On NASA and the Robotic Colonization of Mars

I tired to stay up last night to watch the landing of Curiosity on Mars. I failed. Now this morning as I try to view images from the NASA websites I find most of them overloaded and unavailable. I can only assume that the reason they are overloaded is due to a vast number of people wanting to see what it is seeing.

Ever since it was first spotted, humanity has been trilled by the red planet. Sitting there so close and yet so unbelievably far away, it fuels the imagination easily. From the ancient times when our ancestors looked up and saw an angry god of war in that red spot to the more recent novels and movies depicting what might lie there, we as a race are intrigued by Mars. And now we are there, humans can look upon the surface of Mars and experience it themselves, almost.

I suppose that is why this is bitter sweet to me. We are able to launch an SUV to Mars, lower it safely via skycrane and watch live images beamed back. But still no one is there, the first prints on Mars are not those of a human boot taking one small step for man, but rather the tire tread of a vehicle that nearly runs without our help.

I find it more than a little troubling that NASA is capable of sending a machine this size all the way to Mars but cannot change a lightbulb on the space station they built without getting a lift from someone else. I understand the need for robotic missions, but no robot can take the place of a humans sense of adventure and curiosity that is vital in exploration. This machine cannot wonder what is over the next hill. It cannot check out something that "may be nothing but is worth a look". It cannot feel.

One last thought on the robots; in every story I have ever read that features a robot at some point it will turn on its creators. So while I will enjoy the pictures from Mars as much as anyone, I still want people to go there, preferably during my lifetime.