Social diversity

the only place i see for robots and robecs is in hazard condition
situation, such as during the creation of the station. instead of
having humans exposed to the dangers of space for long terms, they
could be inside a safe (relatively speaking) enclosure using laser
and radio to communicate with various machines in the 'hot'
environment of space. IMHO the risk factor would justify the cost.

once the station was built, there would be a few things that
precision would be a factor that would justify the cost, but for most
situation, i believe the human touch would be considered more
important (read cheaper)

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Lucio de Souza Coelho"
wrote:
> On 6/18/06, Xenophile wrote:
> (...)
> > Generally, machines are put in because they are CHEAPER THAN
PEOPLE.
> (...)
>
> Uh... I am afraid to say that is a common and old misconception, at
> least in Robotics. I myself had that misconception until one of my
> Robotics teachers clarified things for me, ten years ago. When it
> comes to industrial robots, for instance, maintenance costs are
*very*
> expensive; you can easily spend 5,000 dollars by replacing a tiny
> component that fits in your hand. Robotic maintenance is so
expensive
> that indeed sometimes it would be cheaper to open a factory in some
> developing country and let the cheap workers there do everything
> manually.
>
> The differential of industrial robots is not cost, but rather
quality.
> They will always put bolts and wedges in the same places, doing a
far
> more precise work than a human would do. By providing products of
> superior quality they justify their costs.
>
> By the way, now that you mentioned it, cost could conceivably be
> another barrier for wide use of human-equivalent robots instead of
> humans. Qrio, which was simply a sophisticated toy, had a price tag
of