From Martin Edwardes, London, UK
I enjoyed Rowan Hooper’s piece imagining the future use of mechanical avatars on Mars. However, an important factor was missed: distance. Currently, communication can go no faster than light speed, which means that any instruction from a human host on Earth to an avatar on Mars would take at least several minutes to arrive, and possibly more than 22 minutes, depending on the separation of the planets. Signals sent back by the avatar would take a similar amount of time. Would it really be like occupying a body on another planet, or something more surreally frustrating(12 April, p 22)?
