Tragedy revives old debate of robot vs human

Underlying the decades-old debate over the cost, direction and practical benefit of the US space programme is the fundamental question of wh...

Underlying the decades-old debate over the cost, direction and practical benefit of the US space programme is the fundamental question of why we blast human beings, as opposed to robots, into outer space at all. There are technical answers to that question.

Supporters of piloted missions say that humans can make judgments and decisions during missions that robots controlled from Earth are not yet capable of. But finally the justification from sophisticated minds is perhaps a shockingly whimsical, if primal, one: We do it because we can. ‘‘The rationale is that these are mechanisms for moving humanity, for being able to extend the range of human participation beyond the Earth,’’ said Jerry Grey, director of science and technology policy at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a professional society for scientists and engineers.

‘‘What good will it be in the future, who knows?’’ he said. ‘‘I really can’t tell you. I’m sure Lewis and Clark, when they went out West, didn’t know what they were going to find.’’ Critics use the same reasoning to support the opposite position. The bulk of useful information gleaned from space, they say, has come from relatively less expensive robotic exploration, such as the Hubble space telescope. ‘‘The only thing unique about the space station and shuttle is that we can study the effects of that environment on human beings,’’ said Robert Park, director of the American Physical Society in Washington, D.C.

‘‘So you’re running in circles there. You’re putting human beings in space to study human beings in space. So unless we’re really going to put human beings out there for a reason, there’s no point.’’ ‘‘I hate to say that,’’ Park added. Over the past decade, shuttle missions have become increasingly commercially oriented, with experiments funded by and benefiting pharmaceutical companies and unlikely concerns. (LATWP)

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