Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!AI.AI.MIT.EDU!MINSKY
From: MINSKY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: 1992 moon base - Teleoperation
Message-ID: <553934.890311.MINSKY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: 11 Mar 89 14:40:57 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 44

I agree with Paul Dietz about this: 
	I don't think this proves anything, except that a 5-second
	delay means you cannot operate a Go-Kart at normal speed.
	Need I remind you that teleoperation of a lunar rover was
	accomplished years ago by the Soviets?

I met one of the Lunakhod drivers many years ago and he said it was
fun to drive.  Why are people so skeptical of telepresence when
successful control of systems involving delay are all around us?  I
think it is because of the myth that the mind makes direct contact
with the world through the body. Bad metaphysics makes bad
engineering.  Instead, one should consider a more realistic model of
how we interact with the world:

	The human sensory-processing-motor loop takes about T= 1/6 second.
	Therefore, with delay D, we can work at speed T/(D+T).

So, with 1 second delay, you should be able to work at 1/7 real time.

For an orbiting space station, with good communication, the delay
could be held to 2/3 second using geo relays, or to 1/6 second using a
chain of earth-based or LEO relays - so we could operate between 1/2
and 1/5 real time speeds.  There might be some special difficulties at
the 1/2 speed rate.  But I have seen no evidence that there are
difficulties at slower rates.

Such delays should be very tolerable, because the power and weight
requirements for a telerobot should be, I estimate, over 200 times
smaller than for a human.  If we also recognize that a person can work
attentively less than 1/4 time (6 hours/day), we have a payload gain
of over 800.  So, even with a slowdown of order 8, telepresence gains
us a productivity advantage of 100 per unit mass in orbit!
Accordingly, I believe that a telepresence-based space laboratory
could do the same or better at a much lower cost.  "Remotely-manned"
is better than either "manned" or "automated".

The telepresence equipment could surely be developed in 4 or 5 years,
because the engineering is not especially hard.  NASA should have done
it already, but it is never too late to start.

P.S	I propose the verb to "teep", for operating things by remote control.
	Teeping is fun and safe.	

	Marvin Minsky