From: frerichs@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David J Frerichs)
Subject: Re: Virtual Mars
Date: 16 Jan 91 00:34:39 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana



A problem remains with the virtual exploration of Mars...

The speed of light.  No robotic exploration can be truly interactive at that
distance, the lag time makes that impossible.  telepresence sensations are
possible but they would not be in realtime in the sense that what you see
is what is happening on Mars at this instant.  Which makes the idea that
the poster of "virtual mars" introduced quite impossible. (at least my
impression of what he was saying)

But even delayed telepresence would be a good addition to any remote robotic
probe...

imagine flying over Jupiter... Saturn... Uranus seeing things as the voyagers
did or with computer enhancement.  That is something I would like to experience.

[dfRERICHS
 University of Illinois, Urbana         Designing VR systems that work...
 Dept. of Computer Engineering
 IEEE/SigGraph                          Looking for cyberspace?
 frerichs@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu              Well stop your snivelin', son,
 frerichs@well.sf.ca.us                 you've been in here all along!     ]