Zeitgeist Zephyr

Since 1976, the only man made objects to explore Mars have been robots.  These robots have each been unique and have provided a wealth of new knowledge about Mars that we had not known previously.  Like any good “science experiment” (let’s face it, that’s what most of NASA’s spacecraft are anyway), they also usually bring up more questions than answers.

As an advocate of space exploration, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of a human presence in any exploration situation.  Sure, it doesn’t take a constant human presence to monitor cameras in orbit around a planet (even our own), but when it comes to surface exploration, you get more ‘bang for your buck’ if you have a human instead of a robot doing all of the work.

A perfect example is the Mars Phoenix lander.  Like other Mars missions before it, it has a lot of key elements that would be present in a human explorer.  It has several sets of eyes to explore the surrounding terrain and to study different points of interest.  It also has a robotic arm, that allows it to touch the Martian surface and sample the area immediately around its landing site.  All of these, when talked about in layman’s terms, are “human” elements of the robot.

But despite our best efforts to emulate ourselves in robots, the fact is that at this point in time, technologically speaking, the perfect machine is still man himself.  Sure, we could wait fifty to a hundred years before robotics and artificial intelligence catch up to something approaching the abilities of a six-year-old human, but do we really want to wait that long to get key answers to questions that remain about Mars?

Phoenix recently conducted several tests searching for the building blocks of life.  Key chemical signatures in the Martian regolith that might have some similarities to the soil here on Earth (which obviously supports life.)  However new tests have revealed that, despite some chemicals being present that might be friendly to life, an oxidizing chemical, perchlorate, may have been found that is extremely harmful to life.  Here’s where it gets good:  it may simply be contamination from the lander, brought from Earth.

Of course, this being the basis of my argument, it has some initial flaws.  Deep cleaning a robot is easier than making sure that germy humans don’t carry something to Mars.  But there’s another thing that humans can do that Phoenix can’t: if we’re getting some anomalous results from one sample, move 20, 50, 100 feet away and get another sample.  Phoenix can’t do that and even the robust Mars Rovers that are still going after 4 years can’t do that with ease. 

My point?  Despite being cost prohibitive for one single nation to carry the burden of a manned Mars mission, the scientific results that can be gained from just one mission could easily exceed hundreds of smaller robotic missions.  The fact of the matter is that we can think and react faster than robots and we can just do more than robots can.  Results might not be immediate, but having a man on the ground to give and recieve instant feedback on what rock to pick up and why is a better use of money than limiting our search for life to a 20 square foot area of Mars every time we send up an immobile lander that may have God knows how many problems.

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Image credit: http://www.marsonearth.org/images/2001/080801/P8080014-HumanOnMars.JPG