"Mike Combs" wrote in message
...
"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...

I know bbo hallreb isn't capable of thinking things through before he
posts, but I didn't think you'd fall into the same trap.

Thanks. Actually, I was trying to use humor to question the assertion
that automated docking is exceedingly difficult by reminding everybody
that Progress does it routinely.

Don't you know automated rendezvous and docking is hard because *NASA* has
never done it? ;-)

Seriously though, it's not a trivial problem to solve, especially when you
consider that you need to integrate it into a vehicle that was never
designed to be completely automated in this way and you need to put in abort
modes that can handle ever conceivable contingency without damaging the
shuttle or the station (i.e. no RCS firings in the right magnitude/direction
to cause something like solar array damage).

Also, why bother to automate it on a vehicle that will always be manned?
It's kind of like expecting a fighter aircraft to be able to do mid-air
refueling while the autopilot is on and the pilot is sleeping.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)