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- Newsgroups: sci.space
- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!concert!samba!cecil
- From: cecil@physics.unc.edu (Gerald Cecil)
- Subject: Re: With telepresence, who needs people in Earth orbit?
- Message-ID: <1992Aug21.123736.1575@samba.oit.unc.edu>
- Sender: usenet@samba.oit.unc.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: augustus.physics.unc.edu
- Organization: Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Univ. North. Carolina at Chapel Hill
- References: <1992Aug21.001004.3768@samba.oit.unc.edu> <171u2uINNfsq@agate.berkeley.edu>
- Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 12:37:36 GMT
- Lines: 32
-
- In article <171u2uINNfsq@agate.berkeley.edu> gwh@soda.berkeley.edu (George William Herbert) writes:
- >Have you talked to someone who builds or works with space robotics?
- No, I was hoping that there might be someone out there who would counteract
- hype from virtual-reality types.
-
- >When anyone suggests replacing humans in the short term, they laugh.
- >Space robotics aren't as strong, for the most part, have less degrees
- >of freedom _and_ less limbs, less end effector dexterity, and more
- >likely failure points than a man in space. They're safer, but often
- >can't do the job. (note that an astronaut in EVA can't do everything
- >either. both together are much more capable.)
- OK, fine. But the only current `job' for SSF is apparently biological
- research on the long-term effects on microgravity, which means loading
- rats into a centrifuge. I submit that that can be done with a conveyor
- belt. Sure, you need people to (dextrously) put the station together
- (or at least to install the rats in their cages), but after that its all
- BF Skinner (push the bar, get the food pellet, wait for the scalpel).
-
- >Or are you just trying to start a flamewar?
- Well, I'm certainly getting sick of some of the topics that have been
- battered to death here. We seem to be going round and round on how to
- supply SSF or get the crew away when things fall apart. I'd still like
- to see a discussion of *why*, in the present scheme of things, people are
- necessary for Earth orbit operations. Seems to me you could (in the spirit
- of many discussions in this group) free up a lot of $ (possibly some small
- fraction of which could be used to improve the dexterity of robots.) This
- is, after all, sci.space, not sci.humansinspace.waiting4Soyuz
- --
- Gerald Cecil cecil@wrath.physics.unc.edu 919-962-7169
- Physics & Astronomy, U North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3255 USA
- -- Intelligence is believing only half of what you read; brilliance is
- knowing which half. ** Be terse: each line cost the Net $10 **
-