Earthsky Interviews
Alan Stern: ‘I’d like to see the U.S explore planets with human beings.’
10-12-2009 - Space
Alan Stern: I think that one of the most important things about exploring space is that it is something that sets us apart in this time, that makes history for our nation and for our society, in a way that few other things do.
Alan Stern is a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute. Dr. Stern is principle investigator of the New Horizons mission to explore Pluto, and he’s been a leading scientist with NASA in guiding their research. Stern spoke more about the future of human spaceflight, and whether Pluto really is a planet, with EarthSky’s Jorge Salazar.
Alan Stern: I’d like to see the United States go back to exploration of the planets with human beings.
Dr. Stern leads an ongoing NASA mission – one that launched a spacecraft to explore Pluto. That craft – which will reach Pluto in the year 2015 – is unmanned. But Dr. Stern told EarthSky he believes in sending humans, not than just robots, to explore the moon and other planets.
Alan Stern: Human beings are much more efficient than the robots. Now bots can go much farther afield, the robots can go to toxic environments where humans can’t go, but for doing fieldwork on the moon, for exploring Mars, the kind of things that we do with robots are pretty limiting. It’s been said that the Mars rovers that have been on Mars since 2004 have done about as much work as a single, two-man Apollo crew would do in a day.
The major hold-up, said Stern, is the large costs involved. But Stern argues that the money needed would only amount to about five tenths of a penny for each federal dollar spent.
Alan Stern: When I was a boy, in the 1960s, astronauts walked on the moon every few months and explored different terrains, different sites on the moon. And we haven’t done anything like that since 1972. By now, from a technological standpoint, we could have had bases on the moon, asteroid mining, expeditions to Mars. But we haven’t.
Dr. Stern told us his thoughts on the future of human space flight.
Alan Stern: Human spaceflight is a 50-year-old enterprise. The Apollo landings were 40 years ago. The first human spaceflights were in 1961; in the year after next that will be 50 years. And some spectacular achievements, but really since the Apollo moon landings, although the Space Shuttle itself is an amazing achievement, so is the International Space Station. Really, I think there’s a pretty broad consensus that the government-led efforts have been limited by external factors. We could be doing so much more.
He spoke more about what humans would actually do on other planets and the moon.
Alan Stern: Humans would do same things that humans do when we explore the Earth, when we send scientists, for example, to Antarctica, to do field work, to do geology, to do geophysics, geochemistry, to study the atmosphere, to search for evidence of life. Human beings are amazing machines for recognizing new situations and adapting to them, for finding the most interesting samples, for example, in a suite; for making choices about where they should go, and to locomote, and to drive much faster than robots can by remote control, which are glacial by comparison.
Dr. Stern answered our question on what’s most important about exploring space.
Alan Stern: : I think that one of the most important things about exploring space is that it is something that sets us apart in this time that makes history for our nation and for our society, in a way that few other things do.
Written by Jorge Salazar
4 Responses to “Alan Stern: ‘I’d like to see the U.S explore planets with human beings.’”
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Alan Stern
Planetary scientist Alan Stern leads research efforts to explore the outer reaches of our solar system. He has been principal investigator on a number of planetary and lunar missions, including the New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission. The mission is on its way now and will reach Pluto and the Kuiper belt in 2015. Dr. Stern ... >>
I absolutely agree that we should already be with established moon bases, astroid mining, & deeper solar missions with our technology since Apollo.
I\’d also state that if we, as a species want to survive & continue to grow as we have been, then our only logical choice is to begin extensive space development at a higher rate then before.
I myself, have been doing my own R&D for a \”new\” method of launch & recovery that will not use the traditional launching technology of the past, while also working on a energy production & transition applications for the future of our species in space & on this planet….And thus far, much of the technology has been some of the most basic & simplistic systems that we have been playing with since Tesla! Just now re-imagined & slightly restructured to become much more efficient & powerful utilizing modern computing power & quantum mechanics! It is very exciting & I belive it is going to be the small private sector that will make the next big leaps in science & technology for the future while the governments continue to drag their feet in the past.
We have an amazing ability to make things happen & mathematically we should be further then reminiscing about Apollo, tinkering with the ISS, & rocket propelled people & objects!…By no means were these small feats, yet we should be beyond them.
We have the ability, we have & had the technology, we have the people, we have the minds!
I\’m only a small, no name with funding issues & still able to make strides…So what is the governments hold up? Is weaponizing everything our priority or is it the bureaucracy of the business of government & control? Huge amounts of money & resources are wasted daily, why not invest it on the future minds & lives that will be looking back on us & see what we gave of ourselves to give to them & beyond….
We need to wake up, grow up, & make the effort to come together to move into a new path for ourselves, the future, the planet, & for growth!
Invest in educating the population, invest in maned space exploration, & invest in the future of life & stewardship of the planet! Invest time, knowledge, &/or money, but just invest in opening the eyes & minds to the reality of the situation so that we can unite & change to a new path for the life of the planet & beyond.
¡Much Thanks!
