New Directions at NASA Ames Research Center

H uman beings are quintessentially explorers and builders. From the earliest times, we have wanted to know what is out there and have built machines to take us there, or to be our guides and ambassadors. NASA has been on the forefront of this quest for decades, sending us to the moon and promising a manned mission to Mars. But many at NASA have come to realize that simple human biology will likely keep us from venturing beyond Mars in the next 50 to 100 years. Thus, to explore beyond Mars with any kind of fidelity or deep understanding, we must send robotic systems that can approximate, or even far exceed, the capabilities of human explorers. Such robotic systems and computational tools require major advances in fundamental areas of computer science research. The question is— will NASA push advances in computer science in the twenty-first century, the way it pushed advances in aerospace and aerodynamic research in the twentieth?