FSU historian available for interviews on modern space exploration

As Space Exploration Day approaches on July 20, global space agencies are advancing technologies that make discovery cheaper and safer. Still, human space exploration continues to capture the public’s imagination.

In 2018, the Pew Research Center conducted a study showing that 58% of adults feel human astronauts are essential to the future of the U.S. Space Program. The findings highlight the current dilemma faced in modern space exploration: balancing the efficient reality of robotic exploration against the cultural demand for a human presence.

Florida State University Professor of History Ronald E. Doel is a historian of science who has written about the history of planetary and space exploration. He has appeared in several media outlets, including C-SPAN, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Space.com and more.

Doel affirms that space missions involving humans invite a certain romanticism that robotics technology cannot duplicate.

“Space missions lacking human crews do not create strong memories or emotional connections, even if robotic missions have yielded much of what we now know about the Earth and other planets and moons in the solar system,” Doel said.

Robotic landers and rovers have become essential tools for collecting planetary data. But Doel argues that crewed missions offer something machines cannot fully replicate: a human perspective that helps audiences connect with unfamiliar worlds.

“Crewed missions offer audiences a different kind of understanding of foreign places – emotions and insights that are understandable in ways that scientific data is not,” Doel added. “There are times when the human eye can do better than available instruments to discern sudden, brief, discrete changes. Sketches of planetary features from the 19th century until quite recently that were done by humans using telescope eyepieces could capture more detail than photographs, since the eye could discern features that momentarily became visible in instances of remarkable atmospheric stability and stillness. Certain NASA leaders still believe humans can do science in ways that machines cannot.”

Media interested in interviewing professor Ronald E. Doel on the cultural demand for human space exploration in a world of advancing robotics may reach out to him via email at rdoel@fsu.edu.

With how much technology has advanced, sending a rover to space would likely be more efficient financially and far more risk averse. But the human element of space exploration remains so important, especially to the public. Why does sending humans to space remain so important despite the advancements we’ve made?

What do Americans know about space exploration? Ask many citizens, and they can describe and tell stories about the Apollo lunar landings and the space shuttle program. They are aware that an International Space Station is orbiting the earth with human beings on board. Older Americans can recall where they were, and how they felt, when Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in July 1969, and when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded soon after liftoff in January 1986.

But ask about exploration of our solar system by unmanned robotic spacecraft – one of the major achievements of the 20th century into our own time – and many people draw blanks. Some are aware in general terms that spacecraft have visited Venus and Mars, and that probes reached planets in the outer solar system. Yet compared to familiarity with manned space missions, few Americans are familiar with the Viking, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance landers and rovers on Mars, the Voyager mission of the 1970s and 1980s that visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, or the New Horizons exploration of Pluto in 2016. Fewer still know that a robotic lander parachuted through the thick atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon Titan in 2005, photographing mountains, branching channels and dry riverbeds.

The Space Race captured the public’s attention while taking massive physical risks during the Cold War. As robotics continues to accelerate, and possibly handle more missions that humans once did, could this ultimately dull the excitement of space exploration?

It’s certainly possible. Even the novelty of humans flying to the moon wore off after the initial lunar landings (Apollo 11 and Apollo 12). When Apollo 13 flew towards the moon in April 1970, the major television networks of the time did not broadcast the early live telecast its astronauts beamed back to Earth – going to the moon had become routine. The subsequent oxygen tank explosion that ended the planned Apollo 13 landing and threatened the lives of its three astronauts did generate intense public interest, but this was a story of a possible shipwreck unfolding in real time – not a typical space mission.

When I teach “Space: A History,” I ask my students to informally interview a grandparent (or someone a few generations earlier) to share their memories of space missions. Their reports confirm a much greater familiarity with crewed space fights compared to robotic planetary missions (although some awareness of robotic probes was evident). A familiar response my students received – on robotic explorations – was ‘I heard something about this but didn’t follow it.’