What is the best time to prove new technology? When there is a need for it. I can’t understand how in today’s day and age unmanned water trucks are not used to keep the reactors cool? According to NHK, Japan’s national public broadcasting company, police water trucks could not be used because their firing range was not sufficient to reach the nuclear reactors. Other issues such as radiation levels are hampering operations and, on numerous occasions, operations had to be stopped because the level of radiation reached humanly toxic levels. There is a growing consensus that some of those working close to the damaged nuclear reactors are the disaster’s martyrs.
If we are able to send unmanned submarines to roam through the depths of our oceans, send unmanned rovers to pick up dirt off the planet Mars and have drones that can fly without the need for a human being to be physically on them, why do certain basic operations need people? Robotic devices have demonstrated that they can use their appendages to do many tasks and while today we are still not at the stage when these mechanical fingers demonstrate the same level of dexterity and control as human appendages I don’t think that directing a set of wheels left right forward and back as well as a water gun up, down, left and right is an operation considered dexterous.
I can see a scenario in which water trucks are moved by humans to a safe distance. From then on the trucks are manoeuvred remotely. Once at their chosen location the water blasts would be activated and directed accordingly. For those who might not be able to figure this out, imagine the technology used in wired and wireless toys; just turn it from a toy into a life-size device. In order to minimize the need to replenish the water tanks one could establish reservoirs at safer distances into which water is poured and which in turn pump the water to the remotely positioned front-line machines.
I believe that the technology to perform this type of operation exists and can be adapted with relative ease. It is understood that fitting a standard truck with remote operation modules is a time consuming task but I don’t think that in such extraordinary times the human species cannot outperform its expectations and do what one normally would think are difficult tasks.
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