"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
Listening in to the Russian side they always make sure that the progress
is capable of receiving the manual signal beforehand or they don't let it
anywhere near the iss as far as I can tell!

True.

I'd hope the same is true of Htv etc.
I imagine the Mir experiences are engrained on many folk now..

As the Mir/Progress collision showed, this isn't as ideal as being *on* the
docking craft looking out of a window. It's similar to landing a plane by
sitting in the cockpit looking out the windows versus landing a plane by
remote control. Hint: remote control is a lot harder (hardware, software,
and for the remote pilot). Having a person be (most of) your control system
is sometimes a lot easier than trying to completely automate or even
teleoperate.

An even better example might be in air refueling. The human workload there
is pretty high. You've got at least two pilots and a boom operator who all
have to be "on their toes" during the entire operation. That's a really
hard task to automate. I'm not sure if it's ever been done in an automated
or teleoperated fashion. I wonder if the USAF has experimented with in air
refueling of UAV's...

Jeff
--
"Many things that were acceptable in 1958 are no longer acceptable today.
My own standards have changed too." -- Freeman Dyson