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Robotic Lifeforms To Go To Moon

Posted by Hemos on from the going-through-and-commercializing dept.

HarmlessScenery writes "A space.com story gives details about a commercial company that is planning its own moon mission. The idea is to send two robots to collect moon rock for sale here on Earth. The company hopes to make a profit from the rock, and selling access to live Web-cams and from toys / merchandising based on the robots.
Mark W. Tilden at Los Alamos National Lab, is lined up to design the robots. His personal objective is to get a whole robotic ecosystem up there, to prepare the way for human colonisation. The first batch will clear dust from a large area (after completing their rock gathering) - which might hamper future missions. Subsequent robotic generations could build solar farms and lay cable networks to provide a usable power grid."

4 of 14 comments (clear)

  1. Pre-programmed, or re-programmed? by talesout · · Score: 2

    I would be interested to know if the primary mission and the secondary mission are both programmed before the robots leave Earth, or if they are re-programmed once they are done with the first mission. In the article it is stated that the first mission is for the company (to collect rocks to ship back) and the second is up to the individual designing the robots (he wants them to clear an area for 'future development').

    Another thought, will this be something that actually leads to permanent human residents on the moon? Or will this just be the equivalent of that lot down the street that got cleared for the big mall and then got left? I mean, it's exciting, and having someone other than the government (through NASA) be in charge of it seems a lot more promising than what we normally hear, but doesn't it sound like the roboticist (I think that's what their called) is a little optimistic?

    If this gets much publicity, I look for the freaks to start coming out of the woodwork and screaming bloody murder that we are 'ruining the moon's habitat' or some such nonsense. Personally, I think that's the first logical step to getting off of this rock and out onto some other ones. We need to do this. Never mind the people that say we need to solve our problems here first. That won't ever happen. Not that we should ignore our problems here. But we can do more good (in the long run) for humanity by getting ourselves some diversity. Diversity of places to live, diversity of culture (instead of the homogenized mess that is happening right now) and the diversity of life that seems missing from our 'modern world'. Yes, I know we have some diversity now, but it's nothing compared to having humans live on different worlds, in different star systems, or even different galaxies (real long term).

    Anything that moves us forward seems to me to be a good thing. We need to think about what we are doing and why, but we shouldn't hold ourselves back like we have up to this point. Hopefully this concept will get driven home somehow. And the idea this company has of turning a profit on 'moon rocks' is probably the best idea that I've heard of yet. The only thing that would be better is to get a habitat built and sell 'vacations' in it (on the moon or anwhere 'out there').

    Make space profitable and I garauntee you we will see some serious shit start to happen. (A sad reflection on society at the moment, but an honest one.)

    --


    Bite my yammer.
    1. Re:Pre-programmed, or re-programmed? by dstanfor · · Score: 2
      From what I understand about how Mark Tilden makes most of his robots, there isn't really very much programming involved. Like I said in my post, Mark's robots are mostly analog. He builds nervous nets (not neural) out of a series of transistors and uses that as the brain for the walking part of the robot. From there, additional sensors inputs can be added into the stream, and a digital head can be added to the walker to input different things into the stream. His walkers can be very similar to dinosaurs, in that they have multiple brains, 1 for motion and 1 for everything else.

      My guess is that the gathering of rocks and the clearing of the space will be done in exactly the same way. Mark's robots tend to be very simple creatures.

      I'd agree that Mark does sound very optomistic about the whole process, especially when the company only has plans for one shipment of his robots to the moon, and not for all the other steps that he envisions. However, there does need to be that first step sometime, and since the moon will stayed clear for about a million years, I don't think clearing the space will go to waste.

      Check out http://www.solarbotics.com/gallery.asp to see a bunch of different robots, mostly based off of designs by Tilden, or the BEAM (Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics, Mechanics) concept of his. The Smithsonian magazine recently had an article about different robots. It talked about robots and there progress in various labs around the world. In most places, they haven't gotten much farther then walking on 4 or 6 legs. They also listed the prices. For the featured (analog)robot of Mark Tilden : $2.50 . For all the other (digital) robots: over $100,000 . Something to think about there.

      Dave

    2. Re:Pre-programmed, or re-programmed? by paRcat · · Score: 2

      For the featured (analog)robot of Mark Tilden : $2.50 . For all the other (digital) robots: over $100,000 . Something to think about there.

      I can't say I've ever heard that, because it's kinda wrong. I'm a BEAM roboticist, and I happen to know how much they cost to make. I'm currently working on a 4-legged walker. Basically everything is custom, and so you'd think I did it cheap. In fact, so far the main parts of the bot have only been around $15. But then you get to the motors. I happened across a good deal to buy them for $5 a piece, but normally you can figure $20+. $150 being the motor you need. $20 being a horible compromise.

      Granted, they aren't $100,000. But they're defninitely not $2.50.


      _______________
      you may quote me

  2. Mark Tilden by dstanfor · · Score: 3
    I don't know about anyone else out there, but I'm really fascinated by Mark Tilden's work. This just adds to the fascination. Mark is piggy-backing on this companies desire to get these moon-rocks so that he can get his robots up to the moon. His robots will cost $100 dollars, which is probably 6 orders of magnitude cheaper than any other robots sent out in space. Granted, the robots won't be much smarter then the moon rocks and dust that they'll be pushing around, but it's still cool.

    Mark's robots are mostly analog, which is completely opposite of most robotocists (sp?) designs. It's crazy, but they end up working, and performing the desired task. They end up doing it because they are light seeking, and their task becomes a side-effect of the robots movement, like his lawnmower that cuts grass that cover's it solar panel, or his window washer that cleans the glass so it has more sunlight. Of course they aren't living, but there as close as any other robots out there now.