What really fascinates me the most about our ventures to otherworlds really is the perspective of where we (as humans) have evolved from and the technological achievements that have allowed reach these goals.
The world as we know it is about 4.5 billion years old.
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/earth.html
Mankind however is a little over a million years old.
As mankind evolved, so too did his tools, his dwellings, and the other necessities that were needed to aid his survival.
http://www.mts.net/~william5/history/hol.htm
What if man never acted on how to make a spear? What if man never dreamed of creating a dwelling? Granted many other animals have some basic ability to create something from nothing (i.e. nests, webs, or anthills) for mankind, there was something else that drove us beyond this ability. There seemed to be an innate desire to know more. Why is that? Why can’t we just leave well enough alone? This is what I find most interesting not only about us but also about why I’m fascinated about robots and Mars.
In the evolution of mankind, it took a little over a million years for us to reach the moon.
Robots which are significantly younger
http://www.iirobotics.com/webpages/robothistory.php
have been able to not only breach the solar system as space probes but to also visit two other planets.
first venus: http://pds-geophys.wustl.edu/venera/
then mars: APOD: 2004 January 14 - A Mars Panorama from the Spirit Rover
Why are we doing this? From what we’ve gathered thus far, we can’t really live anywhere else.
There is life on no other planet except our own but technology has allowed us to not only create life but to also use it help us learn about the world around us. Robots may not be “alive” by the strictest definition of what “alive” is defined as:
but as far as being able to interact with us, then yes, robots are as much a living thing as a cockroach is alive which can act and react to the world around it:
http://www.sony.net/Products/aibo/index.html
http://www.asahi.com/video/031218run.wvx
Now, looking to the future, how can we use robots to help us with our own issues? What man has limited ability to achieve, perhaps robots truly may be able to assist with our endeavours in eradicating cancer, finding water, food, cleaner energy, or the likes.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/07/18/space.cell.growth.ap/
If there is answer we seek to a problem, we no longer have to limit our search to our own planet, robots are the tools we can use to aid us in a challenging future of our own evolution.
However, if robots are not alive now what if they become alive in the future? What then will happen to us?
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/
Should we sit idly by or realize that the future of a new lifeform of our own creation may very well be upon us?
We can’t live anywhere else but here. The universe is open for the machine.