Nathan Howard with InfoPack & Boudreaux

Hanksville, Utah - Geologists, computer scientists, robotics engineers, and communications experts trekked into the desert near Hanksville, Utah, the first two weeks in April. Their goal is to develop a futuristic computer system for supporting the human exploration of Mars. Using the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) as a technology development retreat, the team of over 20 people came from three NASA centers and two universities. MDRS is one of a series of human Mars mission simulation platforms currently operated by The Mars Society (U.S.) in Mars-like environments around the globe.

The 16th Crew in the MDRS tested technology funded by NASA's Computing, Information, and Communication Technologies (CICT) Program in the "Intelligent Systems" area. Two Geology graduate students from SUNY Buffalo (Abigail Semple and Brent Garry) served as the astronauts in field science simulations. They tested a voice- operated system that monitored their health, tracked their locations and helped keep them on schedule -- all while listening and recording their observations.

Dr. William J. Clancey, the Chief Scientist for Human-Centered Computing at NASA-Ames and the project's principal investigator, served as commander for this MDRS rotation. Bill said, "We call the project 'Mobile Agents' because the computers on all-terrain vehicles and the astronauts' backpacks are moving. The people and robot have 'agents,' which are computer programs that monitor what is happening, share information over the wireless network, and provide warnings in the astronauts' headphones and over the MDRS loudspeakers."

Abby, Maarten & Brent after a successful test

The Mobile Agents project is a collaboration between many groups. Three groups at NASA-Ames are: Brahms (responsible for programming the agent system, led by Dr. Maarten Sierhuis), MEX (the Mars Exploration system, a wireless framework for tying everything together, led by Rick Alena), and RIALIST (the voice system, led by John Dowding). The Exploration Robotic Assistant (ERA) is led by Jeffrey Graham at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Biosensor research is led by Sekou Crawford, a doctoral student at the Stanford-NASA Biocomputation Center. In addition, NASA-Glenn Research Center researchers provided high-bandwidth internet communications for the MDRS site (using a Space Network Emulator that is capable of realistic interplanetary delay, funded in part by the NASA Research and Education Network [NREN] program at Ames).

In simple terms, the vision of this team is to automate the CapCom role from Apollo, the person who kept up a continuous conversation with the astronauts as they walked and drove on the moon. Some kind of automated support is important because of the time delay to Earth and the high workload of the small crew on Mars. A computer system cannot replace CapCom, but analysis of the Apollo traverses showed the Mobile Agents team that many of the telemetry and routine communications can be automated.

Bill Clancey said, "During Apollo, the astronauts asked navigation questions like, 'Is this Victor crater?' and scheduling questions like, `Do we have time to detour over to Camelot?' They asked for help using their tools -- 'Which film magazine should I use?' and they provided a continuous narration about their samples -- 'Bag 510 contains the orange soil.' Using the Global Positioning System, wireless data communications (telemetry), computer models, and voice commanding software, many of these conversations can be eliminated or handled by a computer. Indeed, for Mobile Agents ten networked computers worked together wirelessly over several kilometers of the Utah desert.

Local students pose with Boudreaux & Kim.

To simulate the communications with Earth, the EVA data (including photographs and voice-recorded commentary) and alerts were emailed automatically from the field EVA site, over 5 km from MDRS, to Dr. Kelly Snook, a space scientist at JSC, and to the Northern California Mars Society support team. They attempted to follow and reconstruct EVA events. Clancey's vision is to develop an agent-based system that will automatically write the first draft of EVA reports. "We are convinced that something like this will be essential for a successful future human Mars mission," said Bill Clancey.

A highlight of the rotation was a visit by 40 school children from nearby Hanksville and Caineville. Greeted as future martians, they enthusiastically toured the MDRS facilities for over two hours to learn how they might live and work on Mars.

A full report of Rotation 16's experiences and the Mobile Agents system and all other MDRS activities will be presented at the International Mars Society Conference in Eugene, Oregon, August 14-17.