Whether or not you agree if there is much actual science being done with the space shuttle and space station these days, don’t you get to wondering if it is still the case that there are tremendous technological spin-offs that come of space activity? People always tell us stuff about non-stick frying pans and the like, coming from the 60s space program.
I hope so. You know, with all this activity involving the space shuttle’s robotic arm in the news 
(and do you remember the big deal that was made of it when it was first unveiled so long ago?), I’m particularly disappointed that robotic arms did not go mainstream. I was hoping that by now we’d all have robotic arms in the trunk (UK: boot) of our cars. Can you imagine how useful that would be at Home Depot, (UK: Homebase)? Or better, now when you’re on the freeway and one of those plastic bags goes under your car and sticks to the exhaust, you just have to live with the fact that it is going to melt and irretrievably stick there and give a burning stink for weeks or months. You can’t wait for an exit to come up so that you can get off the road and peel it off! Deploy the robotic arm, and send one of your passengers* out on it to go under the car and peel it off!
-cvj
*LA drivers - “passenger”=”dude you’re giving a ride to his car at the other end of the parking lot”
August 4th, 2005 at 5:38 am
You know, I can think of another practical use for one of those. Did you car ever make a noise underneath, that you just couldn’t tell where it was coming from? With a microphone and camera mounted on the robot arm, you could probe under the car while you drove and determine the source.
August 4th, 2005 at 8:49 am
Oh, yes, that’s right. Then you give your passenger some special tools, and out they go to fix it, and so you are not late for the show! Anyone else think of any uses for these arms? If we show our support, the car manufacturers might well sense a niche and before you know it, it’ll be just like what happened with the Prius…. -cvj