What it means to send humans to space in age of AI
Aloke Kumar
Duvvuri Subrahmanyam
In folktales and films, the 'village elder' stands as a symbol of accumulated wisdom — a living archive of generations past. In today's digital village, that role is played by artificial intelligence. Think of ChatGPT, trained on terabytes of human knowledge. That a terabyte hard drive can hold around a million books means AI knows more than its human creators.
Many now treat AI as a modern oracle, consulted not just for homework and business decisions, but for matters of life and death. A McKinsey report warns that AI could displace 400 million to 800 million jobs by 2030. But can AI take the place of humans in space?
Human spaceflight
is complex and expensive. Crewed missions require human-rated spacecraft, radiation protection, psychological support systems, life-sustaining habitats, and a return strategy. Unlike robotic missions, where a failed landing is often a footnote, failure of a human mission makes global headlines and stirs public anguish. Why not leave it to the machines?
We've not gone beyond the Moon's orbit, and a human voyage to even the nearest star system remains a dream. The lack of human experience in deep space means there's little real-world data for AI systems to learn from. AI thrives on data — millions of examples, patterns, and past outcomes. How do you train AI to handle the unknowns of Mars when no human has been there?
This is where astronauts come in. Human beings possess an unrivalled ability to interact with unfamiliar environments, improvise, and ask the right questions. Onboard the
International Space Station
, astronauts have run intricate experiments, pushed the frontiers of material science, and pioneered 3D printing of human organs. These discoveries were the result of human intuition, curiosity, and working in a strange environment.
Ideas once considered science fiction — like space factories — are entering the realm of practical planning. ISS has proven that when we engage directly with the cosmos, we not only gather data, but also get insights the smartest algorithms cannot predict.
Human presence in space
is not a quaint throwback — it's a necessary step forward. For AI to assist us beyond Earth, it will first need a training set rich in human experiences among the stars. That database doesn't yet exist. Until it does, the job of the astronaut remains safe. So, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla's mission to the International Space Station is a small, but important, start for a grander exciting road that lies ahead for the Indian human space programme.
(Kumar is associate professor of mechanical engineering at IISc, Bengaluru; Subrahmanyam is associate professor of aerospace engineering at IISc)
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