From: as_m455@titan.kingston.ac.uk Subject: Re: INDUSTRY: NASA develops "telepresence" for exploration (Forwarded) Date: 7 Feb 92 14:56:51 GMT Message-ID: <1992Feb7.145651.1@titan.kingston.ac.uk> Organization: Kingston Polytechnic In article , daver@sunspot.ssl.berkeley.edu (David Ray) writes: > I have dreamed of this kind of technology for a long time, and it > sounds wonderful, but I can't understand one thing. There is such > a long delay for radio waves (or any e/m waves) to get to the moon or > Mars that I can't see how there could be any useful "feedback". > It takes over 2 seconds to the moon and back, and over 15 minutes > to Mars and back. How can a person wearing a headset be able to > steer a vehicle, or "feel" an object's texture with such a long > delay? An interesting point (though in the lunar case probably not a severe handicap) but I think they mean an astronaut on mars or the moon could use it to control a robot remotely. The delay would then be far smaller. One point that does arise though is that surely they'll need orbiting satellites to bounce the signals off. Would they use their own craft, or upon arrival dump a fem small comsats in orbit ? Either way, seems like a good idea. To get slightly off the track, this could be the first 'useful' (ie cost effective) application of parapsychology as lots of research is going on into the field of telepresence and out-of-body-experiences. If a OOBE traveller could do the job it would be a lot cheaper than sending up a lode of expensive robotic gear ... It also might be interesting to ponder how such phenomena as Telekinesis and Telepathy might oneday (when fully explained) tie in with VR. One thought is that it might well fulfill, to some extent, the dream of direct neural jacking. Wouldn't that be fun ? - Hermes, the megaflow junkie "If you think I'm mad, take a look at the government"