Q1. ‘A major space faring nation must place due emphasis on manned space missions.’ In light of the above statement, critically analyse the significance of manned space missions over unmanned space missions. What are the initiatives take by India and the countries across the globe while enumerating the challenges involved in such missions? Also suggest way forward that can aid India in its manned mission activities.(15 marks, 250 words)
Topic- Space Technology:
Introduction:
Manned space mission carry astronauts to space with some docking in the International Space Station and some orbiting the earth through a space module. Only three countries in the world, namely Russia, The USA and China have launched their own crewed spacecraft. This demonstrates the challenges that are congenital to any crewed space mission. India has announced Gaganyaan as its first manned space mission, the first for any developing country across the globe having its own spin-off effects.
Body :
- Significance of manned space missions:
- Criticisms against manned space missions:
- Challenges with manned space mission:
- Way forward
Conclusion :
Manned space missions have evoked a lot of reproaches from its critics. Despite this, it is an inspirational programme for any nation owing to its socio-economic and geopolitical impacts. Numerous challenges can be resolved through indigenous, international and multi-sectoral collaboration. Systemic challenges like poor R&D and nascent private sector participation must be resolved through a long term vision to make India a major space power in the world.
UPSC Syllabus Space Technology:
Why was this question asked?
Q. India has achieved remarkable success in unmanned space missions including Chandrayaan and Mars Orbiter Mission, but has not ventured into manned space mission, both in terms of technology and logistics? Critically explain. (UPSC CSE 2016)
Introduction
Manned space mission carry astronauts to space with some docking in the International Space Station and some orbiting the earth through a space module. Only three countries in the world, namely Russia, The USA and China have launched their own crewed spacecraft. This demonstrates the challenges that are congenital to any crewed space mission. India has announced Gaganyaan as its first manned space mission, the first for any developing country across the globe having its own spin-off effects.
Body Status :
Significance of manned space missions
- Manned mission to Mars: National Aeronautics and Space Administration remarks that the long term benefits of manned space mission will help in sending a manned mission to Mars, the next most habitable planet after earth in the solar system.
- International reputation: It gives a shot in the arm for the nations at the diplomatic high table. China building Tiangong space station is a testimony to this.
- Mineral exploration: Moon and other asteroids are thought to have rare earth elements that have military, scientific and technological applications. Manned space missions will complement such exploration.
- Spin-off effects: Micro-gravity experiments like studying the growth of protein crystals and microgravity experiments covering production of semiconductors and certain pharmaceuticals would have similar products made on earth.
- Space tourism: Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have made manned sub-orbital and orbital flights to space. This make yield revenues from space enthusiasts making it a commercial venture.
Criticisms against manned space missions
- High Risk: The death of Kalpana Chawla in the Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster and other such incidents have made space faring a recipe for disaster. Micro glitches can cause mega failures forcing the scientists to caution against such ventures.
- Luxury proposition: A single flight of the space shuttle costs $450 million on an average. Using such astronomical sums to send multiple unmanned flights will yield better results comparatively.
- Health: Space radiation is associated with cancer, aging and endocrine disruptions. Astronauts make a big bet on their health while becoming part of space missions.
- Irrational: Humanoid robots like Sophia can actuate and conduct multiple experiments like humans thereby eliminating all the health and training obligations that space farers have to go through, Thus, manned space missions become irrational from this perspective.
- Space junk: The space stations and other junks that the manned space missions create pose threat to orbiting earth observation and positioning satellites. Further, the ‘Kessler Syndrome’ through which the space junk disintegrates and pollutes the space creating sea of hazardous particles rotating at escape velocity.
Challenges with manned space mission
- Research and Development: Just 0.7% of the GDP is spent by India on Research and Development versus 4% of the GDP in Israel. This may come to haunt us in the form of poor human resource base, fractured raw material supply chain and below par private sector participation.
- Indigenous rocket: The highest capacity rocket i.e. GSLV LVM 3 can carry is 10 tonnes to Low Earth Orbit. Still the GSLV’s safety record and operational efficiency is not scot free. Thus, optimizing the existing rocket technology is also one of the major hindrances to the manned mission.
- Technology Transfer: Crew training, reinjection module, space survival and crew escape systems needs technology transfer apart from years of indigenous research. On time technology transfer is a big obstacle in such manned missions.
- Funds: Just Rs. 12,000 crore is allocated to the Department of Space in this year’s budget. Manned space missions cannot be sustained at this allocation as there are projects like Shukrayaan and Mangalyaan 2 in the pipeline.
- Private Sector Participation: India’s space programme is spearheaded by the public sector with miniscule private sector participation. This hinders the investment and eking out commercial value out of an activity that may sustain such space missions in future.
Way forward
- Research and Development: India must increase its research and expenditure beyond 0.7% of GDP to at least 2% of the GDP according to global standard.
- Commercialization: ISRO can commercialize its products through the INSPACE and NSIL thereby shoring up its resource base to concentrate on core missions like interplanetary travels, etc.
- Private sector participation: Foreign Direct Investment norms have been made flexible to attract investments in launch systems, satellite development etc.
- Collaboration: Collaborations in projects like NISAR with NASA must be imitated in Launch Vehicle Development and Crew Module Development.
- Perspective plan: A long term space policy enumerating India’s space vision is the need of the hour to give clarity consequently motivating the players in the Indian space sector.
