Dr. James Head is a planetary scientist from Brown University. He specialized in geology in his education, and began studying lunar geology as well as exploring other planets when the Apollo program began.
Questions & Answers
Q: How are UAVs useful in your career?
A: Of course, we would all like to go to these planets ourselves, but unfortunately only a few people go, and I was lucky to be associated with those programs and work with the astronauts who went to the moon. But, we use remote sensing data. We explore every possible way we can to get data remotely. I spent a lot of time in Antarctica studying volcanoes and things like that. So, I have always been interested in things where we can gather additional information and optimize our return by going to a variety of different places, by trying several approaches to remote sensing. My interest in UAVs obviously stems from that. They are a platform that is incredibly cheap, in a lot of ways, and very versatile- it can do tons of different things with sensing and so on. As a geologist, it gives you eyes in places you couldn’t otherwise go. So, UAVs have been a very strong interest to me for my own fieldwork and research on other planets.
Q: If you were to improve current UAV models to help with your remote sensing technology, what would you add or remove from current models?
A: One of the key things about UAVs is scientific capability- so the more you can carry on a UAV, the more you can understand. Instruments weigh pounds or kilos, so you need to be able to make some choices. The more you can miniaturize the instruments, the more you can manage to carry on a UAV, the better off you are. And the more instantaneous kind of analyses you can do- if you can devise remote sensing technologies that allow you to, on-the-spot, detect certain kinds of minerals by sorting through massive amounts of spectra through good on-board processing, that would be pretty awesome.
Q: You just mentioned that you would love to have miniaturized remote sensing technologies on a UAV. How do you feel about using biology, or cells, for that purpose?
A: Well, I think using biology is a really critically important thing to do. There are a lot of capabilities here- not only their detection or their modification, but also trying to develop ways in which you could take things to other planetary bodies without a mass deficit. One of the big problems with planetary science is the payload of vehicles, or the upmass as it is called. You really want to minimize that but optimize the science, so if there’s anything you can that builds these capabilities when you get there, that’s just great. Synthetic biology and anything you can do in that arena- that’s just gold.
Q: What do you think are some of the benefits and dangers associated with using synthetic biology on UAVs?
A: I think obviously synthetic biology has both benefits and dangers. The thing that is most important to me is that it represents an unbelievable capability to take advantage of nature, as we know it today to benefit humans.
Read the Other Interviews
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