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Mangus: Robots, not man, future of space exploration

The day when an American takes “one small step” or “one giant leap” again is probably a long way off.

Warren native John Mangus was working for NASA when Neil Armstrong set the first human foot on the moon. Mangus retired from a position as a NASA senior scientist in 1994. Now he lives in Warren and spends his free time working with middle school kids on science projects including launching rockets, consulting on the optics for the James Webb Space Telescope, and representing the government in a lawsuit over the Hubble Space Telescope.

Mangus is not in favor of manned missions to celestial bodies.

Sending human beings into space takes longer, costs more, and endangers lives, compared to not sending human beings.

For the Apollo mission of the 1960s and 1970s, manned spaceflight was a requirement.

“We did need the astronauts for the Apollo program, absolutely,” Mangus said.

Putting a man on the moon, as the president had decreed, required a man.

But, no one has stepped on another world since 1972.

The risks now outweigh the rewards.

“Things have changed,” Mangus said. “They’re antiquating the astronaut program.”

“What we’re struggling with now is artificial intelligence has advanced so much that robotics is the way to go,” he said.

Robots can do essentially any meaningful task a human could do on a short visit to a moon or planet and the robot can stay.

There isn’t the political will to endanger a human life for a project that could be handled by robots.

A manned visit to the moon? Been there. “How many moon rocks do you need?” Mangus said.

Men or women on mars?

“We have robots on mars now,” Mangus said. “What’s the point?”

Humans need things like food, water, and air. Any of a multitude of failures in space is fatal. Then, presumably, they need some kind of vehicle, provisions, and fuel to return to earth. Bringing robots home is not necessary.

Astronauts have health concerns that robots do not.

“In a zero-G environment, you lose bone marrow, muscles atrophy, vision changes, the brain swells, skin gets thinner,” Mangus said. Then there is the exposure to radiation.

Even astronauts, who Mangus said were not large men in the Apollo days, require some space to move around, adding to the size of the craft and the amount of fuel it will need. Further, designing a compartment for people in delicate and vitally important suits means “no sharp edges.”

During the Apollo program, “the manned program had the big budgets.”

That’s another area where political will is lacking today.

Mangus is a scientist, but “I’m a tax-payer,” he said.

Instead of sending a person somewhere to say we can do it, Mangus would like one of the next major projects to involve studying one of the other places in the solar system that show some of the conditions we associate with life.

“I would much rather see them go out to Titan and some of these other moons and look for life,” he said.

Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, has ice volcanoes, Mangus said. Titan, another of Saturn’s many moons, has an atmosphere and surface containing many hydrocarbons. They are considered some of the best candidates for discovering life in our solar system.

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