Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!deimos.cis.ksu.edu!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!unmvax!intvax!loucks
From: loucks@intvax.UUCP (Cliff Loucks)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Divert NASA budget to robotics
Message-ID: <3581@intvax.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jul 90 16:45:14 GMT
References: <10518@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Sandia National Labs, Org. 1411, Albq, NM
Lines: 34

From article <10518@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, by davidra@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (David Rabson):
                                            If you feel as I do, I urge
> you to call
> 
> 		800-677-7796
> 
> for a ``proposal kit,'' and to let RAND and NASA know that we would prefer to
> substitute an unmanned mission.

Since I work in robotics I would certainly like to see more sources
of funding.  NASA does already fund significant robotics work at
various places; we are currently looking into NASA funding to apply
our model-based vision and force controlled robot systems to the
production of the combustion chamber of the shuttle main engines
(through Rockwell Rocketdyne).

But, I would still support a manned mission to Mars if, for no other
reason, it provided inspiration to all those American children to
pursue science and engineering in school.  We've got to quit
loosing ground to the rest of the world in the area of education and
I think part of the problem is that children don't have the
motivation to want to get into science.  A glamorous project like
a significant manned space mission could help with that motivation.

It's certainly true that the funding required for a manned mission
would hurt other fields of science; but I feel that at a global
level the inspirational benefits might outweigh the detriment to the
other fields of science.

-- 
A society is not civilized until it domesticates the icecube.

Cliff Loucks  <=>  loucks@intvax.UUCP
Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, New Mexico