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Japanese Agency Plan for Robot Lunar Base
Dilaudid writes "According to these articles Keiji Tachikawa, head of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency sees a major role in the lunar base planned by NASA in 2020. 'As part of the plan Japan would use advanced robotic technologies to help build the moon base ... Japan's lunar robots would do work such as building telescopes and prospecting and mining for minerals, Tachikawa said.' Tachikawa was voted one of the 25 most influential global leaders by Time... I wish him luck!"
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Of course Japanese robots will be working on the Moon. The Japanese are the only ones working on humanoid robots that have made significant process in all aspects of design. So you'll have your Honda Asimo to bring you materials, the Toyota Q'rio to put them together, and Gundam to ward off the Russians.
If countries were as serious about robotics as the Japanese are, the whole idea of a Moon dominated by Japanese robots would just be a dream. But Tachikawa is just stating the obvious. The sadly, Japanese are the only ones qualified to provide useful robots.
These robots better have some clever way of getting rid of the magnetically charged, extreamly abrasive lunar dust.
Aluminum?
"When NASA was founded in 1958, Japan was really still recovering from Nagasaki and Hiroshima, 13 years earlier. It wasn't until August 1967 when the reinforcement construction was completed on A-bomb Dome in Hiroshima."
Wow welcome to the self loathing guilt riddled world of the politically correct.
The truth is Japan was still recovering from their genocidal war of conquest that they lost. The war time government of Japan was not any better than Nazi Germany if you where Chinese or Korean. Even today the relationship between Japan, Korea, and China are heavily influenced by the brutal treatment the Japanese government inflicted on them.
By the late 1950s Japan had pretty much recovered from any physical damage from the war. It was no where as rich as it is now but they where no worse off than most of the countries of Europe.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Scenario one. A guy with a hammer. He hammers nails all day, takes his paycheck and goes home.
Scenario two. A guy overseeing 20 robots with 20 hammers. He directs all day, takes a same sized paycheck goes home to his new home which was built at a 10th the price of the first guy's house because it was built by robots.
This is progress. This is no different than the fact that people aren't sitting out in cotton fields picking at cotton seeds all day anymore thanks to the cotton gin. There will always be some other work available.
The war time government of Japan was not any better than Nazi Germany if you where Chinese or Korean.
Becuase you all know how well The USA treated its own citizens of Japenses decent during the war. And fire bombing/nuclear bombing of Japan and carpet bombing of germany is ok. Yah i gotta say i feel guilty for some of the things my country (USA) did during that war, I think there aren't many countires involved that can think they upheld all of their values by the end of the war. This is not a reason to dislike one country but is a reason to dislike war.
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in Japan's defense wrt immigration: they have 127million people crammed into a land area (147500square mi.) smaller than California's(~33million).
They don't have millions of acres of farmland they can turn into housing nor giant aquifers they can drain for water, so this policy makes some good sense for their situation.
Japan will not go to space to 'get raw materials'. It is much easier for t hem to buy those materials on the open market.
Japanese "management techniques" were originally invented and perfected by an American named Demming. Now that the industrial scare from Japan has faded (think all the 1980 movie references), no one really buys into Japanese management techniques, including the Japanese-- they are trying to incorporate American styles...
"Loyalty to the greater good" is absolute bullshit. You have obviously never lived there. Japanese people are just like us-- but they tend to identify with the group more quickly. This just means that they are more insecure to speak out, not some sense of self sacrifice.
If you think Japan doesn't have a couple of nukes tucked away somewhere, you are a fool.
You are dead wrong about 'learning from Japanese culture more valuable than the technology' bit. The technology will always outstrip the culture, because in this setting, it is pure engineering-- the 'culture' is the same no matter where you go.
In general, I suggest you put down the manga and anime and actually try to comprehend the place, not just parrot what you read in the newspaper.
davejenkins.com |
Feel proud man!
:) (j/k)
How can you ask a person to feel pride at firebombing Dresden and Tokyo (killing 100-200k people each), and nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki (killing about 250k total), when in each case the war was essentially over? Asking a person to view it as necessary is one thing (which I would strongly disagree, but that's not the point I'm making), but asking a person to be *proud* of the painful (and sometimes prolongued) slaughter of up to half a million people, most of whom were civilians, is appalling.
the EU would have been the CU
You haven't looked at Europe's politics lately, have you?
I agree, by the way, that the concept of MAD has been good for the world. That doesn't mean that we should be proud of using it, and using firebombings, to brutally slaughter huge numbers of civilians - even if one views it as necessary. It is cruel and unamerican. I think Truman himself said it best in his diary:
"This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.
He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance."
(note that Truman, given his speeches in addition to his diary, seemed unaware that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities. No such warning, as Truman requested, was ever given, even after the bombing of Hiroshima before the followup on Nagasaki. We had two bombs, and wanted to try them both out on populated areas, even ruling out areas of vital military importance because there wouldn't be enough people there. Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph Bard took the same position as Truman did in his diary, in weighing in (repeatedly) on the usage of the bomb (even moreso, he was completely convinced by US intelligence that Japan was preparing to surrender even without the bomb, and a demonstration would have been plenty); he was ignored by Groves).
The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.