Notes & Queries response: Will we ever set up an outpost on another planet?

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This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 21st November, 2022.

The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site, so it is appearing here instead.

This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use.

~

Will we ever set up an outpost on another planet?


image generated by Craiyon
In July of 2020, Elizabeth Mose discovered that someone had built a house on her land.

“We're sitting on 26 acres,” she says. “I hadn't been going out of the house much on account of the COVID. Anyway I went to check the fences along the west side because we'd had some high winds blowing in from that direction. As I was getting nearer to the property boundary, I could see this solid looking block in the middle of the field, and I thought maybe someone's abandoned a trailer there.

“When I got closer, I could see that it was a scaled-down adobe building. I'd seen similar in Gulf War Two when we were out on patrol. It had a flat roof. There were these little square windows in the sides. Around the front, I guess, there was double wide opening and then a ramp that went up to a second floor. The thing that really caught my attention was the precision of the work. Every angle was pristine.

“Then nearby, I found a pit which was slightly smaller than the house, which I guess is where all the soil came from to make the bricks. Again, the pit was absolutely pristine like it had been made by a machine.

“I figured... well, I don't know what I figured exactly, but when this kind of thing happens the mind automatically jumps to bored kids. I notified the sheriff and left it at that.”

“Did you knock down the house?” I ask.

“I couldn't bring myself to do it. It seemed a shame,” she says. “It's been taken back now. Well, you know what happened. And anyway I needed the field back.”

“So what happened after?”

“What happened after? Well a few weeks later I found another house, similar to the first, but like an upgrade, in the middle of this patch of woodland. The dogs used to run around in there when we still kept dogs. By now I'm getting nervous. Don't get me wrong, the houses are nice and all, but if someone's coming on your land and doing that, you start to wonder about what else it is they might be doing.”

A few weeks later, a third house appeared.

“This one had a third storey on the corner, like an observatory that was within eyeline of my bedroom window, so I know that it went up overnight,” says Mose. “By now I'm sleeping with my gun in the room, and I was even beginning to regret my divorce.”

The following morning she received a call from a company called Donbavand Robotic Systems.

“They said: 'We think that one of our robots has been living on your property. We'd like your permission to come and pick it up.' I told them 'If that's what's been building houses all over my land then, yeah come and get it.'

“Literally an hour later, they pulled up outside the house in a pair of trucks. They had another robot with them that they were using for tracking, It looked like one of those new mobile phone masts on a pair of tank treads.

“So I left them to get on with it, then I get a knock on my door. It's one of the Donbavand people: 'We think MILES has buried itself,' he says. 'Do we have your permission to dig it up?'

“MILES turns out to be the name of the robot that has been the cause of all the trouble.

“I say 'Yeah, okay,' but I go out there with him.

“They dig down about three or four feet. At the bottom of the hole, there's this robot, looks a bit like the Mars Rover – a coffee table on off-road wheels – but with a lot of attachments folded into the bodywork.”

~

“When I was told the news that MILES had got out, I experienced a moment of blind panic,” says 'keeper' Bryn Graham. “To be honest I felt less worried the time my son wandered off at the mall. There are a couple of big highways that go right past the lab, with trucks going up and down at all hours of the day and night.

“MILES was just doing what it was programmed to do. When it finds its way obstructed, it looks for a way out. So it escaped our compound and went off to do the other thing that it is programmed to do, which is to build MILES town.

“The construction module is an epiphyte system. It's on a separate processor to the main robot, so if it's causing problems it can be jettisoned with with no impact on overall performance. It identifies and then harvests suitable elements and turns them into construction modules inside a 3D printer, that can process natural and recycled materials. It's an AI system so it's learning all the time. A version of MILES will eventually go to Mars where it will construct domiciles, initially on an experimental basis, just to see how it gets on and what works.”

MILES won't be returning Elizabeth Mose's property.

“We've relocated MILES to a disused airfield, where he is quite happy at present building houses along the runway,” says Bryn. “I actually have my office setup in one of the places he made. He's incorporated elements of buildings he saw during his time in the wild. That includes a version the Mose house. Some people might regard that as creepy but it's something we as humans do all the time. If we see something we like, we appropriate it. ”

I hope this is of help.


image generated by Craiyon



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