Sending robots to space is the 'first step' to bringing AI to everday life: Group Leader and Technologist at NASA JPL and Caltech - Yahoo Finance | Canada News Media
Ali Agha, Caltech Project Lead, JPL Nebula Autonomy and AI, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, talks testing Boston Dynamics’ Spot AI robot for Mars mission.
Video Transcript
– Welcome back to “Yahoo Finance Live. Deeper space exploration missions come with their own set of challenges. Not only are instruments farther away, which make the delay in reacting to certain things difficult, but tricky terrain on the Martian surface has made wheel travel less ideal, as well. And that has researchers turning the Boston Dynamics dog-like robot– you may remember that one from a lot of viral videos– SPOT, as it’s called, for potential solutions.
For more on that partnership, happy to welcome in our next guest here. Ali Agha, who has a plethora of titles here. But I’m just going to go ahead and call him group leader and roboticist at Nasa JPL. And Ali, really what you’re focusing in on here in the project you lead is kind of the autonomy around some of these robots, to maybe try and figure out some of the things on their own to make the missions easier. But talk to me about how SPOT and that side of robotics helps.
ALI AGHA: Exactly, yeah. We here work on autonomy and artificial intelligence for robotic platforms. In some sense, you can think of our work as focused on building brains for robots. And typically, these brains are agnostic to specific robotic platforms. We integrate these. We have wheeled rovers. We have legged platforms, as the one you can see from Boston Dynamics. Even drones and flying robots with applications for terrestrial settings, search and rescue, mining and so on, as well as our main goal, which is space exploration.
And among these different locomotion capabilities and different mobility systems, legged robots are one of the most promising ones because specifically for NASA, targeting exploration of Mars surface, moon surface. We don’t have roads there. It’s all rugged terrain, off-road setting.
And even on Earth, when you have no road conditions, you typically have animals with legs, right? So legs offer much more capable locomotion ability to go over rocks and different extreme environments. And that’s why we are very excited to integrate our autonomous solutions with these legged platforms to enable new kinds of missions.
– I assume, too, that the cost has maybe become a little bit more complicated here. When you’re thinking about SPOT off the shelf, I think what? It’s like $75,000 for one of those things. And then you add on what you guys are working on. So how much more does it kind of come out to you, when you retrofit or add the capabilities that you need to kind of help in these missions?
ALI AGHA: Yeah. First of all, cost is coming down very rapidly. These technologies are just at– these are the first steps in bringing these technologies to everyday life, to different types of missions. So the cost is rapidly going down and we are hoping that the legged platforms that are going to get cheaper and cheaper.
But you’re right. At the moment, a based platform would cost something like around 70k or so. And adding AI, and autonomy, and the sensing payload on top of it kind of doubles the price, roughly speaking. And that’s for terrestrial applications. Once there is really a mission to send these to Mars or the moon, there’s all plethora of new challenges to be resolved, such as making sure thermally or radiation-wise, you make these robots Mars ready or moom ready, which would be a totally different scale of cost and need there.
– I mean, all the time, these videos go viral for, I guess, stoking fears in what the autonomous robot future might look like. So there are people out there who might be watching who might be afraid of the idea of adding autonomy to that SPOT dog.
But in the tests that you guys have been running so far, what have you learned about how it can help, and how maybe some of those fears are overblown? But also, the timeline to actually get these things up there for the next mission. What’s it all look like?
ALI AGHA: Yeah, there’s always that perception about what will happen with AI growing and being more and more capable. But I think something typically being missed is it’s not growing in isolation. As it grows and gets more capable, humans are getting capable, as well. It’s kind of part of us. It’s part of the system we’re building.
And in that sense, I think we see, similar to many other technologies in the last century and decades, the benefits typically are much higher. And you might remember the event a few years ago, the Thailand boys got stuck in a cave. If there was technologies that autonomously we send robots, they exactly pinpoint, this is the location. This is what capability is needed, or how rescue people can get to the exact point to save these boys, the mission could have been much faster. We save more lives, and so on.
And similarly, in mining disasters, after natural disasters, and oil and gas industry, there’s a lot of application domains that these systems can make a very positive impact on everyday human life.
And when it comes to the second part of your question on NASA missions, of course, there’s a long road ahead. The steps we are taking here are initial steps to demonstrate that when we go to extreme environments such as caves, such as places on Mars that are really interesting science-wise, this system is able to actually autonomously get to those points without us having prior information about the environment.
But when it comes to the time to really create a mission around these, there are other considerations, such as entry descent landing. Can we land these sorts of platforms nearby those caves or destinations of interest? How do we handle radiation in places like the moon or Mars where there’s no thick atmosphere to protect from that? And similarly, how do we handle thermal variation? There’s extreme temperatures, and a hot side and a cold side.
And those are the kind of things that, down the road, after the proof of concept is finalized, need to be studied before a mission with a legged robot to Mars becomes a reality.
– Yeah, you say humanity’s progressing, as well. I don’t know. It might just be the smart people in your lab. You might be overestimating how much humanity outside of the lab has progressed here.
But when you look at Elon Musk and what he is doing at Tesla, also similarly last month introduced their own kind of concept idea of a Tesla bot, an autonomous robot, as well, which is interesting because he’s been pretty outspoken about some of those fears of a Terminator like future, as well. So I guess he’s changed his mind on that.
But when you look at the progress on autonomy and what you guys are working on to have these robots do things that, to your point, would benefit humanity, how far off is that technology from maybe the consumer space where you could go out and buy one of these on your own?
ALI AGHA: Yeah, I think, first on Elon Musk, I would say what they’re doing in SpaceX, it’s amazing in the sense that the increase in the frequency of launches from private sector, SpaceX, Blue Origin, all other companies is going to basically expedite by far the amount of technologies and opportunities that’s going to be there to colonize other planets. And that’s an amazing push there, and it’s very, very helpful for developing these sorts of technologies and expediting them.
And when it comes to benefits to humanity, I think it is– in my opinion, the next era is a robotic and AI era, where basically, the AI comes to physical systems, and embodies and tries to help people. We can see already the impact on education. You can see all sorts of different robots that kids can use to learn coding, to help with their education.
We can see slowly the entrance of robots to health care. We can see a direct impact on– in the COVID era, basically we saw the direct impact, how robots can sometimes isolate and reduce the risk to the patient, doctor, in hospitals. And search and rescue is definitely another very big application domain where, after natural disasters, there’s a clear need to send these robots to save lives or make the operations way more efficient for rescue personnel.
– And we’ve been seeing a growing number of those natural disasters here. We might need more robots out there than were expected to help on the front. But Ali Agha, group leader and roboticist at NASA JPL, appreciate you coming on here to explain it all for us, man. Have a great weekend. Exciting to see all the progress there.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