Brandon Smith
As much as I love the idea of manned space exploration, I really think we need to be better stewards of this planet. All our resources should be focused on that and only that until we find balance here.
I agree with Alan Stern as well. Ideally exploring planets with humans is best, but robots should be used first for setting parameters then bring humans in. Either way robots will be needed because humans use them to minimize risk and to test areas (gather data).
strongly disagree with Dr. Stern in just about everything he said. First off he says that government exploits has been limited by by external factors. Those external factors are COST because maned space flight is extremely expensive, consider it as a cost verses benefit thing. For example we can send four rovers to Mars for the cost of one shuttle launch. As a example, the MOL project was discontinued because it was much for cost effective and efficient to spy on the Soviet Union with satellites than maned space labs and shortly afterwards the Soviet Union also discontinued the similar project for the same reasons.
Though the Apollo landing were definitely world renowned for it’s achievement, what is not well known is that shortly afterwards the Russians had a rover on the moon doing exploring and sending back pictures and such. I would think that if the American public knew how much they spent to put men on the moon and how little the Russians spent to put a rover on the moon there might have been outraged. He also said that a maned mission on Mars could do in a day what the rovers have done in the six years have done. This is outrages, not to mention had NASA spent as much as a maned flight to Mars on the rovers it would be even more outrages.
He failed the mention other milestone of NASA, such as the Voyagers, the Mars rovers, not to mention Hubble because his objective is to hype maned missions.
He talks of maned missions to other planets. Lets examine this, it takes about three days to get to the moon but it takes six months to get to Mars, then they would have to stay there another six months or so, then another six months to return, all the while the astronauts would have to have oxygen, food and water, the most expensive to transport. The expense of this is almost beyond imagination. Something that he was careful to evade. We must also consider that there is no gravity while in flight and somewhat less than half of that of earth for the six month stay and then no gravity on the return trip which will have a profound effect on their physical health, even with a daily exercise regiment. Then there is the possibility of solar storms, meteors. I’m not saying that we should not send people because of the dangers but that the dangers are in addition to the cost and the before mentioned.
He also compares the traveling to another planet to that of the pioneers. I don’t think so, the pioneers traveling across the country in their own covered wagons did not cost the American tax payer a trillion dollars, of which would go to a few contractors.
He also brings up that Pluto was downgraded from Planet because some scientist didn’t want to have to remember the names of all these planets. What a incredibly stupid statement! That’s like saying that astronomers don’t want to find any more stars because they don’t want to have to remember all the star names.
You will notice that he was involved to sending the robot New Horizons to explore the Kuiper Belt, though I assume that he would have rather sent a maned spacecraft, NASA elected to send a unmanned spacecraft there for good reason, cost verses benefit.
What he wants people to know that the exploration of space is important for the growth of our knowledge and understanding of the universe we live in and of ourselves, I could not agree more. However, I believe that we as taxpayers, the ones that are funding the exploration, deserve the most we can get for out money and this is not with manned missions. He mentions the voyage of Columbus to the new world as a great milestone in human exploration, which it is, but I assure you that if Ferdinand and Isabella had the option of sending a craft with a rover that could transmit it’s finding back to England they would have done it.
He also elaborates about how NASA is holding back on maned space missions, I guess the space station (ISS) doesn’t count, which by the way, the U.S. And other nations have invested $100.Billion into and, apparently it’s main mission was to study the effect of prolonged reduced weight on the human body for five years then let it destruct in the atmosphere when it’s orbit decayed.
He speaks of how NASA is of the old school but I say it is he that is of the old and most expensive ways. This is the age of robot exploration and NASA has explored the solar system with robots far beyond what would be capable if it was up to manned missions.
If man stops exploring and reaching outward, mankind will shrivel and die! If the first men had just stayed where they were in central Africa, they would have eventually died as a species rather than dominated the planet as we have (And I don’t buy the BS that we have ‘ruined’ the planet). It sounds like some of you ought to join the “Voluntary Human Extinction” crowd and show us all how it should be done.
Me, I’d rather see my son, or grandson walking on Mars, prospecting asteroids or developing the technology that will not only aid our explorers, but solve many of the problems we have on Earth. These endeavors can employ millions eventually and encourage others to develope even greater technologies.
Science fiction writers of the past gave the people of the 50’s and 60’s the ideas that took us to the moon. There is no reason we cannot go back there in 5 years or to Mars in 10.
If we don’t do it, China or India will and America will definitely become a third world nation, like I’m sure some of you would like.
What would you propose, more wealfare dollars so we can pay people to do nothing rather than something?
The cost/benefit of exploration is incalculable! Get some vision, unlike our current President who would rather leave America in ruins.
I know that this may sound un-scientific but has anyone thought that there might possibly be aliens already here working with our Government Agencys and we already have the ability to travel to any where we want to in the entire Universe and we don’t have to worry about fuel, water,food or time? If there’s not it’s an awful waste of space. Just a thought, that’s all. Anyways,being humans, what would we ever do with another planet? We have great imaginations.