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| An artist's rendition of Robonaut on the moon. |
For approximately $200 million, plus $250 million for a rocket, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) engineers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston can build a humanoid robot which runs on batteries and send it to the moon to take measurements and conduct experiments. This robot would never have to sleep, eat, or stop working-it could be the most efficient researcher of all time. Its name would be its mission: Project M.
Perhaps the most ambitious part of this project is that NASA believes it can accomplish this goal in 1,000 days, or a little under 3 years. Project M’s manager, R. Matthew Ondler, explained that this intense deadline “creates this sense of urgency. NASA is at its best when it has a short time to figure out things. You give us six or seven years to think about something, and we’re not so good.“ That time allows for too many external variables to occur and slow the process even further, costing more money and detracting from other possible research paths.
Of course, another advantage to having such a major project completed in a relatively short amount of time is the amount of impact it can have, and the effect of that impact. For example the 1969 Moon Walk inspired a large amount of young students to grow up and study astrophysics and engineering. In recent years, science and math studies have waned in popularity, and NASA hopes that with the success of this project will come a new wave of excited, young minds.
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| The crew of Apollo 11, the first men on the moon. |
Stephen J. Altemus, the chief engineer at Johnson Space Center, stressed that NASA is “doing impossible things with really very little, if any, money whatsoever,” and that the restrictions of Congress could put a hold on their plans. This raises some interesting questions about what happens to NASA if there is not enough money in the Federal Budget to sustain it. It seems that Houston would definitely have a problem then.
This is where the beauty of Project M fully lies. For a few years, NASA has been working on Project Constellation, which would work to send astronauts to the moon. The project has cost $10 billion so far, and, following the September vote, is expected to be canceled by Congress in the 2011 Budget Report, especially as interest in the moon is beginning to lessen. “We’ve been there before,” President Obama declared in April. The general sentiment in Washington is that right now, there is no money to spend on a rock, however large and scientifically interesting it may be. But Project M is, by comparison, very cheap, and would be just as effective as if NASA had sent humans up to the moon. It seems like a win-win situation.
For now, NASA is kicking Project M into top gear. “I always felt like our organization was a Ferrari, and we were never allowed to drive with our foot on the gas,” Mr. Altemus said. “We were kind of at idle speed all the time.” At that speed, NASA will never break out of Earth’s atmosphere, but Project M is going to be the extra fuel they need to go that last mile.
Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/science/space/02robot.html?pagewanted=1&ref=technology