Aug 22 1971
From The Space Library
Use of machines, rather than men, in space after final Apollo mission was advocated by Cornell Univ. astronomer Dr. Thomas Gold in New York Times Magazine article. For lunar or Martian exploration he suggested "roving vehicle with television eyes and one or two telefactor hands, a modern version of a Centaur-half man, half automobile." Vehicle could travel longer distances on lunar surface than man and retrieve samples of different terrain. "The remote hands could pick up rocks and examine them under the television eyes, and, if desired, put them in a hopper for eventual transmission back to earth. The vehicle might then rendezvous with another that has earth-return capability and hand over the contents of the hopper to it. While this type of vehicle would allow us to explore almost all regions of the moon, manned missions have been severely limited both in the type of terrain for the landing and the distance that astronauts can travel from their spaceship." Scientists had favored use of telefactor with sample- return capability but "the very success of the Apollo program had diverted attention from it." Now that no "really purposeful" manned program was planned, Dr. Gold asked, "would not this be the right time for really learning how to do good remote control?" (NYT Magazine, 8/22/71)
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