A review of an article by Tomás de J. Mateo Sanguino Titled: 50 years of rovers for planetary exploration: A retrospective review for future directions
There is no doubt that in the near future, barring an introduction of disruptive technology, planetary explorations in our solar system will be through the use of unmanned systems. They are more robust, do not require air, water, or food, and the energy required to get them to the destination is much less than using a human crewed vessel. Sanguino goes into great detail over the developments of autonomous rovers for the last 50 years and the advancements in design and logic. Materials sciences have progressed since the beginning of the space race when astronauts were going to the moon using first generation digital technology where core memory was made out of ferrite beads on a wire grid (Sherrif, 2019). State of the art at its time, now a museum relic valued because of its place in history.
The very first teleoperated robotic planetary explorer was the Lunokhod 1 operated by the Soviet Union in 1970 (Sanguino, 2017). Not as dramatic as sending a manned mission to the moon but significant as it was a proof of concept that planetary explorations could be conducted remotely without humans. The next big win for robotic exploration was again by the Soviets and their series of Venera probes to the surface of Venus (Howell, 2019). With that in mind, NASA turned to Mars for its robotic exploration vehicles, the red planet is currently the most visited by probes (Sanguino, 2017). Mars was essentially a proving ground for unmanned exploration of other planets.
We must realize that in today’s political climate, exploration of the solar system will be done by unmanned systems. Either sponsored by governments or corporations in search of materials for profit. The moon is theorized to contain vast quantities of Helium -3 that can potentially meet the energy needs of the entire planet for the next 10,000 years (Edinformatics, n.d.). The problem is the payload itself; Scientists only have a limited amount of space and weight that can put on a robotic probe. Therefore, the amount of scientific data that can be gathered from a vehicle is limited in scope as experiments must be chosen in advance (Sanguino, 2017).
Sanguino concludes that to increase the cost/benefit ratio of the probe in scientific terms, advances must take place that allows this to happen (Sanguino, 2017). The size of the rover must be enlarged so that payloads can be increased and they should be given more autonomy during the emission to allow for less support infrastructure (Sanguino, 2017). Both of these items are true, by enlarging the rover, it will increase its durability and allow more hard science to be conducted, increasing the autonomy of the unit will also decrease costs. Allowing a robotic rover to explore to on its own with a set of directives will allow a greater chance for scientific discovery rather than a rigid set of directives.
Unmanned missions do not have the fanfare of the golden age of space exploration. But the reality of the situation is that to cover the vast distances involved in just our own solar system will require the use of robotic vehicles just to accomplish it. Instead of purely scientific research though it is surmised that with the potential profits to be made in space, it is mostly that the missions will have a public/private partnership to reduce costs and to innovate with newer technologies. Bases will be crewed by robots in the beginning to prepare them for human habitation later while the infrastructure is installed. Only using these robotic rovers for early exploration will humans be able to prepare for the eventual colonization of the rest of our solar system.
References
Edinformatics. (n.d.). What is Helium-3 and why is it so important? Retrieved from Edinformatics: https://www.edinformatics.com/math_science/what-is-helium-3.html
Howell, E. (2019, March). Venera 13 and the Mission to Reach Venus. Retrieved from Space.com: https://www.space.com/18551-venera-13.html
Sanguino, T. d. (2017). 50 years of rovers for planetary exploration: A retrospective review for future directions. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 172-185.
Sherrif, K. (2019, January). Inside the Apollo Guidance Computer’s core memory. Retrieved from Ken Shirriff’s blog: http://www.righto.com/2019/01/inside-apollo-guidance-computers-core.html
Patrick Carroll 