First image returned by Mars Pathfinder.
While perhaps unimpressive in the eyes of the visually literate public,accostumed to flashy digital special effects on televison and in the movies,these stills are profoundly significant, overcoming real space (119 millionmiles from Earth) with near real-time contiguousness. Their meaning doesnot arise from cinematic entertainment, but from the raised awareness ofthe Universe we have gained by being collectively telepresent on the Martiansurface. These pictures were not representations of science fiction scenarios,but a de facto window into another world entirely. The feeling of remotepresence was intense. "We're there!", shouted NASA mission controlpersonnel.
As with the Moon landing before, what is most remarkable about the Pathfindermission is not the technological tour de force, but the fact that millionsof people watched simultaneously the first images as they were broadcast(and soon uploaded to NASA's Web site). It took about 10 minutes for eachencoded image to arrive. It took the NASA team about 30 minutes to processthe data stream into color images. As the first color images were unveiled,again, live on CNN, approximately one hour after arrival, I was struck withthe realization that what I was seeing at that very moment, in the privacyof my home, was exactly what the surface of the fourth rock near the Sunlooked like one hour ago! Twenty one years ago Viking gave us our firstglimpses of the Red Planet. Today, through this near real-time experience,Pathfinder gave us a sense of being telepresent on Mars. While it took thespacecraft seven month to travel to Mars, the near-instantaneity -- giventhe relative distance between the planets -- of the telecommand, remoteresponse, and image-retrieval, touched us with a renewed sense of proximitybeyond the material limits of physical space.
This is the first time ever that a fully mobile and wireless telerobot(the rover Sojourner) is sent to explore another planet, a true landmarkfor telepresence and the history of the space program. The pictures of thelanding site taken by Pathfinder will be used to determine the exploratorypath of the rover Sojourner, which is 2 feet by 1.5 feet wide and 1 foottall. Once deployed, the rover will navigate the environment and negotiatethe terrain on its own, at a speed of two feet a minute. A unique kind ofhuman-machine interaction takes place in this mission. The cognitive processof a human being is remotely projected on a distant robot, which in turnhas autonomy to sense the surroundings and make decisions that are in itsbest interest (for example, to prevent an accidental fall from a cliff).
While the aesthetic dimension of this experience will go unnoticed by mostdirectly involved in the project and telespectators alike, it is preciselythis aspect of the media event I witnessed today that I find particularlysignificant. Some of the aesthetic features unique to this telepresenceevent are the relativity of space and time (seven months to get there, tenminutes to transmit a picture); the nature of the human-machine interface(combination of teleoperation and autonomy); remote space negotiation andnavigation (unpredictability of the terrain, feeling of remote presence);teleoperation (at-a-distance control of a robot); capture, transmission,reception, processing and unveiling of the images; the instantness of thepictures; the realization of all this live on television (integration betweenthe one-to-one experience of remote control with the public space of televison);and the impact of this telepresence event on the collective consciousness.All this, I suggest, has paramount aesthetic value -- aesthetic, not artistic.
The investigation of the artistic dimension of telepresence, however, isa fascinating challenge that must be met. It is clear that the aestheticdimension of this historic event introduces telepresence to the populationat large, pointing to a future when personal telepresence will be an integralpart of our daily lives. As our presence on the Red Planet increases viatelerobots, and eventualy with humans, one can easily foresee Webcams enablingus to look at the Martian surface on the Internet with the same ease andregularity as today we see the skyline of several North-American cities.Other forms of personal telepresence will be developed in the future inmany segments of society. For example, through a telerobotic hand surgerymight be performed remotely, or a document located in one city could havethe original signature of an individual in another miles away. Artists workingtoday can directly respond to an event of this magnitude by working withthe very same means employed in the fantastic exploration of outer space:telepresence, remote operation and networking. No object can rival the experientialquality of today's event.
The very first images broadcast live on CNN were hard to discern or recognizeas a landscape. In science as in art, what you can't recognize, you cognize.Awareness of the unfamiliar remote terrain, coupled with intermittent visualfeedback, guided and will continue to guide the telexploration of the dryflood channel where the spacecraft landed. As Pathfinder deploys the smallrover Sojourner on the inviting crimson terrain, it will be searching theMartian surface (and below) for signs of life, intelligent or not, presentor past. I need no further evidence, however, because today I saw, telepresentially,clear signs of intelligent life on the surface of Mars: ours.
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