From: utzoo!decvax!cca!REM@MIT-MC@sri-unix Newsgroups: net.space Title: Lunar Telepresence Article-I.D.: sri-unix.3182 Posted: Wed Sep 8 22:42:04 1982 Received: Fri Sep 10 05:12:09 1982 From: Robert Elton MaasNote that I was not proposing the use of 3-sec-delay remote-control for fabricating aluminum girders, merely for stuffing ore into a hopper for tossing out to space (with or without preliminary processing on the moon before the toss). Thus the problem of fragile materials and "dropping things" won't exist. Once ore gets off the moon it's trivial to move it to LEO where there are plenty of voluteers to handle it locally. The reason for suggesting telepresence on the moon is it's a real pain to maintain human crews there, whereas LEO and even lunar orbit are easy by comparison. The reason for suggesting telepresence between Earth and Moon instead of between lunar-orbit and Moon or LEO and Moon, is that telepresence may be very clumbsy, taking lots of time even to do loading of ore, so using an astronaut's time would be cost-ineffective, whereas using the time of an Earther would be reasonable, even with the 3-sec problem. A lot of out-of-work Earthers could be employed as remote manipulator miners. (Hey Reagan, did you hear that? A solution to unemployment!)