Beyond

"It’s the best collection of images from robotic missions to other worlds in our solar system. I got my start as a geologist studying Mars. I was a student intern at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory during the first Mars landing in 1976. So my heart is with the robotic exploration of the solar system as much as it is with human space flight. Even though lots of important data comes back from space probes that land on Mars, or go past Jupiter, images have always been the most compelling aspect of these missions. Michael Benson has selected and processed truly spectacular images and the publisher did a beautiful job of printing them. The sight of a giant canyon on Mars, or the icy surface of one of Saturn’s moons, or the pockmarked face of Mercury, give us the ability to transport ourselves to these alien landscapes. I’ve always felt that space exploration is a spiritual endeavour. To me, exploration is essential to who we are as human beings. We are made to make discoveries. We’ve learned so much mind-boggling stuff about the solar system in the last 50 years. I love being able to walk around knowing that when I look up at the sky, I’m really looking up into an endless universe that we’ve only begun to explore. We need both. We’ll always need the robots to go places that are too far away or too risky for humans to reach. No human has been beyond the moon, but we’ve sent our space probes way out past Neptune. In fact, one of the Voyager probes is still sending back data even though it’s escaped the solar system and is in interstellar space. Robotic probes extend our reach, by many orders of magnitude, beyond where we can send humans. Having said that, I can’t imagine that a machine will ever match a human’s ability to make discoveries. Eventually we’ll need human eyes and human hands to look for evidence of life on Mars. And there is no substitute for hearing the sound of human voices coming from places where no one has ever been. If you listen to the Apollo astronauts’ broadcasts from the moon, it was really a watershed moment – humanity getting to share this great adventure as it happened. So I have a firm belief that we’re always going to want to see what is over the next hill. In this case, the next hill might be 100 million miles away, but we will find a way to make the trip. For now, our robotic missions are astounding feats that are bringing these distant places within our reach."