Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!titan!phil
From: phil@titan.rice.edu (William LeFebvre)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Unmanned shuttle capability?
Summary: NO
Message-ID: <2160@kalliope.rice.edu>
Date: 18 Nov 88 16:30:22 GMT
References: <350@igor.Rational.COM>
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Reply-To: phil@Rice.edu (William LeFebvre)
Organization: Rice University, Houston
Lines: 23

In article <350@igor.Rational.COM> dsb@Rational.COM (David S. Bakin) writes:
>A friend at work asserted that the US Shuttle lands itself with onboard
>computers doing the work, the pilot just sitting there.  Is this true?
>Can the US Shuttle be totally machine controlled from launch to landing?

Ascent is almost completely computer controlled (I would go so far as to
say that it is totally computer controlled in a nominal ascent).  Landing
is completely different.  The pilot does not just sit there.  The
computers are controlling some of it and are providing quite a bit of
information in the "heads up" display, but some things are definitely
human controlled---especially the final approach, flare, and actual
landing.

>Can the US Shuttle be totally machine controlled from launch to landing?

No.  And altering it to do so (or altering it to be completely remote
controlled from the ground) would require extensive modifications.  And it
probably ain't worth it.

			William LeFebvre
			Department of Computer Science
			Rice University
			<phil@Rice.edu>