Developing the Resources of Space for Humankind
and
Robotics for Challenging Environments

Robotics Competition

Space 2002: The Eighth International Conference and Exposition on Engineering, Construction and Operations in Space, and Robotics 2002: The Fifth International Conference and Exposition on Robotics for Challenging Environments will take place in Albuquerque, New Mexico during March 17-21 of 2002. The location will be the Hilton Hotel, where most of the conference series have been held in the past.

By March of 2002, humanity will have maintained what should be a permanent presence in space for over a year. We live in a crucial time, for soon the earth's present dominant species will have exhausted all the resources we possess for making our way off our planet and into the universe. This conference series engages engineers, scientists, managers, and entrepreneurs from many nations in developing this space frontier.

As launch costs diminish, human presence in space increases, and environmental issues become steadily more critical. Human beings have been increasingly encouraged to ascend from the gravity well and make their homes elsewhere. The next decade should be a long-overdue sea change in the state of space habitation.

Space 2002 will celebrate that trend and stimulate collaboration between the many disciplines required for the change to come about. The planned agenda pays particular attention to human factors and issues related to human habitation. Although the Space series of conferences has always had material devoted to extraterrestrial basing, this time around we will have at least one extra track on human habitability issues.

The profile of human space enterprises continues to change within the public and private sectors. Many private organizations and activities are already in place working toward this commercial development. Evolution and revolution--conflicts, barriers, strategies, planning, uncertainties, risks, policies, competition, cooperation, financing, marketing, politics--are present in the chaotic and volatile space frontier. Many factors and more-recent events are defining and impacting the future of human spaceflight. The nature of these factors and events are topics for discussion at Space Roundtable '02.

Our Great Debate on the Moon versus Mars for exploration efforts was a complete success at Space 2000. We've again adopted the Great Debate format for big and controversial issues, and we'll have a new Great Debate at Space 2002. This year's topic is:

"Resolved, the most economically attractive case for in-situ resource development is (a) The Moon or (b) the (listed) Near Earth Object Asteroids: 1998 KY26: http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/~ostro/KY26/index.html"

Space is now a place to conduct business. Despite the evident downfall of the satellite phone industry, the satellite communications industry is bigger than ever. Resource surveying and the ability to establish precise locations are becoming billion dollar industries. At least a dozen large multinational companies have started efforts toward space tourism and several dozen small efforts have begun. With the advent of the Space Station the micro-gravity drug experimentation and production businesses should begin growing by leaps and bounds over the next decade. There is at least one proposed television show from space by CBS. Business in space is booming, and it has become a major topic at our conferences.

Developing the resources of space is literally one of the bright futures for humankind. The application of technologies being addressed at the Conferences isn't limited to space. We're addressing technologies with profound terrestrial implications including applications of space resources, space solar power system (SSPS) for Earth, helium3 technologies for power, and space tourism; and robotics technologies for difficult and dangerous environments of construction sites, the ocean floor, volcanoes, polar regions, and post-disaster recovery.

The Space 2002 program includes papers on general topics, such as space policy, law, multi-national missions, space environments, and specialized topics, including enhanced access to space, space stations, space tourism, bases on lunar and planetary surfaces, and materials, structures and dynamics. This series of Conferences began in 1988 with Space 88. Space 2002 topics include Access to Space, use of Resources of Space, and Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS). The 2002 Conferences provide a forum for discussion of the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, as well as Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander, not to mention Near-Earth Asteroid investigations.

Robotics 2002: Robotics for Challenging Environments is motivated by the recognition that the use of robotic, automated and teleoperated equipment in hazardous, unstructured field operations poses challenges unheard of in controlled environments. This conference brings together researchers working on robotic technologies and those seeking to apply those technologies in a variety of challenging environments.

RCE's unique blend of engineers, scientists, educators and students fosters communication between researchers who might not otherwise be aware of each other's work, so that knowledge and experience gained in one domain can be applied in another. This conference, the Fifth such conference on Robotics for Challenging Environments, brings together a diverse group of individuals involved in many different facets of the field.

From a robotics standpoint, space is just one of several challenging environments. In addition to space operations and construction, Robotics 2002 will address a variety of terrestrial applications, including robotic excavation, underwater operations, environmental re mediation, post-disaster response, and cold regions. Encompassing vision and virtual environments, operator control interfaces, and path planning and navigation, the program for Robotics 2002 is designed to bring together researchers and users to apply robotics technologies and teleoperated systems to a variety of tasks.