There's No Going Back

Continued from page 1

By Technology Review

February 3, 2003

Of course human beings have their limits in terms of what kinds of mechanical manipulation they can do, especially when they are in space. I think really the future is going to be a combination of astronauts and robotic vehicles or robots working together. Now, it's also important to note that in many environments, human beings just can't survive, so therefore you are forced to put robots in those environments. And when you talk about the dexterity of human beings, dexterity is somewhat compromised when you're in a space suit as opposed to not in a space suit. Probably in the future robotic technology is going to allow you to do those things in a less dangerous way.

But whenever we have a decision between sending robotic missions and sending human astronauts, we have to take those decisions very seriously, because as our efforts into space become more complicated as we try to go to farther and farther places, the risk to human life is only going to get greater and greater. So the possibility of these kinds of tragedies will increase as our goals get higher and higher.

Q: Wasn't the shuttle mission one of the least dangerous things that humans do in space?

Well, what people don't realize is that bringing a shuttle into space, every single time that it happened, was a dangerous experience, and dangerous because the number of different things that have to go right to get a shuttle into space and then back to earth are tremendous.

Because of our technological prowess and our attention to detail, chances are that astronauts on seemingly routine mission are going to be fine and come home. But they know, and everybody in the space community knows, that there is a chance that they may not come home, and that's something that they accept and they deal with.

Q: What does this tragedy mean for the future of manned space flight?

I think it's very important that the space program continues and the space program will continue. There are a lot of discoveries we're going to make in space using both robotic vehicles and human missions. We have no choice but to go forward, really. There shouldn't be a discussion of going backwards. Our future is in exploration and finding out our place in the universe and NASA is doing a lot of great things in those areas. Hopefully this will just be a tragic detour in the path, but the path should definitely go on.