In the year 1919, pilots Alcock and Brown completed the first non-stop transatlantic
flight from Canada to Ireland.
The journey took them just 16 hours, but it was anything but plain sailing.
During takeoff, the overloaded aircraft barely made it over a line of trees.
And shortly after, the onboard generator failed, causing them to lose radio contact and their
heating system.
The pilots faced even more trouble when they were suddenly surrounded by a thick layer of fog.
Since they were using the stars to navigate, they became completely lost.
And the lack of visibility caused Alcock to lose control of the aircraft, narrowly missing the sea.
One snow storm later and a minor crash landing in Ireland, the pilots made it across the Atlantic.
This major accomplishment ultimately led to the beginning of passenger air travel.
But Alcock and Brown’s incredibly rough journey showed just how essential
the role of the pilot was.
40 years later and with spaceflight just around the corner, NASA set up the X-15 program to
determine how humans and aircraft would cope with flights into space.
The X-15 was a rocket-powered aircraft, capable of reaching altitudes above 100km
and speeds of 7,000km/h
One of the main goals of the program was to explore the limitations of humans in spaceflight—find
out what humans are better at and what computers are better at.
After 9 years and 199 flights, NASA found that while a human could fly a rocket into space,
the automated system could perform the same task with much more accuracy.
Once NASA switched their attention to rockets, it was clear that the role of the human would
not be to fly the rocket, but to monitor what it was doing.
While an airplane can be flown with just a couple of pilots, a rocket takes a whole team
of people back at mission control, to constantly monitor each part of the rocket.
To this day, rocket launches are completely automated.
Take the Falcon Heavy for example.
60 seconds before launch, the rockets onboard computers take control of the flight.
And from then on, the rocket does this, all by itself!
If a rocket can do this, then why can’t an airliner fly without a pilot?
Although modern airliners have very capable autopilot systems, their main job is to reduce
the workload for the pilot and not to fly the plane.
However, this doesn’t mean it’s impossible for an aircraft to fly itself.
Back in 1947, the US Air Force performed an experimental flight from Canada to England
using a C-54 Skymaster.
With a seven-man crew onboard, the pilot taxied onto the runway, let go of the controls and
pushed a button to engage the autopilot.
The plane took off by itself, automatically adjusting its flaps and throttles and, once
airborne, retracting its landing gear.
It then flew itself across the Atlantic, following a series of sequences that had been programmed
into its “mechanical brain”.
At dawn the following day, the C-54 reach the English coast and executed a perfect landing.
This was a sample from an audiobook called "The Glass Cage" by Nicholas Carr.
It’s an audiobook that looks at the future of automation.
Exploring things like robots, self-driving cars, and digitized medicine.
This book along with many others, is available as an audiobook on Audible, so you can listen to it on the go, no matter where you are.
On top of that, you can get your first audiobook, a 30 day trial and two Audible originals all for free by visiting
Audible.com/PrimalSpace or texting Primal Space to 500 500.
With today's technology, an aircraft capable of taking off and landing all by itself is
definitely possible.
But getting a fully automated aircraft to deal with every unexpected scenario whilst
still being as safe as a pilot is way more difficult.
Not to mention that our airline infrastructure is so developed, that in order to replace
the pilot completely, each airplane would need to be able to taxi
between the gate and the runway.
All whilst communicating with every other plane at the airport.
To put it simply, if Boeing came out tomorrow with their new pilotless airliner, the FAA
would lose their minds.
Since the beginning of spaceflight, rockets have always operated under their own guidance systems.
When dealing with such high speeds and altitudes, computers are able to guide the rocket into
orbit with much more precision than a human ever could.
The advantage that automated systems provide is even more clear when we look at the landing
of the Falcon 9.
Since the rocket has a thrust to weight ratio higher than 1 during a landing, it has to
perform a “suicide burn” which involves firing the engines at the last possible second.
Turn on the engines too soon and the rocket will slow down before reaching the ground.
Turn on the engines too late and the rocket won’t be able to slow down in time.
As the rocket comes in, its onboard computers are constantly measuring its altitude and
its speed, to work out when to light the engines.
Getting the timing absolutely perfect is like trying to pause this video when the number
reaches zero.
You can’t.
Although the Falcon 9 is able to land with incredible accuracy, it relies largely on
GPS to precisely guide it to a predetermined landing spot.
This is something that won’t be possible for future missions to Mars, since there is
no current GPS system around the planet to provide pinpoint accuracy.
In 2022, SpaceX plans to send a cargo mission to Mars using their new Starship rocket.
In the future, it’s possible that SpaceX could build landing pads on the Martian surface
and operate a constellation of satellites to give Mars its own GPS.
But for the first couple of missions, Starship will need to analyze the terrain in real time
and choose a suitable landing spot all by itself.
This is one of the few situations where human input is more valuable than a computer.
During the landing of Apollo 11, the onboard computers were taking the Lunar Module towards
a field of boulders.
Since the computers were unaware of the possible danger, Neil Armstrong had to take control
of the Lunar Module and direct it towards a clear patch of ground.
For Starship landing on Mars, it could have its own artificial vision, with multiple onboard
cameras trained to avoid rough terrain and land the spacecraft on flat ground.
Another solution that many have suggested is to land a series of small transponders
near the landing site to create a localised GPS.
At least three of these would be able to communicate with Starship and accurately plot its position,
guiding it towards the landing site.
Either way, the first Starship landing on Mars will be an incredibly tense
but exciting event!