On 04/18/2011 05:49 PM, Wes wrote:

What they need at the reactor site is robot technology in the form of being able to
articulate and manipulate end effectors while guided by a human via a video link.
Right. In the complete chaos of these wrecked plants, they don't need
any equipment that THINKS it knows what to do, they need something that
can be stopped instantly when it runs into something unexpected, then
let the guys who know the plant best figure out what they are seeing and
what to do about it. Real robots make a lot of sense on Mars or other
far-away places where communications have long delays or can be
interfered with. In this case, it will be take things very slow, first
just look around and video everything, then they may have to MAKE or at
least customize machines to deal with the mess before moving to the next
step.

If the radiation in some parts of the plants are not too bad, they can
send people in to work on stuff. Where the radiation IS bad, they can
figure out how to mitigate it, or they have to use "robots" for all the
work at those spots.

Jon