by“What on Earth for?” President Moody is said to have asked when told that huge funds were needed to develop a robot. To which the Secretary of Space replied: “For nothing on Earth, ma’am!”
The story is probably apocryphal, since robots antedate her administration. Plans for a crude, self-guided machine to explore Mars date back to the legendary Sputnik age. But certainly space flight made the robot necessary. Men are designed for Earth’s atmosphere, but robots can work in a vacuum or on alien planets where man can go only after a robot task force has prepared the way. The human cargo on the first stellar expeditions slept in frozen suspension, cared for by a robot crew until the new colony worlds were made safe for them. It is only natural that modern stellar colonies are ruled as often
