reply to post by Mozzy
Mozzy.....let's get our facts straight, and stop exaggerating.
You said '...a million miles away...'
I had to stop you right there....because, it is inaccurate, and leads to ridiculous claims, as the lie propogates.
This is probably how the 'Moon Landing Hoax' began, BTW.
The Moon is, on average, about 250,000 miles away. As is true in celestial mechanics, the orbit is not truly circular, it is an ellipse....so we use
an average, just to get our minds focused.
The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second...(again, average) ...
Radio also travels at that same speed....so any 'remote' commands to a robotic probe must take that into account.
This means that the round trip time for a radio signal, to the Moon and back to Earth, is about 2 1/2 seconds. Doesn't seem long at first, but it
is, when you're trying to remote control something.
EDIT for Mozzy....your last sentence was right on target!~!! Very good.
Humans CAN troubleshoot, on site. THAT is the key, especially as we venture farther out. YES, Human survivability is the key, and the greatest
expense and hardest to predict. But, robotic probes, while cheaper, still require certain programming that attempts to anticipate every
situation...at least, until new data can be uplinked by controllers on Earth...but it is a VERY slow process....not just because of Light-Speed
limits!
Again, 'remote-control' across 'millions of milies'??? Nah....not unless we find a new way to exceed the speed of light.....
[edit on 3/24/0909 by weedwhacker]