Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!agate!shelby!eos!woody
From: woody@eos.UUCP (Wayne Wood)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Divert NASA budget to robotics, human life value
Message-ID: <6939@eos.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jul 90 16:27:06 GMT
References: <2787@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> <18608@ttidca.TTI.COM> <9935@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <6488@machiavelli.ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov> <1990Jul18.012037.13842@cs.umn.edu>
Reply-To: woody@eos.UUCP (Wayne Wood)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Calif.
Lines: 20

In article <1990Jul18.012037.13842@cs.umn.edu> irani@cs.umn.edu (Erach Irani) writes:
>One reason for using robots in space (or any environment hazardous to
>people) is the value of human life as oppossed to the cost of man-made
>things.  Consider the Challenger space shuttle accident versus the Hubble
>Telescope accident.  Human life is valued far far more highly than the
>cost of material things lost.
>  
these two incidents are not of the same order.  we haven't "lost" the
Humble Space Trashcan... it just isn't operating at this time.

second... does anybody out there have an *operational* robot that can
be sent up on (say) the next mission?

No?  i thought not....


/***   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 ******/