Don't send a robot to do a man's job

I'm not one to romanticize nature, but I entertain an unconfirmed theory that man was better when he was at odds with nature. When man conquered nature and was set up in worldly comfort, he turned his efforts to conquering God and removing His claim to His children. As is often the case with patricide, the murderer, having to live with his murder, suffers more than the victim.

One theater where man's ennobling battle against nature continues is space. Since we're still over 3 years (!!!) from putting a man on the Moon again, currently all eyes are on Mars. The hopes for the Perseverance rover are high, as the United States's last three Mars rovers have logged 30 years of service, and Curiosity is still going.

Next week the Ingenuity drone helicopter will take flight on the Martian surface. It's scheduled to make five flights, but it's the first one that really matters. The atmosphere is 1% as dense as Earth's, which is offset by a factor of three by Mars's weak gravity.

If Ingenuity can stay in the air using a pre-programmed flight plan, it opens the door for future missions to expand their range of operations. One thing Mars rovers are not is fast. It will take Perseverance years to simply go to where it needs to complete its mission. A helicopter with an instrument package and greater wingspan would be the logical next step in unmanned Martian exploration.

If Ingenuity fails—if it can't take off or it crashes—it'll confirm what skeptics like me have been saying for years. We need to put a man on Mars. I cheer Perseverance on, but it's doing a man's job at one one-thousandth the pace. Some say we're going to the Moon as a dress rehearsal for Mars, even though the Moon and Mars are nothing alike. The only way you can maintain that narrative is to make a future manned Mars mission dependent on the success of your manned Moon mission.

The more we learn about space, the greater the gulf in those missions grows. We now know extended periods of time spent in zero gee causes the heart to atrophy. Moon missions last a few weeks at most and don't need to worry about bringing along exercise equipment. Mars missions will. At least one of the astronauts who goes to Mars will spend closer to 2 years in zero gee. There's a good chance he will need extended rehab upon his return to Earth, no matter how fit he is when he leaves.

Our continued reliance on rovers betrays an aversion to risk that is an order of magnitude greater than the Apollo days. No doubt there are men chomping at the bit to be the first to visit another planet. But ours is not an explorer society. We're an insurance adjuster society.

Nevertheless, the spirit of Manifest Destiny is being revived by the kinds of eccentric personalities that used to populate the halls of NASA before it became yet another alphabet bureaucracy. I'm looking at you, Elon. Thanks to people like him I'll see men piloting helicopters on Mars in my lifetime.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like sci-fi, check out my books Seeds of Calamity and Tendrils to the Moon. You can find extended previews for each here and here.