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From: dave@quest.UUCP (David Messer)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Re: teleoperators
Message-ID: <349@quest.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Feb-86 02:48:40 EST
Article-I.D.: quest.349
Posted: Wed Feb 19 02:48:40 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Feb-86 05:21:15 EST
References: <8602080021.AA01079@s1-b.arpa>
Organization: Quest Research Inc., Burnsville, MN
Lines: 24

> You misunderstand.  I wasn't arguing that economies of scale will make
> teleoperators cheap; rather, I was arguing that they hadn't been
> developed because it hadn't been worth anyone's while to do so
> for terrestrial applications.  Also, I'm not arguing for extremely
> capable teleoperators that can fully replace humans with no loss
> of efficiency; rather, I want remote-controlled dumb manipulators
> that may not even have tactile feedback (although I'm willing to
> take any additional functionality that's feasible).

Teleoperators HAVE been developed for terestrial applications --
they are in use in various undersea operations.  So far their
capability is fairly limited although I suspect it will improve
fairly rapidly over the next decade.  They cost about $100,000
to $1,000,000 per unit, so I suspect it would be more like $50,000,000
for one to use in space.  I think the development costs would be
extreamly high however as there isn't nearly as much data on
the problems of working in space as underwater; there had been
hundreds of years of manned exploration of the sea before robot
submersables became possible.
-- 

David Messer   UUCP:  ...ihnp4!quest!dave
                      ...ihnp4!encore!vaxine!spark!14!415!sysop
               FIDO:  14/415 (SYSOP)