Machines, not Meat, to the Moon

MoonMachines

I'm keen to adapt how we think about space to the realities and opportunities of the 21st century. Putting more astronauts on the moon seems pointless; using the same resources, and modern technology, we can put a thousand virtual researchers on the Moon with robotics and terabit laser telemetry.

We do not have the capabilities that put Apollo on the moon, nor do we have the geopolitical justification. Before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, a cash-strapped NASA had shut down the Saturn V assembly lines; their political purposes had been achieved. We got the glory, the Soviets got infrastructure that is still usable today.

Nonetheless, we live in exciting times, The Curiosity landing demonstrated what modern technology can do in space today, and on the battlefield soon (sadly). Among many achievements, Curiosity landed within 1.5 miles of target center, three times as accurate as Apollo 11 after travelling 1000 times the distance. Modern space missions succeed because they replicate physics-accurate missions that have already occured countless times inside supercomputers; add humans, and accurate simulation becomes impossible.

We explore space to find surprises, which lead to scientific advances. Surprise can be antithetical to human survival; we learned far less about the moon using astronauts than we can today using expendable machines. We can send LOTS of machines, design them for perfection, then plan to lose half or more due to the unexpected. We should avidly seek the unexpected, the bizarre, the dangerous; take risks that we would never take with human lives in the balance. Astronauts are hostages, not pioneers. Failure must be an option, as it was during the age of exploration. Many proto-Polynesians died before they learned the ways of the Pacific.

Transistors are a billion times cheaper than they were in 1969. While we are far from the artificial intelligence necessary to replace a human brain, that brain comes in a very fragile package, quite incompatible with the space environment. Electronics may be stupid, but it is far more reprogrammable than the human mind, and it will tolerate much worse conditions. There are many places on earth where brainless bacteria can survive, and humans cannot. We send our robots there.

Someday, when we drive launch costs below $10/kg (see http://launchloop.com ), and it is affordable to launch and maintain thousands of tons of infrastructure per person, we can recreate self-supporting human-compatible environments far from mission control. The best way to develop that capability is to create opportunities that generate vast wealth per launched kilogram at very large scale - that is one reason I work on server sky.

Indeed, when we can deliver gigabit internet to millions of habitations in mid-ocean, we can colonize our seas the way we will later colonize space. We must broaden our capabilities, adaptively and productively, and expand our imaginations to match.