From: Baird McIntosh Subject: Re: INDUSTRY: NASA develops "telepresence" for exploration Date: Wed, 05 Feb 92 22:01:02 CST Organization: The Synthy EuroTechnoWack Beat, Inc. In Message-ID: daver@sunspot.ssl. berkeley.edu (David Ray) said: >>NASA DEVELOPS "TELEPRESENCE" FOR EXPLORATION >> (stuff deleted..) >> "When we begin to explore Mars, (...stuff deleted..) >[...stuff deleted... :-) ] > I have dreamed of this kind of technology for a long time, and it >sounds wonderful, but I can't understand one thing. There is such >a long delay for radio waves (or any e/m waves) to get to the moon or >Mars that I can't see how there could be any useful "feedback". >It takes over 2 seconds to the moon and back, and over 15 minutes >to Mars and back. How can a person wearing a headset be able to >steer a vehicle, or "feel" an object's texture with such a long >delay? Well, Dave, you deleted that part! :-) In the '(stuff deleted)', that article said that telepresence would be used by astronauts who were on the moon or Mars. They would sit in their (cozy, warm) moon/Mars-base and send a robot out to the remote locations to gather data which would be transmitted back *to the base* giving them ... telepresence! The article did not say that persons on earth would be controlling the robots. (As you point out, there would be too big of a delay.) | Baird McIntosh | c503719@umcvmb.missouri.edu <-or-> c503719@umcvmb.bitnet | | "If we could get the *recession* to invade and annex a country in the | | Middle East, President Bush would know what to do." |