Answer: frozen stiff on the rocky wastes of Ares Valles.

We could do so much more . . . .

Teleoperated -- remote-controlled -- robots could service and repair satellites. They could function as space tugs, boosting satellites from lower to higher orbits. They could operate inside orbital microfactories, performing the work of a human astronaut, for a fraction of the cost.

All those G. Harry Stine visions about synthesizing complex drugs in weightlessness and fabricating computer chips in vacuum and mining on the Moon could be realized -- if we use robots to keep down costs!

We could have done this stuff ten years ago. Why didn't we?

It's not that robots are expensive. Even teleoperated robots used to repair underwater oil rigs typically cost less than a hundred thousand dollars -- chicken feed compared to the cost of sending a human being into orbit.

Robots are also lighter and consequently less expensive to send into space than humans. While an astronaut weighing a hundred pounds is considered 'petite,' microrobots can easily weigh less than a hundred ounces.

Even a shoebox-sized robot could be equipped with camera eyes, teleoperated limbs, an aerosol propulsion system, and a radio-modem for communication with ground controllers. We have the technology: it's not only off the shelf, it's under the Christmas tree!

If a multimillion dollar satellite malfunctions, we could send a microrobot up to investigate. Suppose the satellite works fine electronically, but has expended its supply of station-keeping propellant.

The teleoperated rescue robot could drill a tiny hole into the empty tank, refill with propellant, and plug the hole -- and there, we've added another two or three years to the operating life of the satellite, increasing revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars -- thanks to a robotic mission costing less than ten million.

Construct the rescue robot out of spare parts, enlist grad students to build on their spare time, boost into orbit on donated excess launch capacity -- and you might just be able to do it for free!

The next step: teleoperated space tugs to push comsats from LEO to GEO. The orbital transfer fuel could be boosted into LEO using the most risky (and therefore cheapest) rockets available, saving tens of millions of dollars in mission costs.

Next step: 'mine' the hydrogen-oxygen orbital transfer fuel from the ice fields of the lunar poles. Remote-controlled prospectors and diggers and refineries, none of them bigger than shoeboxes, could be doing this -- at a profit!-- before humans return to the Moon.

Using current rocket technology, it would cost billions of dollars to send human miners to the Moon; robots could go there for mere millions.

Does that preclude a human return to the Moon? No, the opposite! The satellite industry's demand for orbital transfer fuel will eventually run to hundreds of thousands of pounds per year -- and the Moon can also be mined for millions of pounds of rare metals.

A tiny lunar mining operation will be incrementally scaled up, from shoebox robots to steamer-trunk robots to interorbital transports large enough to carry tons of fuel, cargo -- and people.

An ongoing lunar mining industry will then create market demand for building economical space transportation systems from Earth to orbit as well.

Our bodies are the ultimate teleoperated robots. Their flexibility and versatility promises them a valued place in space. But smaller, simpler robots should go first -- paving the way for the true era of human space settlement.

Joe Schembrie is President of Astrotug, Inc. and can be reached at [email protected]

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