At NASA Ames Research Center, in Mountain View, Calif., two K10 rovers navigate a lunar-like landscape. The K10 program is designed to help NASA do more advanced surveys and surveillance of the moon, and for the time being, the robots are being deployed in a series of similar environments across the planet.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--For a few minutes Thursday, as I steered one of NASA's K10 intelligent robots across a small field of rocky, sandy terrain, I could almost imagine myself piloting the rover across the surface of Mars or the moon.
Until, that is, I realized I had pretty much no idea what I was doing, and saw that my struggles to steer the rover forward were actually sending it backward. Given that this little robot is worth at least as much as a mid-range Mercedes, I was relieved to see the eagle-eyed scientist standing a few feet away from it as it approached a group of large rocks that could send it sprawling, a switch in his hand capable of stopping it dead in its tracks.
I was spending the afternoon at NASA's Ames Research Center here, talking with Terry Fong, the director of the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG), about the K10 rover program--an initiative designed for remote scouting operations on the moon or Mars. To be sure, the program has been around for a few years, but Fong and his team are constantly tweaking the robots, and so what I got my hands on Thursday (remotely, at least) was a great deal more sophisticated than would have been the case just a few years ago.
We had driven out to Ames' faux lunar/Martian landscape, a 40-meters by 80-meters field of rocks and dirt tucked away in a quiet corner on the western side of the giant NASA facility. I've been to Ames many times, but this was by far the most peaceful part of the grounds I've visited: the shriek of a red-tailed hawk as it soared high overhead was the only real sound besides a gentle wind.
Fong took us into a small shed just outside a small trailer, and sitting inside was K10 "Red," one of the two rovers his team has here. It's called red because it has a big patch of red on its body. Its twin, K10 "Black" was nearby, already prowling around, lost in its own lunar fantasy, different from K10 Red only in that its body is black.
The two rovers (see video below, but be prepared for substantial wind noise) are built to travel at "human walking speed," Fong explained, and can handle between 90 percent to 95 percent of the terrain here. That includes some softball-size rocks, plenty of loose sand and dirt and even a few steep inclines. Fong allowed that some of the bigger rocks, maybe soccer ball-sized, might be a problem, and the steepest part of the incline might cause the rovers to lose traction. But in general, these are sturdy little robots built to withstand some truly out-of-this-world conditions.
According to NASA, the K10 robots are crucial elements of the space program's directive to achieve more complete investigation of the moon than was possible during the Apollo program.
"Human missions to the moon will provide numerous opportunities to advance the scientific exploration of the lunar surface," a NASA brochure about the K10 robots reads. "Initially, human exploration of the moon will be for short periods of time--no more than a few weeks per year. To make use of the time between human missions, robots can be used to perform highly repetitive and long-duration tasks, such as site-mapping and science reconnaissance.
"NASA's K10 robots are designed to be remotely operated on planetary surfaces and act as scouts for human explorers. Scouting is an essential phase of fieldwork, particularly for geology, to help establish priorities and scientific objectives. Robotic scouting can improve human exploration of the moon by providing mission planners with detailed ground-level information to supplement and complement data collected by orbiting satellites."
Imagine, in the future, the Constellation program kicks in and NASA begins sending manned missions to the moon. Fong explained that the K10s would be essential to maximizing the research that could be done in between visits by astronauts. Indeed, they could be left behind after one mission and then be deployed to gather intelligence for the next manned mission, data that could complement what NASA can see with instruments in lunar orbit.
And while the K10s I saw ran off of Lithium-Ion laptop batteries with a life of about four hours, Fong said K10s that stay on the moon could run on an ongoing basis on solar, or on power cells.
Continuous navigation
To look at them, today's K10s are unchanged since their introduction eight years ago. But pop the hood, as it were, and what you find is an ever-changing Red Hat Linux-based brain. Every few months, Fong said, he and his team replace the standard PC laptops that serve as the K10s nerve centers with newer and more powerful ones. Even considering what a top-of-the-line laptop costs, a couple new computers are pretty cheap compared to the tens of thousands of dollars' worth of lidar, navigational equipment, sun trackers--which allow the robots to figure out precisely where they are, an advantage over compasses when they're being used for field tests in far northern parts of the world--3D surveying instruments and more.
Fong said that while much about K10s remains the same today as in the past, one recent innovation has been building in the ability to process data on the go, rather than what was possible in early missions on Mars, where rovers had to stop, calculate, move, stop, calculate, move and so on. That means, he said, that now, K10s can make real-time navigation decisions, progress that means they can cover ground much faster than their predecessors.
A K10 mini, a one-fifth scale robot NASA's intelligent robots group has built.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)All told, explained Fong, a K10 robot is smart enough to figure out a path between point A and point B and determine which parts of the terrain it encounters it needs to skirt due to big rocks or other dangerous conditions.
In some cases, the IRG scientists will test the limits of what the K10 can do. Fong said that during trials last summer at the lunar-like Black Point Lava Flow, in Arizona, he and his team tweaked the K10s' algorithms so that the rovers would push on, despite confronting bush clusters that compute as rocks to be avoided.
