okay. my thing with this is that if they were to send up these robots it would allow any scientist or observer to go into space, which is great! but what happens when one of these malfunctions and leaves a baffled crew to miss an important checklist. no one would really know what to do. so, if they use these, then i feel as if they still need to train people as backup incase of an emergency.
what do you guys think?
(lol, i think they're kind of creepy. kind of like this guy i mean, what if you woke up to find that floating along? or attempt to have a conversation with it because it looks so real. lol. anyhoo, i thought it was interesting.)
(*~*) megan (*~*)
it's a time to seize the moment.
it's a time to move on.
I think if these virtual humans were to be used in actual space missions, it wouldn't necessarily allow "any scientist or observer to go into space". Instead, I think it's merely a more user-friendly interface to a complicated computer program. I doubt NASA would ever use one of these things to completely control an aspect of a mission, without any manual redundancy built in. Probably what will happen is that the virtual human would be responsible for the mundane tasks (monitoring oxygen levels, making minor course and attitude adjustments, growing food on longer duration missions, etc.), leaving the astronauts with more time for actual research. If the software ever fails, the astronauts would be able to take over the tasks, but they would just not have as much time for completing the mission goals. I'm pretty sure that the astronauts would still be trained to complete the mission in its entirety without software help, but it would just be for a worst-case failure scenario.
i kind of have to agree with you Meg it is kindof crepy but i can certainly see their practiicality...but couldn't you just make a program that can do the functions of a robot without all the complicated hardware? The article stresses the importance of using robots to monitor "complicted" processes but couldn't an ordinary computer do that as well? Seems to me that it would be much more practical then leave the humans to do the delicate stuff...i hust don't really know...
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admcar222 wrote:i kind of have to agree with you Meg it is kindof crepy but i can certainly see their practiicality...but couldn't you just make a program that can do the functions of a robot without all the complicated hardware? The article stresses the importance of using robots to monitor "complicted" processes but couldn't an ordinary computer do that as well? Seems to me that it would be much more practical then leave the humans to do the delicate stuff...i hust don't really know...
I don't think they're talking about robots - just computer programs with highly complex interfaces.
i mean, what if you woke up to find that floating along? or attempt to have a conversation with it because it looks so real. lol. anyhoo, i thought it was interesting.)
