You can't reduce the time-lag as such, limited by speed of light (short of discovering faster than light communication methods).
However, actually we have a time lag at present for Mars of 24 hours, not just a few minutes. That's because it's not easy to get a signal from Mars surface to Earth. You can relay it via the satellites in orbit around Mars - but they also have their own science missions to do.
So typically the science team will download the data for the previous day - and then use that to plan operations for the next day. It would make almost no difference to them if the rover was on Pluto instead of Mars. That's the main reason it took ten years for Opportunity to explore the same distance the Russian Lunakhod explored on the Moon in a few months.
If we had satellites in orbit around Mars designed to work only as communication relays with Earth - that would hugely speed up operations on Mars. And even more so if we had a broadband connection, perhaps using lasers.
Then we can also use the idea of "artificial real time" from computer games, to control them almost as easily as a rover on the Moon (say).
The idea is to make a virtual model of the Mars landscape on your computer on Earth - and update that model as you get new information from Mars. Then you can drive your rover in real time within that virtual model - and sync the data with Mars so that the Mars rover drives around the Mars landscape at the same speed - but delayed by a few minutes.
The disadvantage of course is that if something anomalous happens on Mars, then it will be several minutes before you realize that your model on Earth is out of sync with Mars. But if you have a good model - and clear indications in your virtual world of any uncertainties - then you can deal with those issues.
You might then be able to explore Mars in such a seamless way that you hardly notice that your rover is in actuality many light minutes away from you.
Then, if you explore some particularly interesting area of Mars in detail, then soon you will have a detailed model of most of that area, with hardly any blind spots at all.
Research is at an early stage for space exploration. But it is used already in on line computer games, to deal with internet time lags - so we can draw on ideas developed there.
See:
However, actually we have a time lag at present for Mars of 24 hours, not just a few minutes. That's because it's not easy to get a signal from Mars surface to Earth. You can relay it via the satellites in orbit around Mars - but they also have their own science missions to do.
So typically the science team will download the data for the previous day - and then use that to plan operations for the next day. It would make almost no difference to them if the rover was on Pluto instead of Mars. That's the main reason it took ten years for Opportunity to explore the same distance the Russian Lunakhod explored on the Moon in a few months.
If we had satellites in orbit around Mars designed to work only as communication relays with Earth - that would hugely speed up operations on Mars. And even more so if we had a broadband connection, perhaps using lasers.
Then we can also use the idea of "artificial real time" from computer games, to control them almost as easily as a rover on the Moon (say).
The idea is to make a virtual model of the Mars landscape on your computer on Earth - and update that model as you get new information from Mars. Then you can drive your rover in real time within that virtual model - and sync the data with Mars so that the Mars rover drives around the Mars landscape at the same speed - but delayed by a few minutes.
The disadvantage of course is that if something anomalous happens on Mars, then it will be several minutes before you realize that your model on Earth is out of sync with Mars. But if you have a good model - and clear indications in your virtual world of any uncertainties - then you can deal with those issues.
You might then be able to explore Mars in such a seamless way that you hardly notice that your rover is in actuality many light minutes away from you.
Then, if you explore some particularly interesting area of Mars in detail, then soon you will have a detailed model of most of that area, with hardly any blind spots at all.
Research is at an early stage for space exploration. But it is used already in on line computer games, to deal with internet time lags - so we can draw on ideas developed there.
See:
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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