Word: robotically
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...important as this news was to volcano experts and the people of Anchorage, just 80 miles from Mount Spurr, the volcano study was perhaps the least noteworthy part of the robot's mission. Despite the final slipup, which toppled Dante and left it stranded on the steep mountain slope, the 10-day trek went a long way toward proving the potential of a technology that could let humans explore a wide range of sites too hazardous to visit in person -- other volcanoes, deep caves, the barren wastes of Antarctica, the ocean floor and even the surfaces of the moon...
Dante II is the brainchild of Bares and William ("Red") Whittaker, the principal research scientist at Carnegie Mellon's robotics lab and a legend among robot designers. Whittaker helped design the machine that cleaned up the Three Mile Island reactor after its near meltdown in 1979, and he oversaw development of a system that will automatically inspect the heat-resistant tiles on NASA's space shuttles...
What makes Dante II truly revolutionary, however, is its four computers and their controlling software. Although the robot was connected by cable to a power generator and transmitter at the crater rim, which let the scientists direct it via a satellite hookup to the control room, Dante II can operate independently at times and did for nearly half the mission, negotiating its own path through the boulders...
That skill will be crucial if a Dante-like robot is sent to another world. On Mars, for example, says Lavery, contact would probably be limited to once a < day, and even then the enormous distances would result in a minimum 10-minute time lag in communications. Dante II is not quite smart enough for full autonomy, but considering that it took less than a year to design and build, it is remarkably close to self-sufficient. Says Lavery: "The consensus was, if we had another four or five months, we would have had that ability...
Another barrier to sending robots to the planets is weight: every pound you launch into space is expensive. At nearly a ton, Dante II would break the bank. Whittaker is already thinking about lighter models, though. And while NASA's Lavery cautions that Dante II is still "far from any sort of flight opportunity," he acknowledges that much of the technology used aboard Dante II will probably find its way into future space missions. In fact, NASA wants to launch a robot explorer toward Mars as early as 1996. And a private company working with Carnegie Mellon scientists hopes...