Should NASA help the mining industry by making mining more robotic and computerized teaching miners computers?
Should NASA help the mining industry like they are helping Toyota with the car problem, but in the mining thing NASA could help mining big wigs to invent a robotic way to extract the coal from mines and have miners be taught computers to run these robotic mining machines, and keep humans out of the mines! Could that happen and if not, WHY? The mining honchos can afford it!
NASA has other projects, but there are groups that are working to do exactly what you suggest. The real problem here is one of money. Not enough to do intensive research, and not enough in the mining companies themselves. Most of the companies spend their disposable income fighting against safety regulations for the miners.