Re: forests on orbit

On 17 Feb, 22:41, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Feb 17, 5:22 pm, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:





On Feb 15, 4:32 pm, BradGuth <bradg...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Feb 15, 1:17 pm, Ian Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 15 Feb, 20:40, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Ian wants to build seamless models from camera and other imput and
have robots run through pre-programmed routines that humans indicate
work with maybe a little goal building against the model.   It is a
workable vision - and as a matter of fact what I envision things to be
like.  It will still take something on the order of one or two robots
per worker and real-time feedback.  He doesn't get what everyone has
gotten in the field since 1980s.  Playing your model like a chess game
to get a plan of action  and then carrying out your plan of action -
works only in the most benign of environments - and then, only in the
most forgiving of procedures.  It can work, and will work - but you'll
still need humans on site for any real productivity measured in the
conventional sense.  True autonomy will take something more -
something we don't even know how to think about today.   This
conversation has nothing whatever to do with the madness you keep
repeating over and over and over again.

One thing that I forgot to say. A robot will have a library of tasks..
Cleaning the loo is a task, making the bed is a task. Cleaning the loo
and making the bed is a library. A jig can only do one thing so a jig
can only perform a task. A robot can perform a library of tasks.

In fact having a library may not be all that different from the way we
learn to do things. When we have a large library of tasks we can start
to string tasks together. Let us now consider assembling a flatpack.
To do this you need to define a series of tasks that have to be
performed.

The claim I am making (in effect) is that for all space tasks all we
need is a library function, we don't really need AI in any true sense.
If we are on asteroids we need to have a string of tasks that lasts
30min to 1hr.

  - Ian Parker

That's all true, and it should become the norm of using robotics from
here on out.

A Pu238 powered robot should perform rather nicely for a decade, and
still be extremely usable even if its primary mobility is warn out or
otherwise terminated.
. - Brad Guth- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

A butane gas fired thermophotovoltaic electrical source providing 1 kW
of electrical energy - to drive a polyacrylimide gel actuator system -
with imbedded control lines and power lines - injection molded in
place - in a humaniform robot - would provide a system that would last
reliably for 40 years or more.  Multi-layered injection molded skins
would implement 'touchpad' type responses.  Variable compliant layers
- provide a means to do direct digital readouts of skin pressure and
tension.  Imbedded fiber optics provide accurate positional control
directly - an imbedded gel 'muscle' layer provides molded in place
actuation - and a polymer skeletal system provides accurate
dimensional control and repeatable motion.  There are basically about
30 layers injected molded, with conductive and other layers vapor
deposited onto the surfaces.  Large area plastics provide a lot of the
transducer logic and control, to plug compatible processor ships.  The
layers once formed and inserted one into the other -  create a
humaniform robot for only a few dollars - at the rate at which soda
cans are made.   Dozens of styles - with body styles licensed from the
estates of popular actors and actresses.

For deep space application the butane black-body source is easily
replaced with a solid-state nuclear light bulb lasting the lifetime of
the robot - 40 years or so.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/109602579/ABSTRAC...

With 100 robots per hour - 2400 per day - 876,600 per production line
- to obtain 4 billion robots in 10 years requires 457 production
lines.   By comparison, there are over 200 companies operating 660
wafer fabs throughout the world to supply all the parts for today's
consumer electronics industry.  Allowing a doubling of robot
production after the first production plant - we can estimate the time
it would take to grow to full scale systems...17.6 years.   So, from
the time the first robotic line became active to the point where all
jobs were semi-automated by remote workers would be 27.6 years - or
2034AD - within that time to maintain production, we would need to
provide automation that would allow a doubling of worker productivity
every decade by creating software that allows workers to manage more
robots - doubling the number they manage every 10 years.

With a starting target price of $20,000 -and cutting that in half
every four years, allows a doubling of revenues every four years...
while incomes grow for users at this same rate.

Of course, increasing incomes mean increasing energy consumption which
also drives the growth of alternative energy systems - and drives
demand of other off world resources - like the forests and farms
described here.

What this all means though is that barring a very lucky radical
breakthrough in robotic software -there will be a need to send people
to Ceres - though their numbers will be very limited - as increasing
automation causes a vast increase in the number of robots being sent
each synodic period.

By 2055AD we can expect the number of humans to be between 7 and 8
billions and the number of robots between 80 billions and 100 billions
- with per capita income between $2 million and $3 million per year.
With each human worker managing a handful of robots they retain
partial ownership in.  By 2075 expert systems managing the investment
funds of the children of these workers will be the primary source of
wealth in the world, with robots doing all the work.- Hide quoted text -

You have highlighted what is perhaps the Achilles heel of modern
civilization. Energy supplies. In fact energy to build robots is no
reason for sending humans to Ceres. Transport there will cost far more
in energy terms than simply building more robots.

My forecasts are a little bit more modest than yours. I do not see
constant doubling. I do see everyone in the World wanting to have a
Western standard of living. To give everyone that will be challenging
in terms of the resources we have but not impossible.

I do forsee solar power being the main prime mover and fuel cells
being the main way of propelling road vehicles. Aircraft will probably
run on liquid hydrogen. With everyone in the World having a car I
forsee a shortage of catalysts. This might well be the main reason for
going to the asteroid belt. Ceres is the largest, but is only one
asteroid.


- Ian Parker
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why manned exploration of space?
    ... The major advantage of manned exploration is that the ... current model rovers Just Can't DO. ... The amount of resources needed to send humans, say, to Mars, and back, could ... be used to send swarms of robots. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • The robot economy (AKA how robots will steal your jobs)
    ... to humans in every way except they turn over any income to their owners. ... Now in addition to these robots there are humans and limited land. ... Say with 5 workers, the farmer is unhappy. ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: Barack Obama Publishes His Space Policy
    ... :>:Even if you find a good cave (you have to FIND it first using ... :> Because obviously all of mankind is struck blind until robots can go ... :Solar radiation and space radiation in the moon is very strong, ... you have to construct a whole environment for humans ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: forests on orbit
    ... have robots run through pre-programmed routines that humans indicate ...   This ... to string tasks together. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Why manned exploration of space?
    ... abilities of humans still vastly outstrip those of machines. ... that robots can *never* do, ... How quickly people forget that robots can be REPROGRAMMED to do stuff they weren't originally programmed to do, be it the Voyager 2 being radically reprogrammed to work using its backup transceiver, the Hubble working with its flawed mirror, or the Mars rovers exceeding their mission programs by months or years. ... And no amount of brilliant improv programming is going to overcome the ledge that's just a quarter-inch too high, or the wheel that slips into a sinkhole. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
Loading