"The robot says, 'Hey, it's rocks,' so we make it a lot more aggressive," said Fong.
Five football fields
One reason the K10s are so important to NASA is that they feature 3D laser scanners capable of surveying as much as 500 yards ahead and identifying and analyzing objects as small as pencil erasers. Similarly, the rovers carry downward pointing cameras that take very high-resolution pictures every few feet, images that can then be used to help the mission planners decide where and how to explore in the future.
Back in a lab at Ames, Fong reached into a large suitcase and pulled out what he called a K10 mini (see video below). This is a one-fifth size model rover that is an experiment to see what's possible on a much smaller scale.
The idea behind the mini rover, Fong said, was to try to understand what's possible with a robot that small. And while it's only the size of a small dog, he explained that its basic software was the same as its larger cousins, and was actually built up around the smallest Thinkpad laptop the IRG scientists could find.
And now, the IRG team is looking toward what's next for the K10s. And that, said Fong, is to determine how best to marry the rovers with human teams so that they can be used to support explorers instead of being autonomous. The Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers were built to do everything on their own, the K10s can be employed for wide ranges of tasks that aren't efficient or productive for the folks in space suits. And not only that, but because the K10s can be mounted on the lunar exploration vehicles NASA expects to send its personnel around on the moon in, they can be used for research, surveying and exploration wherever the astronauts go.
But at the same time, NASA knows they have a great deal of utility as autonomous explorers, and on the moon, which is within reasonable striking distance of the Earth, there's even less risk involved than there would be on Mars with putting the K10s through rigorous paces since, even if one got damaged, the next manned lunar mission could come and fix them.
Of course, if you're part of the IRG team, or you're an astronaut trained in operating, or working with, a rover, you probably have a lot of confidence about what the robot's limits are. Why else would anyone trust you with such an expensive toy?
For me, however, clutching that joystick back at Ames, trying to get my K10 to go right, or hop over that little rock, every wrong move seems like potential catastrophe. I think it's going to be a while before anyone lets me play with one of those thing without having a guy watching every move I make with it, ready to push his big red button to keep me from sending it sprawling and costing taxpayers a Mercedes' worth of cash. And I'm OK with that.
This is where the odometer on the Audi Q7 TDI clean diesel SUV hit 4,000 miles. I was driving alongside Saint Mary Lake, in Montana's incredible Glacier National Park.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, Mont.--I'm kind of awestruck. For four years I've been doing CNET Road Trip projects, and every time I've hit a new thousand-mile milestone, I've stopped, photographed the odometer and the surroundings, and then blogged about the spot.
In almost every case, that new set of zeroes on the odometer has come at some nondescript location. There have been a couple cases where it happened near something incredible, but I'll be honest: I've cheated a little bit and, say, driven back and forth across a parking lot to have the milestone happen when I was parked in front of a world-class view of the Grand Coulee Dam on Road Trip 2006.
The odometer rolls over to 0.0 miles, which in this case means the trip is now 4,000 miles old.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)But two times in a row now, at 3,000 miles on Road Trip 2009 and now, at 4,000 miles, I've hit the new thousand-mile mark legitimately in front of something outstanding.
A thousand miles ago it was Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. And now, the magic moment happened as I was tooling down the east side of Glacier National Park's famous Going-to-the-Sun Road alongside the incredible Saint Mary Lake. To be sure, I had to stop in the middle of the road--safely, of course--to take a couple of pictures. But it was truly the spot.
It's been a great six days since I hit 3,000 miles--and like at 2,000 miles, the odometer on the Q7 for some reason reset again to 0.0 miles instead of marking 2000.0.
What did I do in that time?
I went to Boise, Idaho, where I got a demonstration of some really cool digital projection technology from Micron that could some day be embedded in smartphones, and where I visited the World Center of Birds of Prey (a story on that will come later).
I also resolved five years of disappointment at not making it to a large grouping of hot springs in Idaho by going to some of them. I had a long, interesting visit to the U.S. Forest Service's Missoula, Mont.-based Smokejumpers center and the associated FireLab research center. And finally, I took a wonderful drive through a mysterious, foggy Glacier National Park.
And now it's on to 5,000 miles. As I've said many times before, I wonder where I'll be.
For the next two weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
What is this yellow sphere? Tell me and you could win a nice giveaway.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)ARCO, Idaho--Every day on Road Trip 2009, I'm seeing eye-catching things I've never seen before. And every day, I'm seeing things that I'm familiar with that still manage to make me smile, or laugh, or shake my head.
And so, as you might guess--or have seen if you've read any of the stories I've written or photo galleries I've posted during the last two and a half weeks--I've been taking a whole lot of pictures. Nearly 4,000, so far, in fact.
From now until Road Trip is over, I will do my very best to post a daily photo and ask a question about it. If you're the first person to answer the question correctly, or provide the information I'm looking for, then I'll offer you a nice gift in return.
For Wednesday, I want to know what this yellow sphere is. Walking through this tiny town near the Craters of the Moon, I saw two of them on a back street. I have a theory on what they might be, but I thought it would be fun to hear your ideas. After all, when I posted a photo of an extremely cool, steampunk-looking object from Utah two years ago, I got plenty of answers, including many that were spot on.
