Word: robots
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...delayed shuttle Discovery lifted off at 6:23 p.m. EDT, with six NASA astronauts aboard. Among the highlights of the nine-day mission: the first untethered space walk in 10 years (using a $7 million, James Bond-style jet pack) and the first U.S. robot to fly in space...
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...
...slipup mars a robot's successful visit into a volcano...