Hop David wrote:


Pat, I agree with most of this. But it seems to me research in
teleoperated robots that can endure extreme environments would be very
useful for space exploration.

As much as I like lizards and snakes, I don't want NASA spending money
on their study. But I would like to see Nasa funding research on
robotics.


I'd do it the other way around...first, decide which planet or moon you
want to go to, and its prevailing conditions in regards to gravity,
temperature, atmospheric composition and pressure. Then decide what type
of terrain you are going to traverse on that body to meet your mission
science requirements (Sandy? Rocky? Ice? Liquid?). Having determined
these requirements, then make your decisions regarding the type of
propulsion you want your rover to use (Wheels? Legs? Treads? Flying?
Floating?); and get to work on that specific type of rover vehicle for
that specific mission. Dante was designed to work in 1G and rocky
inclined terrain- the only place you would be likely to run into those
types of conditions in the solar system is on Venus; and Dante had
neither the ability to withstand the pressure or heat of that environment.
Building and testing robotic probes on Earth that operate only in
earth-like conditions is about a relevant to real space exploration
conditions as getting a Radio Shack radio-controlled truck and running
it around at the local slag heap on the grounds that you are accurately
simulating Lunar conditions...except for the gravity, temperature,
vacuum, and radiation.
Poor Dante had to string a cable out behind it as it moved, which would
severely curtail it's ability to explore space due to the difficulty of
preventing the cable from tangling as the Earth and target planet
orbited around the sun. About the only worthwhile thing I saw coming out
of the Dante project was the knowledge that Martian War Machines and
Imperial AT-AT Walkers should present little threat to humanity in the
future, as it appears that mechanical legs really suck in comparison to
wheels or treads as a means of moving a death machine around. ;-)

Pat