Originally Posted by
Alsacienne
So maybe, just maybe, the idea of a plane flight with no human on the flight deck is not so far-fetched after all ...
It will happen: as someone said up above, spacecraft are moving to full automation as computers are better at flying them than humans, and Buran already demonstrated that capability years ago, even with Soviet-era computers.
But spacecraft don't have to fly in bad weather, or in a sky crowded with other aircraft. Replacing pilots in those conditions won't happen any time soon, just like cars driving themselves around a race track doesn't mean driverless cars are coming to the High Street any time soon. They'll begin with better and better adaptive cruise control on the highways, and progress from there, rather than suddenly appearing in the car showrooms with no steering wheel.
I was watching a DVD a while back with old documentaries about the postal service and banks, showing how money moved from one account to another when you mailed a cheque. The number of people involved in that process, from collecting the mail to updating the bank records, was enormous, compared to the number now required to make an online payment.