Man v Robot

Manned vs. Robotic

Space Exploration

A REPORT BY JIM McKEOWN

EOW FOUNDER MEMBER

A brilliant engineer named Sergei Korolev led the Soviet ICBM effort, and his team created a powerful new booster called Semyorka (number seven). Under Korolev's direction, Semyorka was became the world's first satellite launcher. On October 4^th 1957 it sent the first satellite, Sputnik, into orbit. Sputnik's bleeping electronic cry, heard by amateur radio operators around the world, announced that the Soviets had scored not only a scientific achievement, but also a strategic one.

sputnik

In November of the same year, Sputnik 2 carried the first space passenger, a dog, called Laika.

Spurred in part by the public and media reactions to Sputnik, which bordered on hysteria, the first U.S. satellite, using a booster called Vanguard, ended in failure on December 6, 1957; the rocket rose only a few feet, then sank back to Earth and exploded. Now hope rested with the U.S. Army's rocket team, headed by Wernher von Braun, who had led the development of the V 2 missile in Nazi Germany. Von Braun's rocket, called Jupiter C, successfully launched Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958. The U.S. had joined the "space race.”

In April 1959, the Americans announced the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to over-see their space program. For America, the 1960s begin on an anxious note. Many in the U.S. feared the nation was lagging dangerously behind the Soviet Union in development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). In reality, secret photos from American spy satellites were about to confirm what high-flying aircraft had already shown: the so-called missile gap was not real. The Eisenhower administration could not reveal this knowledge to the public, and in 1960 John Kennedy won the presidency over Eisenhower's vice president, Richard Nixon, partly on the strength of his stance on the missile gap.

On April 12, 1961, the Soviets launched a 27-year-old fighter pilot named Yuri Gagarin on the world's first piloted space mission. In his spacecraft Vostok (East), launched atop a converted R 7 missile, Gagarin made a single orbit of the Earth, returning 108 minutes after lift-off. The Soviets did not reveal that the Vostok had suffered a malfunction prior to re-entry that almost killed Gagarin. When the cosmonaut returned unharmed and exhilarated by his flight, the Soviet Union had scored another key space victory.

For the young American president, Gagarins’ flight came as a serious blow. Speaking before a joint session of Congress, Kennedy made an announcement that would have seemed unthinkable just years before: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth”. Many who heard these words, including some at NASA, wondered if Kennedy's challenge was realistic.

Meanwhile, the Americans and Soviets were extending humanity's reach beyond Earth orbit by means of ever more sophisticated robotic probes. The U.S. Mariner 2 became the first interplanetary spacecraft when it flew by Venus in 1962 and sent back data about this cloud-shrouded world. Another American craft, Mariner 4, took the first close-up pictures of Mars in 1965.

Mariner 4's first close-up image of Mars in 1965.

In 1966, the Soviet Union achieved the first soft landing of a spacecraft on another world when Luna 9 came to rest on the moon's Ocean of Storms and sent back images of its dusty surface. Also in 1966, U.S. Surveyor Landers began exploring the lunar surface, and a series of Lunar Orbiter spacecraft began a detailed photoreconnaissance of the moon from orbit. These missions not only advanced scientific understanding of Earth's nearest neighbor; they helped pave the way for the piloted missions that would follow.

By 1967, both the United States and the Soviet Union were ready to test the spacecraft they would use to send humans to the moon. In the process, both countries suffered devastating failures.

On July 20^th 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon. Almost seven hours later, Armstrong emerged from the Eagle. After descending the ladder on the craft's front landing leg, he planted his left foot on the ancient dust of the Sea of Tranquility and declared: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon

The United States had won the moon race. But the 1970s would bring a change of fortunes for the space agency, while the Soviet Union blazed a new trail, as pioneers of long-duration space missions.

