On Robots and the Road to Mars
And how advances in robotics could impact our daily lives…
As we inch closer and closer towards our first step to colonizing Mars I can’t help but think that we’re ignoring some crucial technologies which can greatly reduce the risks inherit in space travel and in the process of establishing outposts throughout the solar system.
Chief among those is Robotics, if the field of robotics was advanced enough we could kick start our colonization of Mars by sending fleets of robots ahead of us (or with us) to help establish the very first foothold on the Red Planet thereby providing the next waves of colonists with a suitable home to support their long term stay.
By having sufficiently advanced robots with a high level of autonomy to operate on their own as well as the capability to work efficiently under the conditions of the Red Planet we can reduce (or even eliminate) some of the massive initial risks associated with what is likely to be a one way journey to Mars.
Alas, we’re not there yet, the current cutting edge robots are still a far cry from what can be considered a worthy candidate for travelling throughout space, let alone being able to perform a set of generic tasks required to establish an outpost on another planet.
