In reply to Billy ...
Thank you for your follow up on the Smithsonian inquiry!
Yesterday, while channel surfing, I found a travel show which had stopped by a rug making shop in (what I think was) India. The owner of the shop showed how thread for the loom is made from 500 strands of silk, and he then explained how many cocoons are needed to make a rug. The number was in the thousands.
The owner estimated that it would take the weaver a couple of months to complete the rug she was building from a visual model she had mounted on the right of the loom.
There were (probably) hundreds of threads string taut in the vertical dimension. The weaver selected the colored thread she needed for a spot on the rug, wound it around two vertical threads, and then pulled the colored loop down to the current working line. Periodically the weaver pulled a tool with studs similar to a horse brush from top to bottom of the vertical threads, to seat the current working line firmly.
A (relatively simple) robot could perform the weaving function. To my eye, there is no nobility in a life lived weaving, as the women in that shop had been doing. Both men and women are indoctrinated into the practice at very young ages, and they live their entire lives in the occupation. Only two of the workers could read, according to the owner.
However, for a recovering civilization, or more to the point in 2015, for a nascent civilization on the Moon or Mars, the ONLY way that weaving (as shown in the travelogue) makes sense is if it is done by robots.
In that case, the knowledge and skill needed is at the level required to manufacture the parts for the robot weavers, to assemble them, to program their movements and sensory feedback loops, and to maintain them.
A person capable of performing those functions would be mightily stretched mentally. In my estimation, that would be a life worth living, aside from the immediate contribution of woven rugs to the cave floor.
For anyone who chances across this post who is NOT familiar with current thinking on off-Earth habitation, for radiation protection, everyone will live in caves.
Call to Action: I would like to see a project to design, build and demonstrate a prototype robotic rug weaving system.
While the intent (in the context of this forum) is to provide for recovery of civilization after a disaster, a system able to weave a rug could become the basis of a small business in the United States and elsewhere.
It is even conceivable that the supply of human beings to weave rugs in India will dry up, as it becomes unfashionable to condemn human beings to such lives.
In that case, a well designed and affordable robot weaver could (presumably) end up in service in India.
(th)