Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!amelia!eos!woody
From: woody@eos.UUCP (Wayne Wood)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Divert NASA budget to robotics
Message-ID: <6907@eos.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jul 90 18:48:39 GMT
References: <10518@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <9855@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: woody@eos.UUCP (Wayne Wood)
Distribution: comp
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Calif.
Lines: 32

In article <9855@pt.cs.cmu.edu> gerry@cive.ri.cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) writes:
>Finally a post I can agree with 100%!!!
>Who needs man in space?  The cost is astronomical (pun intended)
>and the return minimal.  Man's greatest advantage over most robots
>is his highly advanced manipulative skills coupled with a wizbang
>computer.  In a space suit, the manipulative ability is all but lost.
>There will certainly (I hope) be a time when establishing a permanent
>manned presence in space is called for, but now is not the time.

this is foolishness...

*WE* need men in space.   Mankind cannot stay on this planet and hope to
survive forever.  We are already starting to feel the population pressures
and also the economic pressures from the constant drain on non-renewable
resources.

Granted, there are many things a robot can do which man is not necessarily
needed for.  The deep-space probes we have been sending up over the
past few years are prime examples, as are the planetary probes.  But only
man can colonize.

One might well have asked if the was a need for a permanent human presence on
the high seas in the 15th century (and earlier).  That frontier was every
bit as alien and hostile as the one we currently are exploring.

You say there may someday be a need for a manned presence in space, but not
now.  I say, if not now, when?

/***   woody   ****************************************************************
*** ...tongue tied and twisted, just an earth bound misfit, I...            ***
*** -- David Gilmour, Pink Floyd                                            ***
****** woody@eos.arc.nasa.gov *** my opinions, like my mind, are my own ******/