Re: starship-design: unmanned missions

[jon_jay@juno.com (Jonathan J Jay)]

On Wed, 11 Feb 1998 18:36:18 +0000 A West <andrew@hmm.u-net.com> writes:

>"the capacity of a computer chip will double every year" Gordon Moore 
>1965
>
>Since then, every year to 18 months, computer power has doubled.
>If this trend continues, we will unimaginably powerful computers in 50
>years time - maybe like comparing the on-board computers in the space
>shuttle to the PC I am sending this mail with....
>Never underestimate the potential computers have - soon they will reach 
>the sort of speeds you might need to write a program that can improvise 
>and be creative....

All computers have their limits, even the ones on the shuttle. Besides,
if
there were a system malfunction, you could not guarantee that the system
could fix itself. With manned missions, however, if there were a system 
malfunction, the crew could fix it if, it were fixable. The odds of a
computer 
controlled ship succeeding in a mission would be better with at least a
repair
crew.

Jon

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