Unmanned missions: The unsung heroes of cosmic exploration
As the world’s attention is captured by the ongoing issues at the International Space Station or the Boeing-built Starliner spacecraft, unmanned probes continue to diligently explore the cosmos. Although they may not ignite as much excitement as astronauts working in orbit, it is largely thanks to these probes that we owe much of our knowledge about the neighbouring universe.
When humanity held its breath watching the Apollo 11 mission and the live broadcast of the Eagle’s landing on the Moon, only a small group of insiders knew the Russians had already been there. The evidence of their visit was the crater left by the Luna 15 probe.
The Soviets, who for years dominated the space race, made a risky decision upon learning about the progress in the American lunar program. Just before the Americans’ flight, they launched their own mission to the Moon. The Luna 15 probe was supposed to collect lunar soil samples and then return them to Earth.
If the mission had succeeded, the Russians could have celebrated a triumph – achieving what NASA needed three astronauts for at every stage of the Apollo mission, risking their lives, at a lower cost, with more simplicity, and without endangering human lives.
However, the Luna 15 mission ended in complete failure, though this was carefully concealed from the world. Manned missions to the Moon overshadowed all previous successes and achievements, and astronauts gained fame akin to modern-day gladiators, inspiring an entire generation.
When thinking about space exploration, we still envision the iconic scenes of the Moon landing, the multi-metre jumps of astronauts on the surface of the Silver Globe, and the memorable words about a small step for man, but a giant leap for mankind.
Space scouts
From a historical perspective on manned space missions, the Soviets were correct. The Apollo program resulted in significant technological progress, but from the perspective of science, astronauts on the Moon’s surface did not accomplish much more than various machines could have. Their success was primarily a political triumph, an image victory for the United States and NASA.
This viewpoint is shared by Dr. Kelly Weinersmith, as cited by the BBC, a biologist from Rice University in Texas and co-author of the popular science book “A City on Mars,” which is dedicated to the colonization of the Red Planet.
Robots: The vanguard of humanity
It’s no surprise, then, that most of our knowledge about our cosmic neighbourhood has so far been supplied by unmanned missions. Probes sent from Earth have visited all the planets of the Solar System—even the distant Uranus, Neptune, and the now-classified dwarf planet Pluto have been explored thanks to the flybys of the Voyager 2 probe (Uranus and Neptune) and New Horizons (Pluto).
For these distant planets, we have only flown past them for now. Around others—like Mercury with the ongoing BepiColombo mission, Saturn with the Cassini probe, or Jupiter with the Juno probe (and soon also JUICE and Europa Clipper)—orbiters are circling. These missions allow for the study of not only the planets themselves but also their moons.
On the two closest planets—Venus and Mars—Earth probes have already landed (the first successful landing on Venus by the Venera 7 mission took place back in 1970), and the surface of the latter, like that of the Moon, has been and continues to be traversed by rovers.
Mars research will soon reach a new level with the success of the Mars Sample Return mission. This will be possible thanks to NASA’s planned Mars Sample Return mission, aimed at retrieving samples collected on Mars by the Perseverance rover and bringing them to Earth.
First machines, then people
However, the capabilities of space machines—especially those operating in the complex environment of distant planets—are limited by physics. Sending a radio signal from Mars to Earth results in a roughly 11-minute delay. Sending a response takes another 11 minutes.
A delay of more than 20 minutes when manually controlling requires careful planning and completely rules out rapid response to changing conditions.
Even in the event of a Martian disaster, we would only learn about it many minutes later. The chance to change this situation—and at the same time significantly increase transmission speed—is offered by laser communication, but even the speed of light does not eliminate delays.
The future of unmanned missions is thus increasingly greater autonomy of the machines sent from Earth, with their ability to react independently, make decisions, and optimize actions.
The exploration of our planet’s neighbourhood, carried out by probes, orbiters, landers, and rovers, is merely an introduction to colonization and—where possible—the construction of permanent bases.
We will likely witness, soon with the implementation of the Artemis program, not only a return to the Moon but also a permanent settlement of humans there. Mars is next in line.
In each case, we can be sure, however, that before any manned mission is sent anywhere, astronauts, cosmonauts, or taikonauts will be preceded by machines, gathering data without which our species’ cosmic expansion would be impossible.
