Jawaan!

Caltech scientists are working on intelligent exploratory craft which could investigate alien worlds without human instruction.  While missions to MARS can be remotely controlled, as we set our sights further afield the light speed limitation will cause significant problems.  Even within our own solar system interesting targets like Titan and Europa are far enough away that signals would take an hour to get there and back.  Cripplingly slow when you’re carefully navigating “left a bit … wait an hour …. left a bit more”….” Professor Wolfgang Fink plans to have the probes make their own decisions.  An upgrade to the Mars Orbiter-Rover tag-teams that have been so successful, an orbital vessel could survey the surface and deploy an airship over an interesting region.  Wait, it gets even better!  The dirigible then conducts a closer examination and can deploy a land vehicle to any research hot spots.  No, you’re not watching a Saturday morning TV show, it’s a real proposal – and I for one am glad to see NASA collaborators taking hints from the Thunderbirds at last

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Intelligent Robot Probes to Explore Beyond Mars