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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!"
"Tachikawa's plan follows a January 2004 decision by U.S. President George W. Bush that the U.S., with the assistance of partners including Japan, should build a lunar base by about 2020 and use it as a staging point for the human exploration of Mars."
Does this mean that the US and Japan will be working together on this?
This quote actually fits!!!
"All your base are belong to U.S.!"
"Tachikawa was voted one of the 25 most influential global leaders by Time..."
So was Oprah. (same year) For some reason this does not give me the warm fuzzies. Did Tachikawa have a talk show or something?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
These robots better have some clever way of getting rid of the magnetically charged, extreamly abrasive lunar dust. I had to design a lunar robot for a NASA contest, and that was the biggest obsticle. We just came up with some miracle "demagnatizing spray" that would blow off the dust. I'd like to see how they pull this off without made up technologies.
explain why Japan still kills hundreds of whales every year.
They are delicious.
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.