Robots and Space

In NY at the WTN event, I had the privilige of watching Dr. Charles Elachi, Director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory give a talk about Curiosity, NASA's latest robotics mission to Mars. The highlight of the talk was a video called "Seven minutes of Terror" about Curiosity's landing on the Martian surface. An incredible feat of engineering, it required the largest parachute ever deployed, multiple pyrotechnic devices, an aerial "crane" and a landing sequence that would not be out of place in any science fiction movie. The distance between Earth and Mars meant that by the time the team at JPL got any information about the landing, it would have already been over. The movie of the landing can be found here on JPL's website and I would encourage every roboticist to view it - it is inspiring and exhilirating and brings out the hard engineering work required to make a robot perform in the real world - the last 5-10% of any real engineering effort is often harder than the first 90-95%.

Sitting at the table with me during dinner was Dr. William Borucki, leader of the Kepler mission from NASA Ames. Kepler has been trying to find other planets in the universe and has been spectacularly successful. Its the first step in finding out if there's someone else out there. Dr. Borucki won the WTN award that night but was still incredibly modest about his role in such a ground-breaking endeavor. NASA's role in inspiring generations of engineers and scientists is an important one - let's hope that they can continue to do that even in the face of hard economic times.