🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov2.114928.29132@aio.jsc.nasa.gov>, mike@drseus.jsc.nasa.gov (mike) writes:
|> 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.

|> 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.

What kind of snags can be foreseen? Can a robot launched now meet and
work with a robot launched a bit earlier? Can we demonstrate that some 
pie in the sky can be built? Arms and eyes on rockets slinging
snap-together parts? I thought this would be commonplace stuff by now.

|> 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.

Gimme a few hours worth of money (n x 55000) and some rockets and I bet
I can whip up robots that'll put together a space station. I wouldn't
care if the robots didn't last or anything. I wouldn't have spent a whole
lot of cash and I'd have some knowledge to show for it. All I need is a bit of
time, and a bit of knowledge about getting a piece of machinery to work
in space, and I can build something that can Move. I can cut costs by
not worrying about paperwork and all that. I can follow standard procedure
to avoid colliding with satellites and such stuff. Don't those people at NASA
have skunkworks?

Henry Choy
choy@cs.usask.ca