Scientists' hopes were high for the Apollo 13 mission, which left Earth on April 11, 1970, bound for the moon's Fra Mauro highlands. But those hopes evaporated some 55 hours into the mission, when an oxygen tank exploded aboard the Apollo-13 service module, aborting the flight and plunging NASA into the worst crisis it had ever faced on a piloted space mission. Aboard the crippled spacecraft, lunar veteran Jim Lovell and his rookie crew, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise, were forced to abort their mission and begin an emergency trip home. To survive, they used their Lunar Lander as a lifeboat, utilizing its oxygen, radio and rocket engines. By the time they reached Earth, four days later, the men were exhausted and battling bone-chilling conditions aboard their spacecraft. But the combined efforts of the astronauts and hundreds of flight controllers and engineers on Earth paid off: Lovell's crew splashed down safely on April 17, crowning a recovery effort that many called NASA's finest hour.

Apollo 13's damaged service module, seen shortly before re-entry.

Beginning in the early 1970s, the Soviets' human spaceflight program charted a new course -- into Earth orbit. In 1971, two years before NASA's initial Skylab mission, they launched the world's first space station, Salyut 1. Three cosmonauts spent 21 days aboard the station, but their mission ended tragically: All three men died after a sudden loss of cabin pressure immediately before their spacecraft made an automatic re-entry. Recovery teams arrived at the craft only to find the crew dead inside.

By September 1973, the Soviets had recovered from the tragedy and were back to launching Salyuts for scientific missions. They also inaugurated a series of Almaz space stations for military reconnaissance, further evidence that the Cold War was being waged in space as well as on Earth.

Cutaway view of the Salyut 4 space station, with Soyuz ferry attached

The Salyut missions put the Soviet Union at the frontier of long-duration spaceflight. With a four-month residence on Salyut 6 in 1978, the crew of Soyuz 29 broke the U.S. space endurance record set aboard Skylab.

In 1973, ten European nations joined forces to form the European Space Agency, or ESA. ESA's members embarked on a variety of space projects, including development of a new satellite launcher called Ariane. The first successful Ariane launch in 1979 ushered in a new era of commercial space activities.

The 1970’s also saw a growing number of nations launching satellites. China's first, lofted in 1971, broadcast a melody entitled "East Is Red”. India, whose first satellite was launched by the Soviets in 1975, achieved its own satellite launch in 1979.

On April 12, 1981, 20 years to the day after Yuri Gagarin became the world's first space traveller, a new type of space vehicle stood ready for launch at the Kennedy Space Center. This was the Space Shuttle Columbia, first of a planned fleet of re-usable spaceships.

Challenger 1 lift-off

By late 1985, NASA was operating a fleet of four shuttle orbiters and setting a record pace for launches. That year nine shuttle missions were flown, and even more flights were planned in 1986. However, on January 28^th 1986, the shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after lift-off, killing its seven-member crew, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. The disaster stunned the nation and shattered any illusions that spaceflight had become routine.

Challenger explodes 28/01/86

For the Soviet Union, 1986 was the beginning of a new era in long-duration space missions with the launching of the first modular space station, called Mir (Peace). Mir, whose crews would make even longer stays, offered somewhat more room and more "creature comforts" than Salyut. It was also the first space station meant for continuous occupation.

The high costs of military and civilian space programs were catching up with the Soviets and funding was also an issue for the U.S. space program, especially in the area of space science, with most of NASA's budget going to support the space shuttle program, relatively little was left for robotic missions.

In 1990, the long-delayed Hubble Space Telescope was deployed from Space Shuttle Discovery. But soon after the $1.5 billion telescope reached orbit, astronomers realised its main mirror was flawed.

NASA's can-do image was bolstered in 1993, when space-walking shuttle astronauts staged one of the most demanding space repair jobs ever -- to fix the Hubble Space Telescope. After receiving a set of corrective lenses, the telescope performed even better than originally planned. The repair came just in time for Hubble to record the crash of Comet Shoemaker-Levy into Jupiter in July 1994.

