Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: bandwidth and latency

re: bandwidth and latency
TB — (archived)

The key to space exploration is propulsion. Once you have licked that, everything else falls into place.

As one example, the risks of mechanical and other failures are greatly lessened if you have enough power to take along a big load of spares, or even ideally, fly small fleets of ships instead of just one.

Humans provide the economy of flexibility. In a human crew, a few specialists would be devoted to maintaining the infrastructure, but most of the crew would attend to other specialties on a day-by-day basis. In the event of an emergency, a properly cross-trained crew can instantly be repurposed to repair the damage. Machines specialize, humans generalize. You get the equivalent of self-monitoring AIs and robotic repair crews effectively for free with a human crew.

I think that pretty much says it in a nutshell. That's how things are done in most human organizations now.

By the time you get robots that can do what people can, they will BE people, and aren't going to like the idea of being disposable any more than people do.

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