is an ambitious project that represents the future of planetary body mapping.
Incorporating everything from the Chinese-influenced standardization to Japanese
origami, the goal of ROVER is to utilize the best of what we know works. For
example, with the success of the Mariner, Viking, and Voyager missions in the
60s and 70s, and more recently with the Mars Exploration Rovers and Mars
Science Laboratory in the 2000s, we have a pretty good idea of the
instrumentation necessary to, say, search for life. Since we can’t go to most
of the worlds that we are interested in exploring yet, it means we have to let
robots be our remotely-accessed senses. Janet Vertesi of Princeton University spent
several years studying the Mars Exploration Rover mission team gaining valuable
insight into what it takes to plan for daily rover activities. Vertesi writes,
“Skilled visualization and embodiment practices are part of adopting the
robot’s sensitivities and mobilities relative to its environment on Mars” (p
399). In other words, we must become
the robot to think and move like it. Once we understand how to think and
act like the robots we send to other worlds, it becomes easier to plan their
daily movements:
This
skill is not only enacted through representational practices and talk, but is
also physically performed through gestures and movements that write the Rover
onto the human body. Eliding human and robotic experience begins at the level
of talk about the robotic body. Although it lacks a humanoid shape, various
parts of the Rover are verbally related to human body parts and actions… The
Rovers ‘talk’ to Earth via communication antennas, ‘sleep’ at night, ‘wake up’
and ‘take a nap’, ‘stare’ or ‘look’ at targets on the surface regularly
throughout the day. These active verbs describe technical activities, but also
reinforce an experiential dimension of these activities consistent with human
experience (p 399).
Again, the sensors required for each
mission depend upon what we’re looking for. Say we want to send ROVER to Europa
to look for signs of life; what will we need? Starting with the orbiter, there
must be a way to communicate with both the team on Earth and the rover on the
surface so the use of high-gain and low-gain antennas as well as UHF have
proven effective in several previous missions. A new technology that can be
incorporated into an orbiter is a version of CubeSats. CubeSats are tiny
satellites about the size of a cantaloupe that can be released en masse from
the orbiter to assist in surface imaging. While the CubeSats can be used to
image the surface in the visible spectrum (possibly other wavelengths), the
orbiter itself will house the more sophisticated imaging systems for infrared,
ultraviolet, and radio. Once in orbit, telemetry spikes can be released that
fall and impact the surface, communicating the data to the orbiter. (Telemetry
spikes are an idea I have that could come in handy on a mission to Europa.
Since Europa has a tenuous atmosphere, we shouldn’t have to worry about these
spikes burning up in it. They can be released, the fall and impact data
collected and transmitted to Earth, and then we can take time to analyze the
data to determine the most viable landing area.) The idea is to gain as much
insight about the surface as possible before releasing the vehicle to land.
Another important instrument the orbiter will have is a dust collector and (if
available) a compact mass spectrometer to study the material released from
plumes that are pulled from cracks in the surface by Jupiter’s magnetic field.
The orbiter must have a long-lasting power source. The Curiosity rover presents
a convincing case for why we should probably choose radioisotope power for both
orbiters and rovers on missions to the outer solar system. (Another rather
ambitious idea is to include a sort of “mini-LIGO” [if it’s even possible] to
measure the gravitational distortion that occurs as a spacecraft orbits a moon
around a massive planet such as Jupiter.) Finally, due to the huge magnetic
fields produced by Jupiter, electronic shielding is a given here.
The lander vehicle that will
eventually be released will incorporate much more advanced versions of
technologies that have been used before. Of course, if we want to see what
we’re doing, we must have a variety of cameras recording data across the
spectrum. Any material collected by the “arms” of the rover can be analyzed
with onboard gas and liquid chromatographs that can detect chirality. The
material can also be viewed through a microscope to search for microscopic
signs of life. Europa is likely to have a large, sub-surface ocean of probably
highly salty liquid water, indicated by the presence of a magnetic field. Therefore,
we’re going to want to use ground-penetrating radar to understand the depth of
the ocean. As well, we’re going to want to drill into the surface. Since it is
currently unknown exactly how thick the crust is, a better option might be to
bring along an apparatus that incorporates a chunk of sealed radioactive
material that can be tethered, placed on the surface by the rover, and then
allowed to melt through. Since the atmospheric pressure is so low, the melted water
will sublime away, allowing the chunk to continue its descent into the unknown
unabated by material that would normally slow the process by having to be
continually removed. Even if we don’t reach the sub-surface ocean, some of the
ice can be collected and melted for pH testing. If landing near one of the
plumes created by tidal forces, the rover can drive close to it and collect
some of the material being ejected for analysis. A wide range of spectrometers
(visible, IR, gas, ion, etc.) will be housed in the rover giving it the
greatest chance of finding evidence for biogenic materials. Essentially, ROVER
will emulate the Mars Science Laboratory but will exceed its predecessor in the
key areas of standardization and instrumentation. The objective of the ROVER
missions is to cost-effectively explore every moon in the solar system by 2050.
The
20th century marked a turning point in the human condition. We
discovered truths about the universe that were unfathomable just a century
prior. In just the past few decades, we have amassed more knowledge than in all
of humankind’s history combined. We’ve
even landed astronauts on the moon! But, we’re at an important crossroads in
society. In my humble opinion, we are living in the most pivotal point in humankind’s history. We have the
technology to easily feed, clothe, and house the entire human population of
Earth; to automate most repetitive
jobs; and to ensure the required dynamic disequilibrium for life on this
beautiful world. But, we don’t really do
any of that. Instead, we seem content with working on more elaborate ways to
kill each other over imaginary concepts such as religion and money. (As an
aside, I think it’s fair for me to at least mention a particular aspect of my
view of money. That is, knowing that money is simply a form of debt, which is
itself a figment, it appears we have been (and continue) asking the wrong
question. The question shouldn’t be, “Do
we have the money?” If we are serious
about innovation, serious about taking care of the planet, serious about
learning, growing, and taking care of each other, then the question is, “Do we have the resources and the technical
know-how?” Money is a nothing thing. We can’t build the launch vehicles,
the orbiters, the rovers, the instruments or anything else out of cash. At
least, if we did, they wouldn’t work. Sure, we can argue about motivation but
if it takes a figment of our collective imagination to motivate us to do
anything on this planet for the betterment of it or ourselves, we are a sorry lot
indeed and probably deserve to wipe ourselves out sooner rather than later.)
So, we must ask ourselves the question, “Do we deserve stewardship of this
planet?” If we can’t be bothered to take care of our very own majestic world—to
ensure that we do not compromise Earth’s habitability—how can we possibly be
trusted to take care of other worlds we might one day explore and possibly inhabit?
In the 20th century, we proved to ourselves that we can venture out into the universe. Now
that we have swiftly moved into the 21st century, it’s time to prove
that we should.
