Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 10, 1990 TAG: 9006110184
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: EUGENE H. LEVY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Even before the recent summit conference, Soviet President Gorbachev suggested the possibility of cooperative Mars exploration. President Bush has committed the United States to manned exploration of Mars, but some question where the money will come from.
Increased cooperation with the Soviets sounds attractive. But is it realistic? How should it be done? And, considering the complexity of a Mars mission and the differences between the two countries' political systems, technologies, languages and the like, how far does it make sense to go at this time?
I chaired a National Research Council committee that was asked by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to define the best approaches to international cooperation in Mars exploration. We concluded that cooperation with the Soviets - along with European countries, Japan, and Canada, among others - could produce many benefits. We recommended a U.S.-Soviet cooperative program of unmanned robotic missions to visit Mars, make measurements, collect samples, and, leaving instruments behind, return to Earth.
However, we also found that close technical cooperation with the Soviets would be likely to create problems at this stage of the relationship. For now, we recommended against the two nations dividing responsibilities for actual joint missions.
Mars exploration could serve many interests, spanning national boundaries. The surface of Mars reveals a history of startling change. Cold, dry and nearly airless today, Mars apparently once had abundant flowing water, suggesting higher temperatures and a thicker atmopshere than now. The planetary changes recorded in Mars' surface may represent a spontaneous transition from a potentially life-supporting environment to a lifeless one.
We do not yet understand what causes such great change in a planet's environment. One motivation for studying Mars is to find out. Learning why Mars changed will teach us about planets in general, something essential for understanding Earth. We will not be able to understand and predict Earth's behavior confidently until our theories also explain what happened to Mars.
For these and other reasons, Mars exploration is a natural candidate for ambitious international cooperation. In such an effort, the United States and the Soviet Union would occupy unique positions. Only they have the experience, the current technical capability and the expressed vision to undertake or lead an intensive Mars exploration. For some time, the overall approach to Mars exploration will depend on commitments made by the two superpowers.
However, the United States and the Soviet Union have little experience with technical cooperation. Communication is poor; neither side fully understands the institutions, practices or capabilities of the other. Close cooperation would raise concerns - some reasonable, others unreasonable - about technology transfer. Moreover, space exploration projects involve long-term commitments. Joint missions, in which each nation is greatly dependent on the other, could become hostage to unexpected political events.
Given these problems, it makes sense for the two countries to develop cooperation gradually, although steadily, beginning with robotic missions that use artificial intelligence to explore Mars and return samples to Earth. Automated exploration would be extremely beneficial in itself because of its scientific value, social inspiration, potential to spur technology, and relative economy. Decisions about human exploration could be made later.
Both nations would benefit technologically from robotic exploration of Mars. Important advances could be expected in rocketry, robotic manipulation, machine intelligence and other fields. It is not clear that either nation would want to relinquish to the other the development of the major enabling technologies.
An initial phase of Mars exploration would involve about half a dozen of these robotic excursions. The United States and the Soviet Union could jointly lead the world in such a project. Each would conduct three coordinated excursions. Planning and scientific investigations could be carried out in close cooperation.
By increasing cooperation substantially, but stopping short of fully joint missions for now, the two superpowers could begin immediately a project of historic importance on behalf of the whole human race. Both nations would achieve economies and would accomplish scientific objectives of global importance. They also would begin to build the experience, knowledge and trust that could foster even closer cooperation in the future.
Our best evidence, from the 1976 Viking mission, indicates that there is now no life on Mars. But wetter and warmer conditions in the past may have enabled life to begin and evolve. Scientists speculate that biochemical or structural fossils might have been left by early martian life.
The space age gave human beings the vision of Earth as a planet, and impressed upon us the isolated and fragile nature of Earth's environment. Our planetary perspective was further sharpened after investigations of Mars revealed that planets can undergo extraordinary environmental change, perhaps even from a life-supporting world to a lifeless one. That prospect was not seriously considered before explorations of Mars. Studying our planetary neighor provides an irreplacable perspective on planetary environmental change.
by CNB