RoboLander - the how and the why
These Boeing people are brilliant. Wonder how they ever came up with this concept.
I know, why not Google "RoboLander IASA" and read all about it (a 2001 concept of mine that didn't ring any bells after 911).
Maybe Boeing is just patenting it so as to get it into their kitty and not let Airbus beat them to the punch?
I doubt that it's nowadays impractical on safety grounds. Systems redundancy is reaching very credible levels of reliability now. It's just that you don't hear all that much about it any more.
"Failure is not an option" went out the window with Apollo 13. Now failure, flaws and fallibility are factored into redundancy-based reliability and assurance. Once you expect and anticipate failure, it becomes much easier to cope with happenstance. It's only when you permit human intervention that the glue fails and the future becomes unstuck - a la AF447.
I wonder whether I could touch Boeing up for 50 bucks? Probably not, they'd be admitting that they trawl the internet for their ideas. Like Iridium did for Iridian/Roadshow (now playing in an airplane near you). At least they let me know that they'd cranked it up. And don't start me on Dreadle.....