2012: No-Space Odyssey

Year 2012 has started. We can definitely say that science-fiction predictions have failed. It's even worse - we regressed since the Space Race between Russia and USA. We still send new spy satellites, telescopes, and other galaxy scanners, but human species is unlikely to colonize planets, not even the Moon. Crewed space programmes are expensive, time-consuming, and fruitless from a short-term political perspective. World's super-empires prioritise development of new-breed tanks, spy drones and cyber-soliders. Economic crisis has hit space industry heavily - NASA shuts down space shuttle programme, Russia screwed up most of the recent attempts to put satellites up in the Earth orbit (three failures in six months!) and European Union don't have money anyway. China will most likely send a super-laser into a near-orbit, rather then human crew to set up base on the Mars. Virgin Galactic will most likely send rich tourists into a near-orbit, to experience 5 minutes of weightlessness for £250,000.

Priceless? Not really. Let's face it - our generation lost the space revolution, and the future of space industry is bleak. It is the Cyberpunk vision that becomes increasingly real - the egocentric revolution of virtual reality, cybernetic body modifications and organ growing. Lack of natural resources, ultra-interactive (pop) entertainment, heavy militarised border security. Extreme liberalisation contrasting with extreme policing. Extreme capitalism - no social benefits, no free health care, no subsidised education, no aid for developing countries.

Yes, we will probably increase our lifespan, through trangenetically growth liver, second heart and stem cell theraphy. Yes, we will probably be able to plug silicon based microchips into the brain to expand our senses, perception, boost memory and reading time, skill learning and information processing. Yes, we will probably beat cancer, AIDS, swine flu, and create hundred deadly viruses in the process. Yes, we will probably find a way to get energy from fusion, create self-steering electric cars and grow a strawberry that cures hangover. Finally, we will probably get Facebook status displayed directly to our visual cortex with the face matching and personality analysis on every person we pass on the street. But is that it?

Welcome to 2012 - happy new year and hope we can still dream of science-fiction.

Image source: NASA

Your weekend trip to the Moon just got a big step closer.

It's all started in 2005 by Richard Branson, owner of Virgin, who started his new venture Virgin Galactic. The goal was to offer sub-orbital flights for $200,000 (£128,000) per person. 

Virgin got hundreds of pre-booking on their space flights, 5 years passed, and now they are almost ready. Their SpaceShip Two (Photo 1) will go just above the defined boundary of space - 110 km (when the boundary is 100 km) and the flights are going to start between 2011/2012. Virgin actually is finishing building first commercial Spaceport (Photo 2) in New Mexico. 

To fly into suborbit, you need to get there, get your 3 days space training, and everything looks like from science-fiction movie (Photo 3). Then you get your 30 minute flight with around 5 minutes weightlessness and seeing piece of Earth from space. Thats it.

It's cool, and looks awesome. But the real transformation is beyond this. On Wednesday Boeing signed a memorandum with Space Adventures that they will be offering orbital commercial space flight by 2015. 

To remind you:

1. Boeing is the largest global airplane manufacturer,

2. Space Adventures is the only company that offers flights to International Space Station for very rich and famous tourists - with price repeatedly being $40 million.

And this is something which makes Branson and his Virgin Galactic looks like a child's play.

Instead of flying just above atmosphere (suborbit), you will actually go into near space. And it will least much longer. Even spaceship will look uh... clunky, but like a professional spacecraft module (Photo 5). In the nearest future Boeing is planning to organize visits to near space stations. In the further future Boeing is planning (and already signing agreements with collaborators) to build their own space station for touristic purposes. 

Yes, what you read about in science-fiction novels just got a very real start. And probably available to you within your lifetime, if you have enough money. Cost of Boeing trip for 2015 is not yet know, but it is estimated to be competitive to Virgin Galactic.

It's good news not only because of recreational aspectes but also for the potential future  space developments. Commercial space trips mean that scientific research and near space developments will have a new surge. Many companies will sign up to offer space training for people, and it's a question of time when space walks will be available in the package. Not mentioning that sending new satelites, building new space stations and generally expanding our technological capacities into near space will be significantly improved. And in the time when NASA budget is draining quickly - these are good news. 

Then the next step will be the Moon - and I've already done advert for it (see first image) ;-)

[photo credit: Virgin Galactic (1,2,3), NASA (4), New York Times (5)]

[Moon Advert created by Geek On Acid ® with logo from BA, LOT, KLM & Boeing]

Should we send robots to space that looks like us?

Which is exactly what NASA is planning to do. It's called Robonaut 2. For the moment he will be an assistant for human astronaut on the international space station with simple tasks, like tools handling. For the moment, the Robonaut 2 is build from behaviors. Automatic tasks. But in the next stage, it will have options to make some decissions in the actions.

Now, it makes sense to build a humanoid robot to work with astronauts, because we like to interact with humanoids rather than 26-arm robot. We simply prefer the human look from non-human look. It's very well explained in this Wired article. There is still an issue of uncanny valley - robots looking very close, but not exactly as live humans, will trigger our repulsion towards them. We just might have higher cognitive expectations towards human-like robots. However, guys in NASA thought about this problem, and made the robots look like they are from Star Wars, and we all know that EVERYONE loves Star Wars.

More interesting is a question, whether they are going to send Robonauts into deep space or even Mars, without human crew. It might not be rational from the functional perspective, because the 26-arm-octopus robot will be able to complete more tasks at any given time, than Robonaut. Hell, it will be much cheaper to make rather less than more robots, so one octopus robot might be much better deal that 10 Robonauts. Still, maybe it would be better to distribute different tasks into series of neuronal networks instead it to one network, so from the separate interactions we would get some interesting individual differences between the robots instead of having just one hiper-robo-organism.

At the end of the day, it might only be a question of software and neuronal network design. Everything will be connected to one neural network, but task are going to be distributed to smaller, singular networks. There will be goal like 'maximize the collection of data from any environment, analyze it and adapt accordingly to maximize the survival of the mother-ship'. Mother-ship will be actually one robot, just composed of many different robots for different tasks. And both Robonaut fans and octopus robot fans will be happy :)

[image credit: NASA]