Robo space-crafts!
Modern space robots are sophisticated machines that have visited all
the major worlds of the solar system, including (soon) tiny Pluto.
Robot Spacecraft examines the evolution of these fascinating, far-traveling
spacecraft—from the relatively unsophisticated planetary probes flown at
the dawn of the Space Age to the incredibly powerful exploring machines
that now allow scientists to conduct detailed, firsthand investigations of
alien worlds within this solar system. Emerging out of the space race of
the cold war, modern robot spacecraft have dramatically changed what we
know about the solar system.
In this century, an armada of ever more sophisticated machine explorers
will continue this legacy of exploration as they travel to the farthest
reaches of the solar system and beyond. Robot spacecraft have formed a
special intellectual partnership with their human creators by allowing us
to explore more “new worlds” in one human lifetime than in the entire
history of the human race. This unprecedented wave of discovery and the
continued acquisition of vast quantities of new scientific knowledge—perhaps
even the first definitive evidence of whether alien life exists—will
transform how human beings view themselves and their role in the universe.
Robot Spacecraft describes the historic events, scientific principles, and
technical breakthroughs that now allow complex exploring machines to
orbit around, or even land upon, mysterious worlds in our solar system.
The book’s special collection of illustrations presents historic, contemporary,
and future robot spacecraft—allowing readers to appreciate the
tremendous aerospace engineering progress that has occurred since the
dawn of the space age. A generous number of sidebars are strategically
positioned throughout the book to provide expanded discussions of fundamental
scientific concepts and robot-spacecraft engineering techniques.
There are also capsule biographies of several space exploration visionaries
and scientists, to allow the reader to appreciate the human dimension in
the development and operation of robot spacecraft.
It is especially important to recognize that, throughout the 20th and
21st centuries and beyond, sophisticated robot spacecraft represent the
enabling technology for many exciting scientific discoveries for the human
race. Awareness of these technical pathways should prove career-inspiring
to those students now in high school and college who will become the
scientists, aerospace engineers, and robot designers of tomorrow. Why are
such career choices important? Future advances in robot spacecraft for
space exploration no longer represent a simple societal option that can be
pursued or not, depending upon political circumstances. Rather, continued
advances in the exploration of the solar system and beyond form a
technical, social, and psychological imperative for the human race. We can
decide to use our mechanical partners and become a spacefaring species
as part of our overall sense of being and purpose; or we can ignore the
challenge and opportunity before us and turn our collective backs on the
universe. The latter choice would confine future generations to life on just
one planet around an average star in the outer regions of the Milky Way
Galaxy. The former choice makes the human race a spacefaring species
with all the exciting social and technical impacts that decision includes.
Robot Spacecraft examines the role the modern space robot has played
in human development since the middle of the 20th century and the
projects the expanded role space robots will play throughout the remainder
of this century and beyond. Who can now predict the incredible
societal impact of very smart machines capable of visiting alien worlds
around other suns? One very exciting option on the space-robot technology
horizon is that of the self-replicating system—a robot system so smart
it can make copies of itself out of the raw materials found on other worlds.
Later in this century, as a wave of such smart robots start to travel through
interstellar space, people here on Earth might be able to answer the ageold
philosophical question: Are we alone in this vast universe?
Robot Spacecraft also shows that the development of modern space
robots did not occur without problems, issues, and major financial commitments.
Selected sidebars within the book address some of the most
pressing contemporary issues associated with the application of modern
robot technology in space exploration—including the long-standing spaceprogram
debate concerning the role of human explorers (i.e., astronauts
and cosmonauts) versus machine explorers. For some managers within the
American space program, this debate takes on an “either/or” conflict; for
others, the debate suggests the need for a more readily embraced humanmachine
partnership. Robot Spacecraft also describes how future advances
in robot technology will exert interesting social, political, and technical
influences upon our global civilization. The technology inherent in very
smart space robots will exert a tremendous influence upon the trajectory
of human civilization that extends well beyond this century.
Some interesting impacts of smart space robots include their use in the
development of permanent human settlements on the Moon and Mars, in
exploration of the outermost regions of the solar system, as interstellar
emissaries of the human race, and in operation of a robot-spacecraftenabled
planetary defense system against killer asteroids or rogue comets.
Sophisticated space robots also have a major role to play in the discovery
of life (extinct or existing) beyond Earth and in the emergence of a successfully
functioning solar-system civilization. Advanced space-robot
systems, endowed with high levels of machine intelligence by their human
creators, are unquestionably the underlying and enabling technology for
many interesting future developments.
Robot Spacecraft has been carefully designed to help any student or
teacher who has an interest in robots discover what space robots are, where
they came from, how they work, and why they are so important. The back
matter contains a chronology, glossary, and an array of historical and current
sources for further research. These should prove especially helpful for
readers who need additional information on specific terms, topics, and
events in space-robot technology.