A History Today Book of the Year

A world-renowned astronomer and an esteemed science writer make the provocative argument for space exploration without astronauts.

Human journeys into space fill us with wonder. But the thrill of space travel for astronauts comes at enormous expense and is fraught with peril. As our robot explorers grow more competent, governments and corporations must ask, does our desire to send astronauts to the Moon and Mars justify the cost and danger? Donald Goldsmith and Martin Rees believe that beyond low-Earth orbit, space exploration should proceed without humans.

In The End of Astronauts, Goldsmith and Rees weigh the benefits and risks of human exploration across the solar system. In space humans require air, food, and water, along with protection from potentially deadly radiation and high-energy particles, at a cost of more than ten times that of robotic exploration. Meanwhile, automated explorers have demonstrated the ability to investigate planetary surfaces efficiently and effectively, operating autonomously or under direction from Earth. Although Goldsmith and Rees are alert to the limits of artificial intelligence, they know that our robots steadily improve, while our bodies do not. Today a robot cannot equal a geologist’s expertise, but by the time we land a geologist on Mars, this advantage will diminish significantly.

Decades of research and experience, together with interviews with scientific authorities and former astronauts, offer convincing arguments that robots represent the future of space exploration. The End of Astronauts also examines how spacefaring AI might be regulated as corporations race to privatize the stars. We may eventually decide that humans belong in space despite the dangers and expense, but their paths will follow routes set by robots.

Drawing on a decade of immersive ethnography with NASA’s robotic spacecraft teams to create a comparative account of two great space missions of the early 2000s, Janet Vertesi uncovers how the social organization of a scientific team affects their scientific practices and results.

In Shaping Science, Janet Vertesi draws on a decade of immersive ethnography with NASA’s robotic spacecraft teams to create a comparative account of two great space missions of the early 2000s. Although these missions featured robotic explorers on the frontiers of the solar system bravely investigating new worlds, their commands were issued from millions of miles away by a very human team. By examining the two teams’ formal structures, decision-making techniques, and informal work practices in the day-to-day process of mission planning, Vertesi shows just how deeply entangled a team’s local organizational context is with the knowledge they produce about other worlds.
 
Using extensive, embedded experiences on two NASA spacecraft teams, this is the first book to apply organizational studies of work to the laboratory environment in order to analyze the production of scientific knowledge itself. Engaging and deeply researched, Shaping Science demonstrates the significant influence that the social organization of a scientific team can have on the practices of that team and the results they yield.

Space robotics and autonomous systems (Space RAS) play a critical role in the current and future development of mission-defined machines that can survive in space while performing exploration, assembly, construction, maintenance and servicing tasks. They represent a multi-disciplinary emerging field at the intersection of space engineering, terrestrial robotics, computer science and materials. The field is essential to humankind's ability to explore or operate in space; providing greater access beyond human spaceflight limitations in the harsh environment of space, and offering greater operational handling that extends astronauts' capabilities. Space RAS covers all types of robotics for the exploration of planet surfaces as well as robotics used in orbit around the Earth and the sensors needed by the platform for navigation or control.