The Agency of Human-Robotic Lunatics

IAF Human Spaceflight Symposium (B3) Global Technical Sessions (9,GST,2)

Sarah Jane Pell

Imagination is our window into the future. Led by each generation of artists and scientists, it is through their explorations and inventions that we push towards the edges of possibility. Aerospace developments are no exception and like other areas of human endeavour we are witnessing the increased use of robots as the technological tools for humans to make our visions of the future a reality. Remembering that you can architect the future, what lunatic ideas can we conceive, believe and achieve? Presenting The Agency of Human-Robotic Lunatics a live keynote performance set underwater and on the Moon. QUT commissioned the collaboration between artist-astronaut Sarah Jane Pell and Jaymis Loveday [Cinema Swarm] and Charles Henden [Visitor Vision]. The Agency of Human-Robotic Lunatics premiered at Robotronica 2017. We saw the artist-astronaut’s live performance blend with VR mapping of historical lunar orbital reconnaissance imaging data, and augmented reality artefacts from a real spacewalk simulation underwater on earth called Project Moonwalk. Project Moonwalk develops and tests technologies and training procedures for future missions to the Moon. Through the use of an autonomous subject tracking robotic camera system, the Cinema Swarm, the artist-astronaut articulated the range of human-robotic and human-aquatic interactions unique to Project Moonwalk. Like the high-fidelity underwater simulation trails, the staging built a future survival tool kit by creating experimental scenarios where the art of the future can be enacted. It demonstrates how creativity may be leveraged in the extreme natural and technologically mediated environments of space and space simulations on earth, and examined the exchange between human and autonomous systems. The aim of examining The Agency of Human-Robotic Lunatics is to contribute to the widening of the definition of technical and cultural activities in astronautics via demonstrated excellence in arts-led research and the pursuit of advancing knowledge across academies through strategic outreach, policy and the design of new models for trans-disciplinary dialogue and technical concepts. The parallel design of human-robotic performance protocols in undersea analogue EVA simulations [Project Moonwalk] and human-cinematic robot performance staging [Robotronica] creates new research impact pathways. Outcomes support the evolution of both creative and academic rigour on human performance in extreme environments, notably underwater designs in the preparation for space, and the communication design supporting astronaut performance and the experience of extreme environment interactions, live in-situ and with augmented reality in post-mission reporting scenarios.

This paper (IAC-18,B3,9-GTS.2,15,x43398) was presented at the 69th IAC in Bremen, DE 2018. IAF Human Spaceflight Symposium (B3) Global Technical Sessions (9,GST,2).

Copyright 2018 by International Astronautical Federation. All rights reserved.

Technical recommendations to improve the Mars Desert Research Station safety, simulation and science.

29th IAA Space and Society Symposium (E5) Space Architecture: Habitats, Habitability, and Bases (1)

Sarah Jane Pell, Zac Trolley, Ryan Kobrick & Tatsuari Tomiyama

We, the Crew 188, offer technical and psychosocial system recommendations based on our experience of the Mars Desert Research Station [MDRS]. Our aim is to help realise future, sustainable programmes of space exploration, utilisation and commercial development. We offer recommendations supporting the pursuit of technical goals drawn from a broad, forward-looking view of the technologies and systems needed including technical engineering, scientific, cultural, political, and societal. A style of "Martian camping”, MDRS offered amenities to support likely Mars-planetary space activities and experience remote, isolated and extreme habitability. Under today’s operational constraints and an aging facility, the design and operation of MDRS could be much improved. For example, Crew 188 faced a hazardous propane leak in the main habitat highlighting an inadequate response or protection mechanism; below-normal mission standard provisions including reduced water, food and up-link data streams; and the cessation of crew waste removal and water delivery services. Our responses to such challenges led to these recommendations sufficiently well focused to allow tangible progression—and dramatic improvements over current MDRS capabilities—to be realised in the foreseeable future. Future Mars crews will expect to “rough it” but they will also expect the autonomy, agency and security of basic ‘luxury’ provisions to create a home-away-from-home that supports a reasonable quality of working life. The Mars Society, and other analogues, could invest a small amount, for a large return on safety, simulation and science priority goals. A robust communications array, a thorough audit of essential health and safety provisions including emergency evacuation protocols; non-toxic waste disposal, Material Safety Data Sheets and up-to-date technical Engineering Schematics of the Habitat systems designs; and the advertised rations of food and water provisions, would ensure better health management of the crew and the local environment. Ultimately the real transformational value lies in the up-take of both public and private enterprise for sufficiently advancing our human capacity for technologies and systems for supporting a higher fidelity of simulation, and operational standards, for future exploration.

This paper (IAC-18,E5,1,11,x43389) was presented at the 69th IAC in Bremen, DE 2018. 29th IAA Space and Society Symposium (E5) Space Architecture: Habitats, Habitability, and Bases (1)

Copyright ©2018 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved.

Bubbles on Mars: 360° Play and Performance on EVA.

