Ethicists Tell NASA How To Weigh Hazards Of Space Travel

> Should not there be a major redirection of effort to bring Robotics up to mark?

The thing is, any robotic capability which would be useful for space development would be useful in Earthly industries as well. I don't think the fact that technological advancement is not as rapid as we might like can be traced to a lack of attention in this area. I think it relates to the fact that these problems are much harder than they seem at first glance.

Honda is justifiably proud of a robot which can go up stairs. But we're interested in robots that we can turn to and say, "I left my glasses somewhere upstairs; can you go get them for me?" And then once we have robots that sophisticated in our homes, we'll most certainly have them in factories and mines beyond the Earth. But until we start seeing the former, we can't much count on the latter.

> Even if humans have to make a dash to Mars braving radiation along the way, it does not
> make sense to continue to irradiate themselves in the Martian environment once they reach there.

And I don't think they would have to. The plan for the moon has always been to pile about 6 feet of soil on top of our habitats. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't be doing the same for Mars habitats. People on Mars would only spend a minority of their time out walking on the surface; most of it would be spent inside the habitat.

> The Space Habs that we promote in this forum are more likely to see the light of day if there are Robots to do the job.

Although some might argue that the latter would render the former unnecessary. But I disagree. If robotics should someday be capable of independently working large-scale industrial operations in orbit, then I think the cost of building a habitat will come down so much that they'll get built just for the high-value real estate (and be profitable on that basis alone).

Regards,
Mike Combs