Conclusion
Manned space missions have evoked a lot of reproaches from its critics. Despite this, it is an inspirational programme for any nation owing to its socio-economic and geopolitical impacts. Numerous challenges can be resolved through indigenous, international and multi-sectoral collaboration. Systemic challenges like poor R&D and nascent private sector participation must be resolved through a long term vision to make India a major space power in the world.
Q2. Artificial Intelligence space is now being overtaken by Artificial General intelligence. In the light of the above statement, state how different it is from Artificial Intelligence. Elucidate the challenges posed by such complex systems while mentioning requisite measures to be adopted to mitigate the threats posed by them. 15 marks (250 words)
Topic- Artificial General intelligence :
Introduction
ChatGPT rolled out in 2022 marked the rollout of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that is difference from narrow Artificial Intelligence (AI) as Artificial General Intelligence can come up with human like text responses. Governments have been cautious about the challenges posed by such a system (first proposed in its crude form by Alan Turing in 1950) to regulate to to make it more ethical and safe.
Body
- Significance of Artificial General Intelligence
- Difference between AI and AGI
- Challenges posed
- Measures to be adopted to mitigate the threats
Conclusion
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as a natural succession to AI is truly a double-edged sword. With its promise of bringing revolution in social and economic spheres, it holds great relevance in countering new age challenges like law and order, climate change, cyber security etc. But its possible misuse needs a structural response which must be developed through the efforts of broad spectrum of stakeholders. Learnings from the regulation of AI can also be inculcated in devising deliberate responses.
UPSC Syllabus Artificial General intelligence:
Why was this question asked?
Q. Introduce the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How does AI help clinical diagnosis? Do you perceive any threat to privacy of the individual in the use of AI in healthcare? (UPSC Mains 2023)
Introduction:
ChatGPT rolled out in 2022 marked the rollout of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that is difference from narrow Artificial Intelligence (AI) as Artificial General Intelligence can come up with human like text responses. Governments have been cautious about the challenges posed by such a system (first proposed in its crude form by Alan Turing in 1950) to regulate to to make it more ethical and safer.
Body
Significance of Artificial General Intelligence:
- Personalized medicine: AGI can investigate hue date sets of genomes and give both populations based and individualized medicinal recommendations. Further, automated image diagnosis can predict exact diseases of lungs, heart obstructions etc.
- Business Intelligence: Market analysis and prediction of prospects of specific companies and analysis of potential market for the product of a firm can be facilitated through AGI.
- Policy making: Traffic congestion in metro cities have become a conundrum for policy makers. Historical data of vehicle movement, new vehicle registration and emission data from automobiles can be utilized in an AGI platform to make informed decisions with high level of precision.
- Crime prevention: Facial Recognition through AGI cameras can alert possible movement of suspects and hardcore criminals. This may lead to quick resolution of cases and averting judicial delay.
- Education: AGI can diagnose the weak points of students and adapt to provide customized learning materials thereby catering to the unique needs of students.
Difference between AI and AGI:
- AGI can take new independent decisions as humans do through reasoning, analysis and exhibiting emotional states while AI can perform only defined functions like text to speech, chatbots catering to canceling an order, bots prescribing a meal plan after scraping through internet etc.
- AGI is capable of self-learning through interactions, reading books and making assessments on patterns of human behavior while AI requires frequent upgradations and additional training to strengthen the data base.
- AGI requires astronomical computing power is necessary through further miniaturization of existing chipsets and an exhaustive initial training but AI requires satisfactory computing power as present in the smartphone chipsets.
- AGI is still under development with some developers questioning the safety of such systems. On the other hand, AI has been a reality with active use being promoted across all major fields.
- Examples for AGI include GitHub Copilot, image generation, code generation etc. Likewise examples for AI include Image recognition, chatbots, predictive text etc.
Challenges posed:
- The amount of computational power demanded by such systems raises environmental concerns owing to the power required to maintain the cloud infrastructure related to it.
- Since they can out do humans in most tasks, they can replace humans in a host of jobs resulting in massive unemployment.
- AGI based cyber-attacks might be impossible to resolve as they do not follow specific patterns and can use big data and block chain to explore vulnerabilities to exploit them.
- Human relationships may be replaced by AGI robots expressing superior emotional capabilities may trump the present human-human relationship structure.
- Governments short on expert human resources may find it as a regulatory nightmare with multiple stakeholders to be satisfied without affecting entrepreneurial zeal.
Measures to be adopted to mitigate the threats:
- Global partnership: Pacts like Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence and Asilomar Principles on Beneficial AI must be woven to objectively regulate the development of AGI.
- Indigenous resources base: India’s own resource base must be bolstered by intensive research and development and academia-industry collaboration in order to understand the threats and opportunities posed by AGI and work on them in an assiduous manner.
- Pilot study: Any roll out of AGI systems must be preceded by a small scale pilot study to avert any possible technological disaster.
- Cyber security: Blockchain based cyber security systems involving quantum principles needs to be developed in order to enhance cyber resilience of our critical infrastructure.
- Contingency systems: A central switch as an emergency mechanism must be mandated in order to switch off these systems if they demonstrate any anti-human behavior.
Conclusion
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as a natural succession to AI is truly a double-edged sword. With its promise of bringing revolution in social and economic spheres, it holds great relevance in countering new age challenges like law and order, climate change, cyber security etc. But its possible misuse needs a structural response which must be developed through the efforts of broad spectrum of stakeholders. Learnings from the regulation of AI can also be inculcated in devising deliberate responses.