while today astronauts enthusiastically declare that they would do anything to walk
on dusty Martian soil, all of them expect to return to Earth with reasonable safety.
Robots will never need air, water, food or pressurized suits to survive in the cosmic
vacuum, on the Martian soil or the rugged terrain of an asteroid. All this makes the
cost of a robot inherently lower than the inestimable one of a human life.
And the progress in robotics is incredible. The world’s most dynamic humanoid
robot, Atlas,
47
is a research platform designed by the Boston Dynamics corporation
to push the limits of whole-body mobility. The advanced control system and stateof-the-art hardware give the robot the power and balance to demonstrate humanlevel agility. Elon Musk in fact purchased a robot from Boston Dynamics, the
four-legged Spot, to carry out dangerous inspection activities on the launch pad
during a test of the Starship rocket.
48
Is a new class of astronauts coming soon?
The robotic explorer’s ancestors, the space interplanetary probes and rovers
already launched, were successful and advanced scientific knowledge enormously.
The Cassini probe launched in 1997 to explore Jupiter and Saturn cost about $3.2
billion and sent extraordinary images to Earth for twenty years before plunging
into the gaseous clouds of the ringed planet. The Curiosity rover, which has been
moving on the surface of Mars since 2012, was built with $2.5 billion. Both of
these missions have produced remarkable scientific results, showing us places
where no one has ever been before. Curiosity has even detected molecular traces
of water
49
and organic carbon
50
on fragments of soil and surface rocks, further
encouraging the hypothesis that subsurface life forms exist on Mars. Said discoveries have made it possible to plan new and more ambitious missions, like sending
a rover or a quadcopter drone
51
to Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, to explore the
atmosphere of nitrogen, methane and hydrogen and to study its surface, perhaps
made up of huge frozen oceans of hydrocarbon.
In conclusion, do the costs and risks of a human landing on Mars seem justifiable today? Most likely not yet. And this seems to be true both for governments
and for private companies that, beyond the media announcements and roadshows
at international conferences, think in terms of return on investment, either political
or economic.
It is true that great feats can never be achieved without the dreams that have
imagined them. But the fascinating vision that accompanies space exploration
should be calibrated with realism and the right perspective, so that we can optimistically imagine an astronaut on Mars well beyond this century.
47
https://www.bostondynamics.com/atlas.
48
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/haiwhj/boston_dynamics_spot_robot_spotted_
at_boca_chica/.
49
Grotzinger, John P. 2013. Analysis of surface materials by the curiosity Mars rover. Science
341 (6153).
50
Eigenbrode, Jennifer L., and others. 2018. Organic matter preserved in 3-billion-year-old
mudstones at Gale crater, Mars. Science 360 (6393).
51
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/science/saturn-cassini-return.html.
134 Mars: Next Stop?
on dusty Martian soil, all of them expect to return to Earth with reasonable safety.
Robots will never need air, water, food or pressurized suits to survive in the cosmic
vacuum, on the Martian soil or the rugged terrain of an asteroid. All this makes the
cost of a robot inherently lower than the inestimable one of a human life.
And the progress in robotics is incredible. The world’s most dynamic humanoid
robot, Atlas,
47
is a research platform designed by the Boston Dynamics corporation
to push the limits of whole-body mobility. The advanced control system and stateof-the-art hardware give the robot the power and balance to demonstrate humanlevel agility. Elon Musk in fact purchased a robot from Boston Dynamics, the
four-legged Spot, to carry out dangerous inspection activities on the launch pad
during a test of the Starship rocket.
48
Is a new class of astronauts coming soon?
The robotic explorer’s ancestors, the space interplanetary probes and rovers
already launched, were successful and advanced scientific knowledge enormously.
The Cassini probe launched in 1997 to explore Jupiter and Saturn cost about $3.2
billion and sent extraordinary images to Earth for twenty years before plunging
into the gaseous clouds of the ringed planet. The Curiosity rover, which has been
moving on the surface of Mars since 2012, was built with $2.5 billion. Both of
these missions have produced remarkable scientific results, showing us places
where no one has ever been before. Curiosity has even detected molecular traces
of water
49
and organic carbon
50
on fragments of soil and surface rocks, further
encouraging the hypothesis that subsurface life forms exist on Mars. Said discoveries have made it possible to plan new and more ambitious missions, like sending
a rover or a quadcopter drone
51
to Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, to explore the
atmosphere of nitrogen, methane and hydrogen and to study its surface, perhaps
made up of huge frozen oceans of hydrocarbon.
In conclusion, do the costs and risks of a human landing on Mars seem justifiable today? Most likely not yet. And this seems to be true both for governments
and for private companies that, beyond the media announcements and roadshows
at international conferences, think in terms of return on investment, either political
or economic.
It is true that great feats can never be achieved without the dreams that have
imagined them. But the fascinating vision that accompanies space exploration
should be calibrated with realism and the right perspective, so that we can optimistically imagine an astronaut on Mars well beyond this century.
47
https://www.bostondynamics.com/atlas.
48
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/haiwhj/boston_dynamics_spot_robot_spotted_
at_boca_chica/.
49
Grotzinger, John P. 2013. Analysis of surface materials by the curiosity Mars rover. Science
341 (6153).
50
Eigenbrode, Jennifer L., and others. 2018. Organic matter preserved in 3-billion-year-old
mudstones at Gale crater, Mars. Science 360 (6393).
51
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/science/saturn-cassini-return.html.
134 Mars: Next Stop?