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REALLY Remote Control Excavators
Brian Roemmele posted this video about stay-at-home excavator operators.
Remote control excavators. pic.twitter.com/QTPf8jyxgG
— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) September 21, 2024
(Remote Control Excavators)
Really remote excavator operators were imagined decades ago by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven in Oath of Fealty (1981):
"Meet Rachel Lief," Lunan said. "Ms. Lief is a bulldozer driver." Lunan paused for effect. "As you see, Ms. Lief doesn't look like your typical tractor driver...""But then," Lunan said, "not every bulldozer operator works on the Moon." The cameras followed the trim woman into another room, where there was a replica of a large tractor. It was surrounded by TV screens. One screen showed an astronaut sitting in the driver's seat, staring impatiently into the screen. A bleak, nearly colorless pit showed over his left shoulder.
"About time you got here," the astronaut said.
"We were busy," Rachel sat down in the driver's seat and took hold of the controls. "I relieve you..."
The bulldozer moved through the lunar strip mine... "As you can see... this is no easy job. It takes over a second for the signal to get to the Moon, and over a second for the information to get back to her. It takes a lot of computer power to work this trick, but it's worth it. Meet Colonel Robert Boyd, commander of Moon Base."
"Colonel Boyd, does it help to have Earth-based machine operators?"
"Sure. It costs a lot to keep people on the Moon. Now it's like I have four or five times as many people up here, and I don't have to find air for them or feed them."
(Read more about the telepresence bulldozer)
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