Re: Astronaut assisted automatic rendezvous ?

In article <1127655870.838510.133350@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
<carsten_niel@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>...Docking is the part that really needs local intelligence...
>
>Then how about sending a guy over with a wire and pull the vehicle in ?
>Much as Arthur C Clarke wrote way back when ?
>The vehicle does rendez-vous to 100 meter distance, and the astronaut
>maneuvres it in.

The modern equivalent of this is called "berthing": the vehicle maneuvers
in to a distance of a few meters, and you grab it with a robot arm and
then put it exactly where you want it. Robot arms can handle much heavier
loads than an astronaut in a suit can, and can maneuver them very
precisely, and don't need the assorted preparations and precautions that
surround spacewalks.

(The space station originally was going to use berthing throughout, but
some side effects of bringing the Russians on board dictated a switch to
docking for most things.)
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