29th IAA Space and Society Symposium (E5) Interactive Presentations (5)

Sarah Jane Pell, David G. Barnes & Floyd Mueller

This interactive presentation – including a documentary-style VR immersive experience - presents a collection of playful bubble-blowing activities by Crew 188 during EVA simulations at the Mars Desert Research Station in 2018. The aim of the immersive cinematic interactive presentation is to posit 360° play and performance systems as vital technologies and therefore fundamental enablers of future missions’ successes, worthy of significant development investment. Play as research-through-performance helps us explore, and adapt to, the new environment (serving the individual), becomes a useful mode for supporting positive crew performance, cohesion and wellbeing (serving the mission), and a technical method for inspiring passive players (on site, or on Earth) to imagine a new world (serving the crew, the mission and public). We extend this knowledge in virtual reality to analyse how human performance and play activities open new opportunities for imagination and experience of every-day yet nonetheless spellbinding phenomena such as blowing bubbles. By post-processing 360° video data and complementing it with interviews and narration, IAC audiences can experience both the MDRS analogue play and the predictive behaviours of blowing bubbles on Mars in a range of virtual reality scenarios. The authors build on Pell & Mueller’s 2016 taxonomy of performance and play in microgravity to articulate a range of reflex actions and spatio-temporal perceptions of the space-faring body and bubble interactions, and further demonstrate how to frame these changes in perceptions of space to support new discovery. The format allows us to speculate on the application of this technology across three platforms: firstly the application of play and performance for enhancing mission training and extrapolating complex science on a human-scale; secondly, the application of immersive visualisation platforms and virtual reality to contribute new knowledge on performance and interactivity in extreme environments; and thirdly to speculate on the long-range technological application for bubble-blowing on Mars including in-situ 3D manufacturing and architectural design, biomedical utilisation, gastronomy, fermentation, propulsion, and all in the spirit of “earthly” fun. These research-through-performance experiments by the artist-astronaut seek to demonstrate that playful processes in space-related environments including space analogues, simulations and microgravity conditions can be more than spontaneous novelty. Importantly, play and performance leads to innovation, invention and discovery.

This paper (IAC-18,E5,IP,5,x43382) was presented at the 69th IAC in Bremen, DE 2018. 29th IAA Space & Society Symposium (E5) Interactive Presentations (5)

Copyright ©2018 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved.

This work is part of the Performing Astronautics project assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Cosmic Sensations: Understanding Space Actors, Society and Law through Perceptions of Space.

29th IAA Space and Society Symposium (E5) Interactive Presentations (5)

Sara Langston & Sarah Jane Pell

Perception envelops both a concept of a thing and an understanding of a thing. The incomprehensible vastness of space has long rendered a multiplicity of ideas concerning space as well as spacefarers. Significantly, space itself requires engaging one’s senses to perceive, experience and communicate an interpretation of a space--whether one refers to a closed or open space, small or large space, inner space, outer space, or cyberspace. Each scenario likewise invokes both an objective and subjective interpretation of human integration within the perceived environment. How one identifies and interprets oneself or another in any of these spaces is convoluted and depends on a combination of factors. As law and governance apply to actors and activities, juridical and human perceptions and experiences are inextricably linked. Cosmic voyagers therefore raise philosophical and practical legal challenges of how to accurately develop and apply societal and governing parameters to new concepts of technologically-assisted, physical and personal experiences in space. For instance, how does one define and signify the human experience of an astronaut exploring the infinite bounds of outer space while enclosed in a confined spacecraft or even spacesuit? What are the implications of space phenomenology on developing applicable governance, best practices and norms? The same analogy may likewise apply to deep sea stations and divers. We know, for instance, that astronauts have tried to articulate the phenomena of the ‘overview effect’ and ‘orbital perspective.’ Similarly, aquanauts and divers describe the 'L'ivresse des grandees profondeurs' or 'rapture of the deep' and the turbulent state of 'aquabatics'. Each of these scenarios may invoke diverse objective and subjective values and perceptions, requiring interpretation and communication.

This presentation will utilize a multi-media digital format with interdisciplinary representations of art, language, philosophy and law to address some of the questions raised above. A short video will provide a narrative approach to frame the discussion and engage the audience through Astronaut spacewalk/ Aquanaut dive profiles. The aim of these scenarios is to 'see the essence of the phenomena' through first-person and third-person experience and trigger discussions with viewers. This platform for exchanging social perceptions of order, sensory experience and environment will assist in connecting the dots between theories, experience and law. The paper will further outline our research and resulting complexity and inter-subjectivity for human actors in space, individually and collectively, as well as note impacts on social norms and governance concerning identity form and function in space.

This paper (IAC-18,E5,IP,8,x42467) was accepted but withdrawn from the 69th IAC in Bremen, DE 2018. 29th IAA Space and Society Symposium (E5) Interactive Presentations (5)

Copyright ©2018 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved.

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