For Russia, in the 1990’s, Mars had long been an unrealised goal. Adding to a long string of unsuccessful missions to the Red Planet, a pair of orbiters called Phobos 1 and 2 were lost before completing their missions and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian space scientists faced a new set of obstacles, namely the country's disintegrating space industry and dwindling government funds.

NASA scored a success in its Mars exploration program when the Pathfinder spacecraft arrived on the Martian surface in July 1997, some 21 years after the twin Viking probes touched down. Unlike the Vikings, however, Pathfinder used airbags to cushion its impact. Shortly after landing, the craft deployed a diminutive rover called Sojourner, which roamed the landing site under remote control from Earth, examining rocks and patches of soil. The success of Pathfinder and Sojourner, which were produced for a fraction of Viking's cost, seemed to vindicate NASA's faster, better, cheaper credo.

Sojourner and Yogi

An End to an Era

Russia collaborated on a mobile, ocean-based satellite launcher called Sea Launch. Also, NASA's Cassini orbiter, the last of the high-cost planetary probes, was en route to Saturn.

A probe called Stardust was heading for a rendezvous with a comet, with the goal of collecting samples of its dust for return to Earth. Crews of shuttle astronauts deployed an orbiting X-ray telescope called Chandra, and restored the ailing Hubble telescope to its work helping to reveal the mysteries of the universe. The first two modules of the International Space Station circled 200 miles above the Earth, awaiting further construction. And 77-year-old John Glenn, America's first man in orbit, became the world's oldest space traveler when he logged a nine-day shuttle flight.

These were just a part of the universe of space activities at the end of the 20th century. And a host of space projects, in production or on the drawing board, offered evidence that in the 21st century, human beings and their robotic surrogates would continue to explore the final frontier.

Conclusions.

1. Driving factors behind the space programs.

1.1 Growing tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union after W.W.2 culminated in the Cold War.

1.2 The U.S. public and media reaction to Sputnik bordered on hysteria.

1.3 In April 1959, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created.

1.4 In May 1961, John F. Kennedy’s makes a memorable speech before a joint session of congress in which he announced “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

1.5 The Soviet Unions ability to achieve landmark firsts in the Space Race continued to drive both nations to do more.

1.6 In 1973, ten European nations join forces to form the European Space Agency (ESA).

2. The astronomical cost of space programs in general was a major factor for all concerned.

3. There were grave concerns over the detrimental side effects of weightlessness.

4. Robots, like the Mars Pathfinder, can only do so much, and they cannot act on intuition, or make decisions about where to go and what to do in an attempt to make the greatest possible discoveries.

5. Unmanned missions are paving, and will continue to pave the way for manned missions to the Red Planet and beyond by testing new technologies and refining techniques of how a manned mission will proceed, while all the while increasing our knowledge of what else needs to be learned.

6. The astronomical cost of building and running the International Space Station is detrimental to the exploration of our own solar system and beyond. These sums would be utilised more effectively if they were directed at a multitude of smaller (robotic) programs that would facilitate the rapid colonisation of our own solar system.

Recommendations.

It is recommended that the ISS should be commercialised as soon as possible. One of the primary purposes of the ISS is to perform research into extended duration human spaceflight. That research will directly benefit a manned Mars mission. At the same time, pulling funding from other areas of research would be extremely detrimental to the exploration of the rest of our solar system, so the ISS needs to at least co-habit with other commercial purposes that will take up some of the financial responsibility for the space station. This would allow funding for unmanned exploration missions to continue, and quite possibly expand, as commercial space ventures continue to develop.

J McKeown 3^rd October 2001

Communication: HN 7411728

For the purposes of this report the following were consulted:

1. The internet sites listed below were accessed:

1.1 www.nasa.gov

1.2 www.space.about.com

1.3 www.libraries.mit.edu

2. Transcripts of interviews with the following were perused:

2.1 N.A.S.A. administrator Daniel S. Goldin.

2.2 Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin.

3. Video documentary footage from Discovery Communications

Inc. was viewed.