Bigelow patent

William C. Keel wrote:
Eric Chomko wrote:

Agreed. But what PI wouldn't want to go into space? Has there EVER been
a case where a PI sent an underling in their stead rather than operate
their own equipment in space?

I know of one case where a PI gave a serious shot at flying - one of
the Astro telescopes. The PI was unusually young and healthy, as
senior instrumentalists go, and NASA would at that time
let the teams have a lot of latitude in selecting PSs, so he came
quite close - some minor health issue, maybe. Mind you, with the
instrument in vacuum out in the payload bay, it wasn't as if being on
the scene gave all that much advantage for that particular experiment
(and in fact, failure of onboard laptop machines meant that the
ground absolutely had to be in the loop for target acquisition on
their first flight). But I digress.

Are you saying Ron Parise flew for someone else? Astro was his baby as
I recall. We both worked for CSC at the same time in the past and I met
him once.

Eric


Bill Keel

Eric Chomko wrote:

William C. Keel wrote:
Eric Chomko wrote:

Agreed. But what PI wouldn't want to go into space? Has there EVER been
a case where a PI sent an underling in their stead rather than operate
their own equipment in space?

I know of one case where a PI gave a serious shot at flying - one of
the Astro telescopes. The PI was unusually young and healthy, as
senior instrumentalists go, and NASA would at that time
let the teams have a lot of latitude in selecting PSs, so he came
quite close - some minor health issue, maybe. Mind you, with the
instrument in vacuum out in the payload bay, it wasn't as if being on
the scene gave all that much advantage for that particular experiment
(and in fact, failure of onboard laptop machines meant that the
ground absolutely had to be in the loop for target acquisition on
their first flight). But I digress.

Are you saying Ron Parise flew for someone else? Astro was his baby as
I recall. We both worked for CSC at the same time in the past and I met
him once.

As part of a team, certainly. The Astro telescope PIs were
Art Code (WUPPE)
Ted Stecher (UIT)
Art Davidsen (HUT)

The science teams were fairly large and somewhat fluid groups. By Astro-2,
there was even an announcement of opportunity to formally review
proposals for additional investigators to join the teams (which
entailed a lot of work, sitting through mission sims, etc.)
to add science that the teams didn't already represent well.


Bill Keel

Eric Chomko wrote:

As are most of yours. You need to stop confusing the science fiction
you're reading with actual science of the day.

I have never made any predictions as to timescales. These are dependent
n political factors anyway. What I have done is pointed out what the
critical steps are for each technology.

On telepresence it is true that it has not been used in space. However
my claim is that this is for political rather than technical reasons.
In other fields (viz surgery) it is becoming an accepted part of
practice.

We may in a simplistic sense view telepresence as simply projecting
ourselves to LEO. There is more to it than that. The main motivation
for surgery is to achieve greater precision and speed up recovery
times.

One remarkable medical advance - surgery on a beating heart.
Classically the heart has been stopped and surgens worked against the
clock. Not any more. The operating technique is interesting. The
computer predicts the movement of the heart and the surgeon is
telepresent on a stationary heart.

I say this to indicate to you that work is going on in many fields, it
is simply that NASA has made a POLITICAL decision.


- Ian Parker

wrote:
Eric Chomko wrote:

As are most of yours. You need to stop confusing the science fiction
you're reading with actual science of the day.

I have never made any predictions as to timescales. These are dependent
n political factors anyway. What I have done is pointed out what the
critical steps are for each technology.


You made it sound as if telepresence exists as a reality today. We have
never implemented a successful mission nor even a proof-of-concept
test. In short, we don't have it despite having all the building blocks
in place. I agree we should move forward with it, but right now we
don't have it.

On telepresence it is true that it has not been used in space. However
my claim is that this is for political rather than technical reasons.

Perhaps.

In other fields (viz surgery) it is becoming an accepted part of
practice.

As a test scenario or on real patients?

We may in a simplistic sense view telepresence as simply projecting
ourselves to LEO.

No, that is not it! If it were, then the robitic arm would be called
"telepresence", which it is not. Telepresence is the remote control of
a robot performing a task normally done by a human. Period.

There is more to it than that. The main motivation
for surgery is to achieve greater precision and speed up recovery
times.

Right, but has the interactive virtual reality aspects of surgury ever
been used on a real patient, or is it still part of training sessions?


