Slashdot Mirror
NASA Developing Space Droids
krez writes: "NASA is developing neat little space-droids to help astronauts in space with their chores. According to the article, these things fly, talk, and 'think.' I dunno about you, but if I could get one to vacuum my apartment I'd be a happy dude." If NASA would sell these as toys (modified for earth gravity, with lots of LEDs), maybe their funding problems would disappear.
Okay, I assumed that this is the same story that came out about 18 months ago, with the little flying-on-compressed-air red spherical thingies that resemble the doohickey shooting Luke Skywalker in the leg while he was practicing blindfolded, so I didn't read the article yet.
BUT... about the editor's comment...
Modified for Earth gravity? A little bit of air pressure will get the driod moving in zerogee. Do you have any idea how much air pressure we're talking about in order to sustain a relatively heavy object in a 1 gee field? Hovering? On air pressure? You'd be able to hear the fan a mile away! The air coming out the bottom of your SonyFlyingDroid would blow a hole in the floor!
Still, I'd buy one. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
So NASA is going to design astromech droids?
I assume they'll be able to replay holographic messages.
--Ty
The wonderful thing about a droid living on ISS is that it can have the full intelligence of a human. Give some grunt in mission control a pair of joysticks, and a TV screen, and you've instantly got an extra crew member who is quite capable of taking inventories, inspecting hardware and even making the odd observations out a window.
When you are dealling with high-priced space missions like ISS, you don't need to program sophisticated AI. By using a real human being you get a really useful robot, not an annoying critter with the intelligence of a brain-damaged roach.
--
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
Instead of allowing people like Tito to pay $20 million to do ISS chores for a week, they're spending millions developing a robot to do those chores? No wonder NASA keeps running out of money.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
They already sent a tool up there. His name was Dennis Tito.
on Slashdot there was an article on how NASA has gone way over budget. Perhaps if the astronauts did their own "chores"...
And for those of you who remember Tito's comments about his trip to the ISS, they sure need it. According to him (and others), the astronaughts spend a great deal of time with mundane tasks. Any slack a droid can pick up is a little more time the scientists can study science and make life more comportable for the early pioneers of living in space. Of course, alot of non-mission related work was probably expected by Nasa in the early years of the project for trying to make the whole thing work. Perhaps later more science will take place. Any tool Nasa can provide to speed along this process I am sure will be appreciated by the people who live up there.
I agree with the author's comments too. There are probably enough people who would want to pick this up that Nasa could make a little loose change. Not a bad idea...hope Nasa was listening.
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
if NASA would sell these as toys...
These aren't the droids you're looking for.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
The robot's computer is a Pentium® III running Linux
Actually, it's more along the lines of avoiding a situation like:
Astronaut: Open the airlock, happy fun ball. My air supply is dwindling and I need to get back into the station.
Happy Fun Ball: GPF in airlock.exe while attempting to route all data through iexplore.exe. Cannot comply.
Astronaut: What you say!!
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
they're "stress relief toys".. Ever see Cherry 2000? hey, astronauts have needs too...