So, e-mail me at daniel--dot--terdiman--at--cnet--dot--com and let's hear your ideas on what this is. And then please stay tuned for the Road Trip picture of the day throughout the rest of the project.
For the next several weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif.--If you're in the planning stages of sending people back to the moon, as NASA is, you'd better know as much as possible about it.
That's one of the reasons NASA launched, in late 2007, the Lunar Science Institute (LSI), an organization with an annual budget of $10 million for the study and research of the moon, as well as the role of supporting and inspiring new generations of lunar scientists.
According to Greg Schmidt, LSI's deputy director, it is a "virtual" institute with a staff of just eight or nine people at any given moment. LSI is focused on collecting and sharing Web data and communications, chiefly among the scientists doing research on behalf of the institute, and who work in teams around and outside the country that are competitively selected.
This robot, called K-10, is part of the Lunar Science Institute, and NASA's, efforts to research the conditions that lunar rovers will encounter on the moon. Here, it traverses the Arizona desert.
(Credit: NASA)While lunar science has been around for more than 40 years as a formal discipline, LSI is focusing on a different set of problems than the researchers were in the 1960s. Yet, the institute also benefits from the work done decades ago. "We have a tremendous amount of data that we can pull together to answer the questions our scientists have," Schmidt said.
LSI is built around studying three main areas. The first is looking at the lunar science of the moon itself: the hard rock geology or the moon; lunar minerology and researching the moon as a planetary object, Schmidt explained. The second is studying the science on the moon, science that involves human exploration. And the last is science from the moon, which Schmidt said means thinking of the moon as an observational platform.
To Schmidt, that is one of the most exciting scientific areas imaginable. And part of that involves a proposal from one of LSI's principle investigators, University of Colorado astrophysicist Jack Burns, who is interested in putting a radio telescope on the far side of the moon.
"The far side of the moon is the quietest radio area in the inner solar system, and would make a perfect place for such a telescope, a very long wave telescope," Schmidt said. "We can peer further into the universe's history than with anything else if we had such a telescope. And I'm very confident that there's at least one Nobel Prize in this work. Totally confident."
He acknowledged that it will be years before any such telescope is put in place. After all, it will take a huge amount of research into the most efficient and cost-effective methods of undertaking such a project.
"I just can't wait until we do that," he said. "But, man, what an interesting question for humanity to be able to answer something like that."
Encouraging the next generation
One problem facing the lunar science community, Schmidt argued, is that the scientists who have been prominent in the field are aging. And that means that in order to keep the field fresh and growing, new blood has to be brought in.
With that in mind, another part of LSI's mission is to help find and encourage young people to join the field. LSI hosts an annual lunar science conference, timed to the anniversary of Apollo 11's landing on the moon, and it happens that this summer's edition of the conference will go on just as we reach the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's pioneering July 1969 trip to the moon.
Last year, he said, one of the best parts of the conference was seeing the innovative ideas that current lunar science graduate students are coming up with and nurturing those students and their ideas.
And while LSI is primarily a NASA organization, it couldn't achieve its goals without partnerships with research teams in many other countries. Among them are teams that are deeply involved with lunar research in India, China, and Japan, as well as England, where there are 14 different different academic and industry members, Schmidt said.
"We're getting the best lunar science from the UK as part of the Lunar Science Institute," he added. "And they have an equal seat at the table as our principal investigators."
At next month's LSI conference, meanwhile, the researchers will finally get a chance to see the first data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as from the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which NASA plans to launch next week.
"Both of those together are just incredibly exciting, so...we're hoping to get the first mission results from LRO," he said. "We won't see a lot yet, but there is a lot of data that is going to be collected, in multiple wavelengths with LRO...What we're expecting to see in July are the first images from the LRO camera. And so, that I think is exciting in itself. These are going to be the highest-resolution images that have been taken since the Apollo era."
Schmidt explained that one of the most exciting elements of this project is that the lunar researchers have a chance, for the first, time, to compare high-res images taken today by the LRO to the images taken more than 40 years ago by the Lunar Orbiter, and which have recently been reconstructed at NASA.
"Our idea is taking those (older images) and comparing those to the LRO pictures that are going to be taken and seeing what we find that has changed," Schmidt said. "And we expect to find quite a lot. The moon, it's not a static body. I like to think about it as our cosmic companion for 4 billion years. And so, it is what we think of as a witness plate for what has happened in the Earth's neighborhood. It records not just the early bombardment that happened in the Earth's system, but also the bombardment that's happening now."
With its $10 million annual budget, LSI is giving grants to teams throughout the United States and in other countries that are doing the next rounds of lunar research. And to Schmidt, that is crucial as the world stands ready for the next stage of lunar exploration. Within years, it is expected that we'll be visiting the moon again, and now is the time, he clearly believes, to encourage the kind of research that will best prepare us for those visits.
"I can still remember when Apollo 11 landed, and I can still feel those emotions," he said. "We want to bring (the moon) within our sphere and what (LSI is) about is bringing it within our scientific sphere...It's just really important for us to do this right now, and to bring in a new generation to do it."
On June 21, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
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