Ethicists Tell NASA How To Weigh Hazards Of Space Travel

On Apr 3, 2014, at 11:34 PM, Joe Strout wrote:

> Nah. I'm a huge fan of robotics (I run the blog http://botscene.net),
> but when it comes to space, we need people. The more people, the
> better. Robots are counterproductive to the real goal, which is to get
> humanity (mostly) off the planet.

For space settlement, robots, machines, and people are all part of the system. Take any out and you are either toast or it isnt settlement.

For example, consider a rotating space settlement. Suppose you need to do some repairs on the exterior. It is rotating to provide 1g on the interior, which means a bit over 1g on the exterior trying to throw you out into the cosmos. This is a fantastically dangerous place to work. I.e., its a robots job.

There are plenty of other examples.
joe@strout.net
> wrote:
Nah. I'm a huge fan of robotics (I run the blog

http://botscene.net
),

but when it comes to space, we need people. The more people, the

better. Robots are counterproductive to the real goal, which is to get

humanity (mostly) off the planet.
For space settlement, robots, machines, and people are all part of the system. Take any out and you are either toast or it isnt settlement.
For example, consider a rotating space settlement. Suppose you need to do some repairs on the exterior. It is rotating to provide 1g on the interior, which means a bit over 1g on the exterior trying to throw you out into the cosmos. This is a fantastically dangerous place to work. I.e., its a robots job.
There are plenty of other examples.