{"id":17192,"date":"2024-06-12T19:01:08","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T11:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/seattle-space-week-find-out-how-artificial-intelligence-is-taking-over-the-final-frontier\/"},"modified":"2024-06-12T19:01:08","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T11:01:08","slug":"seattle-space-week-find-out-how-artificial-intelligence-is-taking-over-the-final-frontier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/seattle-space-week-find-out-how-artificial-intelligence-is-taking-over-the-final-frontier\/","title":{"rendered":"Seattle Space Week: Find out how artificial intelligence is taking over the final frontier"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Robonaut 2 (at left) was one of NASA\u2019s early forays into the world of robotics and AI. (NASA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Will intelligent AI agents take on the job of capsule communicator in future missions to the moon, Mars and other space destinations?<\/p>\n

It could happen, says James Burk, the executive director of the Mars Society.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our advisers did a really deep dive on how the Apollo astronauts interacted with each other and with the CapCom back on Earth, and he came to the insight that the Apollo 17 astronauts were using CapCom almost like an AI bot \u2014 because the CapCom knew everything,\u201d Burk said during a panel discussion focusing on the intersection of artificial intelligence and space ventures.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can imagine having an AI edge device which could be like a rover following the crew around, walking around the moon or Mars,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s watching them and taking stock of how everyone\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s panel was a crossover session presented at Madrona Venture Labs by the Washington Technology Industry Association for Seattle AI Week, and by Space Northwest for Seattle Space Week. \u201cWhen you think about the kinds of megatrends of our time, two of the big ones are space and AI,\u201d said Mike Doyle, Space Northwest\u2019s president and co-founder.<\/p>\n

Putting AI into space adventures isn\u2019t exactly a new idea: The best-known sci-fi example is HAL, the AI who goes psycho in \u201c2001: A Space Odyssey.\u201d There\u2019s also the no-nonsense computer voice in the Star Trek saga, or Marvin the Paranoid Android in \u201cHitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the real world isn\u2019t science fiction. Yet.<\/p>\n

Dealing with data<\/h3>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to see a \u2018HAL\u2019 business,\u201d said Keith Rosema, a partner at Madrona Venture Labs who has previously worked at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture and the late Paul Allen\u2019s Vulcan Inc.<\/p>\n

Instead, AI is helping humans make sense of the flood of imagery and other data coming down from Earth orbit. Kelsey Doerksen, a Ph.D. student at the University of Oxford who\u2019s affiliated with JPL, said one of her jobs is to \u201cmake space scientists\u2019 life easier\u201d \u2014 specifically when it comes to doing atmospheric science.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we\u2019re trying to run physics-based models, with hundreds if not thousands of different parameters and various tweaks of how you could initialize your parameters and these physics models, it takes hours, days, weeks to run these types of models to get results out,\u201d she said. \u201cWhereas with the AI pipeline that we\u2019re building at JPL, we can do things in a matter of hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanna Steplewska, the president of Seattle-based Cognitive Space, said AI-driven software tools are making headway in the commercial space industry. For example, a search engine called Danti is optimized to sift through Earth observation data.<\/p>\n

Multiple companies \u2014 including BlackSky, which has deep roots in Seattle \u2014 employ AI to help government and commercial customers make sense out of a variety of geospatial data, ranging from satellite views to social media. Microsoft and the Allen Institute for AI have also gotten into geospatial data analysis.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The intersection of AI and commercial space ventures was Topic A for (from left) moderator Mike Doyle of Space Northwest, the Mars Society\u2019s James Burk, space researcher Kelsey Doerksen, Madrona Venture Labs\u2019 Keith Rosema and Cognitive Space CEO Hanna Steplewska. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Training for space<\/h3>\n

Steplewska\u2019s company is focused on applying AI tools to the thorny problem of tracking thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

\u201cCognitive Space has a very clear 10-year goal,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want to orchestrate a million intelligent machines across a multiplanetary system. So, everything that we\u2019re learning about how to fly constellations effectively applies to constellations of things that are on Earth, on the moon\u2019s surface, in orbit around the moon, in orbit around Mars, on Mars\u2019 surface and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