One remarkable medical advance - surgery on a beating heart.
Classically the heart has been stopped and surgens worked against the
clock. Not any more. The operating technique is interesting. The
computer predicts the movement of the heart and the surgeon is
telepresent on a stationary heart.

I say this to indicate to you that work is going on in many fields, it
is simply that NASA has made a POLITICAL decision.

Again, perhaps. I know for the HST repair mission there was talk about
it, but then it was determined to be more expensinve and riskier than
sending humans to do the repair.

Eric



- Ian Parker

Eric Chomko wrote:

There is more to it than that. The main motivation
for surgery is to achieve greater precision and speed up recovery
times.

Right, but has the interactive virtual reality aspects of surgury ever
been used on a real patient, or is it still part of training sessions?

Oh a real live patient. The methods are cutting edge. In surgery the
main motivation is higher precision and shorter recovery times. Beds,
particularly intensive care beds are expensive. Their occupancy needs
to be limited.

Surgeons are normally just a meter or two away. They have commented
that a link to a local hospital would allow a famous surgeon to operate
remotely, but there is no real motivation in this area. It COULD be
done though. At LEO there is every motivation.

One remarkable medical advance - surgery on a beating heart.
Classically the heart has been stopped and surgens worked against the
clock. Not any more. The operating technique is interesting. The
computer predicts the movement of the heart and the surgeon is
telepresent on a stationary heart.

I say this to indicate to you that work is going on in many fields, it
is simply that NASA has made a POLITICAL decision.

Again, perhaps. I know for the HST repair mission there was talk about
it, but then it was determined to be more expensinve and riskier than
sending humans to do the repair.

STOP PRESS - I note that NASA is in fact looking at a lego robot. Now
there is absolutely nothing wrong with COTS. Indeed if the mobile phone
manufacuers had been contacted the Bowman radio would have been built
in 5 minutes flat. However there is somewthing just a little bit
incongrous about NASA working on Lego.

- Ian Parker

wrote:
Eric Chomko wrote:

There is more to it than that. The main motivation
for surgery is to achieve greater precision and speed up recovery
times.

Right, but has the interactive virtual reality aspects of surgury ever
been used on a real patient, or is it still part of training sessions?

Oh a real live patient. The methods are cutting edge. In surgery the
main motivation is higher precision and shorter recovery times. Beds,
particularly intensive care beds are expensive. Their occupancy needs
to be limited.

Surgeons are normally just a meter or two away. They have commented
that a link to a local hospital would allow a famous surgeon to operate
remotely, but there is no real motivation in this area. It COULD be
done though. At LEO there is every motivation.

The point is that being a meter away is like having an astronaut in LEO
right next to the telepresence robot, just in case, like with the
surgeon.

You know as well as I know that true telepresence means no safety net.
It means that if all goes wrong a human won't be there to bail out the
robot. Think of how a bomb disarming robot works. Not we have that! We
didn't need much of an incentive to be on hand next to the technology
in order to have that working, or at least working well enough.



One remarkable medical advance - surgery on a beating heart.
Classically the heart has been stopped and surgens worked against the
clock. Not any more. The operating technique is interesting. The
computer predicts the movement of the heart and the surgeon is
telepresent on a stationary heart.

I say this to indicate to you that work is going on in many fields, it
is simply that NASA has made a POLITICAL decision.

Again, perhaps. I know for the HST repair mission there was talk about
it, but then it was determined to be more expensinve and riskier than
sending humans to do the repair.

STOP PRESS - I note that NASA is in fact looking at a lego robot. Now
there is absolutely nothing wrong with COTS. Indeed if the mobile phone
manufacuers had been contacted the Bowman radio would have been built
in 5 minutes flat. However there is somewthing just a little bit
incongrous about NASA working on Lego.

I think they got carried away with the 8 ft. tall Lego astronaut on
display at the JSC visitors center. The display has been such a great
hit with the kids that automating Lego must have seemed like the next
logical step, at least for Generation X-ers that work at NASA. And to
think the only thing I ever gave Gen Xers credit for was the invention
of the Jager-bomb (a shot of Jagermeister depth charged into a pint
glass 2/3 full -one can- of Red Bull, the energy drink). Drink it down
in one big gulp, or at least try to...

Eric


- Ian Parker

wrote:

:Tremendous advances are being made.

People have been claiming that AI was 'just around the corner' for at
least 20 years now. There was a brief spurt in 'expert system' AI a
decade or two ago, but that's pretty much been it.

People are still both better AND more interesting to send.

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw