🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <720692905snx@osea.demon.co.uk> andy@osea.demon.co.uk (Andrew Haveland-Robinson) writes:
>
>In article <1992Oct31.023129.9034@access.usask.ca> choy@skorpio.usask.ca (I am a terminator.) writes:
>
>>Can robots be launched to build the space station? They can work overtime.
>>
>
>Of course they could - this is just another area where Virtual Reality
>will come into its own...
>
>Virtual space travel and construction is much safer than the real thing!
>Major cock-ups needn't involve loss of life, so I think this should
>justify more VR space research...
>


The original poster asked if robots could be used to build the space station.  
The answer is yes, they could, but they won't.  The technology is too young
to be trusted yet.  Virtual Reality is not viable because of long transmission
lags (up to 7 seconds, I hear) from down to up and back.  If we designed Space
Station for robotic compatibility, AND we had a closet full of replacement
robots, the technology is there, and it would be a lot cheaper (albeit slower).
I hear it takes $55000/hour of support to have an astronaut in a spacesuit.
Much cheaper to have some guy on the ground coaxing a robot through a series
of mind-numbingly boring routines.  Then again, some of NASA's funding comes
from the romance of humans being there, not robots (IMHO).

-- 
******************************** mike@drseus.jsc.nasa.gov *****
* Michael L. Ross/C33 | Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Co.   *
* Robotics Department | 2400 Nasa Rd. 1, Houston, TX 77062    *
*(713)333-7094 voice,(713)333-7201 fax**********boring, eh?****