What about generative AI, which has quickly revolutionized so many tech sectors? When it comes to space operations, one of the big technical hurdles has to do with the fact that large language models really don\u2019t know that much about the final frontier. Burk recalled a test case that the Mars Society ran, in which ChatGPT was asked to design a valve for a zero-pressure, high-altitude balloon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe answer it came back with was factual \u2026 but it was totally wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Doerksen said satellite constellations could provide \u201cthe perfect use case\u201d for training better AI models and automating space operations. \u201cIf you\u2019ve had the same satellite launched in 2015, and a similar generation in 2022, you can use that historical data to train a model to still be used in the future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The AI revolution isn\u2019t just affecting space operations on Earth: The Seattle area\u2019s biggest players in AI and cloud services \u2014 Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure \u2014 are working with partners to expand edge computing to the edge of space. This year, a Seattle-area startup called Lumen Orbit came out of stealth with a plan to send hundreds of data-center satellites into orbit. The idea is to run data through AI models in space, and then downlink only the most valuable bits. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, there was a Super Bowl commercial for Salesforce recently that said something like, \u2018If AI is the Wild West, isn\u2019t big data the new gold?’\u201d Burk said. \u201cI think our approach to get ready for AI at the Mars Society, with our scientific research, is to really be thoughtful about how we\u2019re collecting data, to have standards where they don\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Power tool? Space pal? Or HAL?<\/h3>\n

In the years to come, maybe AI will just blend into the woodwork \u2014 or more accurately, the silicon and steel \u2014 of space infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will hold back from saying [that] in 10 years we\u2019ll have an AI overlord,\u201d Rosema said. \u201cIn all seriousness, I actually think this might be more boring. Right now, AI is very much in our face. And if I look at other historical technical trends \u2014 internet, mobile phones \u2014 originally, those things were all very much in our face. I hope that AI does the same thing: It just melts into the background and becomes another power tool for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

But maybe space-based AI will become more than a power tool. During NASA\u2019s uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, which circled the moon in 2022, Amazon teamed up with Lockheed Martin and Cisco to put an Alexa-type voice assistant inside the Orion capsule. During future missions to deep space, a smarter version of the assistant could keep a spacecraft\u2019s crew up to date on what\u2019s happening around them \u2014 and, in the words of an Amazon executive, provide \u201csome form of companionship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hmm \u2026 Burk\u2019s AI CapCom might not be such a flight of fancy after all. Let\u2019s just hope it doesn\u2019t end up turning into HAL.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Aphelion Aerospace CEO Miguel Ayala, Off Planet Research co-owner Melissa Rice, New Frontier Aerospace CEO Bill Bruner and Integrate CEO Jon Conafay discuss the challenges of space entrepreneurship. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other highlights from Seattle Space Week:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • Recruiting talent for space projects can be a challenge. \u201cAs a VC-backed startup competing with Google for data scientists, talent is really hard,\u201d Steplewska said. But Burk said \u201cit\u2019s been really easy for me to recruit talent, because there\u2019s a lot of tech people who are interested in space.\u201d AI projects are among the top priorities for the Mars Technology Institute that the Mars Society is setting up, potentially in the Seattle area.<\/li>\n
  • During a Monday session in Redmond, Wash., a panel of entrepreneurs weighed in on other challenges related to sustaining a startup in the aerospace industry. Bill Bruner, co-founder and CEO of New Frontier Aerospace, said he was counting on Congress to pass a bipartisan bill providing additional tax relief for research and development. \u201cThis is really an existential issue for startup companies,\u201d he said.<\/li>\n
  • Seattle Space Week continues tonight with a Space Happy Hour at the Doubletree Southcenter. The invitees include participants in this week\u2019s State of the Space Industrial Base workshop at Seattle\u2019s Museum of Flight. Check the event\u2019s registration page for additional information.<\/li>\n
  • Space Happy Hour is organizing a night at the ballpark for Thursday\u2019s game between the Seattle Mariners and the Chicago White Sox at T-Mobile Park. Check out the \u201cSpaceball\u201d webpage for ticket information.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Robonaut 2 (at left) was one of NASA\u2019s early forays into the world of robotics and AI. (NASA Photo) Will intelligent AI agents take on the job of capsule communicator in future missions to the moon, Mars and other space destinations? It could happen, says James Burk, the executive director of the Mars Society. \u201cOne […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[130,4492,4493,4484,4415,21,4327],"class_list":["post-17192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-cognitive-space","tag-madrona-venture-labs","tag-mars-society","tag-seattle-space-week","tag-space","tag-space-northwest"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}