Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Minimum Shuttle Crew Size Message-ID: <1989Nov19.220340.15586@utzoo.uucp> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology References: Date: Sun, 19 Nov 89 22:03:40 GMT In article df1y+@andrew.cmu.edu (David James Foremsky) writes: >Isn't it possible to launch a shuttle with no crew? That is, allow >everything to be computer controlled... Not with the current hardware. The shuttle wasn't designed for totally unmanned operation, so although many things are under computer control, there are still a good scattering of operations that are manual only. The classic example is that the computers cannot lower the landing gear. (This is partly a safety precaution, because the gear cannot be raised once it is lowered.) As far as I know, there is no fundamental reason why completely automatic operation is impossible, but some modifications would be needed. -- A bit of tolerance is worth a | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology megabyte of flaming. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu