Page 287 - Concise Encyclopedia of Robotics

Robotic Space Travel
A robotic ship might be designed for combat, and built solely for the
purpose of winning battles at sea. With no humans on board, there
would be no risk to human lives. The ship would require no facilities for
people, such as sleeping quarters, food service, and medical service. The
only necessity would be to protect the robot controller from damage.
Imagine being the captain of a destroyer, and going up against another
destroyer that had no humans on board! Such an enemy would have no
fear of death and, therefore, would be extremely dangerous.
Robots are playing an increasing role in military applications, but most
experts doubt that passenger transports will ever be fully roboticized.
See also ROBOTIC SPACE TRAVEL.
ROBOTIC SPACE TRAVEL
The U.S. space program climaxed when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon
and, for the first time, a creature from Earth walked on another world.
Some people think the visitor from Earth could just as well have been,
and should have been, a robot.
Some types of spacecraft have been remotely controlled for decades.
Communications satellites use radio commands to adjust their circuits and
change their orbits. Space probes, such as the Voyager that photographed
Uranus and Neptune in the late 1980s, are controlled by radio. Satellites
and space probes are crude robots.
Space probes work like other hostile-environment machines. Robots
are used inside nuclear reactors, in dangerous mines, and in the deep sea.
All such robots operate by means of remote control. The remote-control
systems are getting more and more sophisticated as technology improves.
Almost like being there
Some people say that robots should be used to explore outer space, while
people stay safely back on Earth and work the robots by means of teleop-
eration or telepresence. A human operator can wear a special control suit
and have a robot mimic all movements. Teleoperation is the simple re-
mote-control operation of a robot. Telepresence involves remote control
with continuous feedback that gives the operator a sense of being in the
robot’s place.
Some roboticists believe that with technology called virtual reality, it
is possible to duplicate the feeling of being in a remote location, to such
an extent that the robot operator can imagine that he or she is really
there. Stereoscopic vision systems, binaural hearing, and a crude sense of
touch can be duplicated. Imagine stepping into a gossamer-thin suit,
walking into a chamber, and existing, in effect, on the Moon or Mars, free
of danger from extreme temperatures or deadly radiation.

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