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Space Penguin Could Hop Around The Moon
notdanielp writes "A robotic Lunar Penguin explorer could be hopping around on the moon by 2009, said Raytheon on Tuesday, as it unveiled the concept lander at an aerospace conference.
The unmanned lunar device, in development for two years, is 3 feet tall and weighs approximately 230 pounds. It "hops" by reigniting small propulsion engines ... President Bush last year refocused the space program on sending people to the moon, Mars and beyond. Raytheon said the Penguin could be a robotic precursor to future manned space missions and that it was being proposed to NASA."
.......but does it run Linux?
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
The lander sits on four legs, much like a small version of the original landers that brought astronauts to the moon. The squat, compact unit has a few tiny jump boosters protruding below and on its sides and looks nothing like an actual penguin. This looks just like my my linux box sitting on my table.
+1 funny, -2 overrated. Life isn't fair.
A penguin with gas.
not that it could tip over on one of the landings , cause thats the easy part.
but am i the only one that is wondering why a penguin??? its cute, but wouldnt a 'rover' type thing do just fine? id really like for NASA to be more concerned with experiments and whatnot rather than what animal to choose for its fun space trip to the moon.
I just hope that the engineers were forward-thinking enough to have trademarked the penguin.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
President Bush also cut NASA funding. They can't even get the shuttle into space without it falling to bits, despite a $1bn re-fit.
I won't hold my breath.
From TFA: The Lunar Penguin, originally intended to land on the south pole of the moon to search for ice, is based on tactical weapons technologies, which should make it much more affordable, Raytheon said
Just curious what booster-powered hopping weapons system Raytheon has been working on lately, and if they have lasers strapped to their heads or what.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Personally I like
:)
Lunar Terrestrial Unmanned Excursion.
Lunar TUX
A robotic pre-cursor to manned moon landings? Why?
We were able to do manned moon landings for almost 40 years ago; has our know-how diminished, or are we just less determined than we used to be?
Would someone please grab a generic image of Tux, and outfit him with a space suit and pogo stick, please? Preferably against a lunar backdrop? I'm away from my Photoshop-equipped system at the moment or I'd give it a shot.
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
"The Lunar Penguin, originally intended to land on the south pole of the moon to search for ice, is based on tactical weapons technologies, which should make it much more affordable, Raytheon said, without disclosing a price.
See how much great stuff comes out of military research? This is why all you tech-happy people should support increased military funding, instead of something so silly as direct funding of research.
Seriously, this is much more affordable only because we've already paid for the research. That's like a waiter saying, "Your meal will be 10% off, because you gave us the chicken we made it out of."
It's great that we can apply some of our military tech to space / lunar exploration. But don't say it's more affordable just because we already paid for it.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Despite the NASAs great results with their three successful Mars rovers, the two Russian Lunokhods still hold the distance records covering about 30 miles together, or an order of magnitude more than the Martian rovers. The Moon is near enough to allow interactive control of surface robots, unlike Mars.
Of course many of us would like to see dozens of rovers crawling all over the planets and moons. The cost of the International Space Station would have funded over 200 rovers.
It never fails that Hollywood will always ruin good movies with really crappy sequels. I can just see it now:
"March of the Penguins 2: Electric Boogaloo: In Space"
Spaced Penguin:p enguin/default.htm
http://www.bigideafun.com/penguins/arcade/spaced_
A classic.
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Some people call me the space Penguin, yeah Some call me the gangster of love Some people call me maurice Cause I speak of the pompitous of love
-not steve miller
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
"Make it jump with its flippers extended, like a friendly gesture."
"I don't know, the sight of that robot penguin jumping toward me with flippers extended would scare the piss out of me."
"Good point"
I just say:t echsupt/tfleft.web+Academic~Jokes+8th~grade~educat ion,~could~you~pass.txt
http://techsupt.winbatch.com/webcgi/webbatch.exe?
Any further questions?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Marge: "Space Penguin?"
Yeah, Bush mouthed some words (dyslexized, no doubt) about sending Americans to Mars. He certainly got some naive geek votes for that soundbyte. So why would he actually spend any time or money on an actual Mars program, now that he's already reaped all the political capital he can use? Why should he do any more to back up his promise than Bush Sr did when he made the same Mars promise 15 years earlier? Why should Bush expect to be accountable for that promise, when 40% of the country is letting him off his promises to win in Iraq, to capture Osama ("dead or alive"), to be the "Education President", to stimulate the economy, to "return integrity" to the White House, to "unite, not divide" the country, to even be able to read his scripts right?
He promised us Mars, and we've got a dubious Shuttle program and visions of a 250lb hopping Lunar probe? Look, how much stupidity can we take before we all have to devalue our IQ points like a Mexican peso?
--
make install -not war
Still, the idea of mimicking natural forms has a certain appeal. Evolution is a heck of an interesting engineer, even if billions of years of work result in kludges like the human nose. Designs like the penguin are amazingly successful in harsh environments. (I only hope Morgan "Easy Reader" Freeman narrates the launches.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
TOP 5 NAMES SUGGESTED BY RAYTHEON ENGINEERS BEFORE THEIR PR DEPT TOOK OVER:
Damn these creatures can march anywhere!
Please, make it slide around on its belly instead.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
The risks involved in all those small take offs and landings are probably too high.
Also, we are not looking for life in the moon, we already have lunar rocks, what the point of jumping around the moon?
We should a) get a cheap and reliable way to get to space b) build a base on the moon and explore other planets.
Mac toys and accessories blog
the Lunar Penguin, originally intended to land on the south pole of the moon to search for ice, is based on tactical weapons technologies, which should make it much more affordable, Raytheon said
Coming with face melting lasers to a theater near you.
I can see the conspiracy forming already... send *penguin* to another planet, but have it secretly running Windows. Wait til it crashes and BSOD's, then tell the world it was running Linux. This is the next logical step for the Get The Facts campaign. First you smear Linux worldwide, the globally. Those bastards...
PDA & Smartphone Optimized Sites
Replacing my laptop with a Treo
NASA has been using a version of realtime UNIX called VxWorks from Wind River in many of its space probes and robots. It has been evolving for decades along with various NASA probes. Its not perfect, having brought down the rovers for a couple weeks with a thread blocking problem. But it has been field tested for a long time.
The guys and gals down at Lunar Linux are grinning maliciously at the success of their propaganda scheme to encourage poor schmucks like me to post links to their project on /. in a desparate attempt to get +5 mod points.
Why am I on Slashdot? I'm bored. Why am I bored? I'm on Slashdot.
I can see how it went down:
Scientist: "Mr. President, we have a number of new designs for our next Mars probe. Utilizing various state of the art metallurgy processes and the most advanced..."
Bush: "Can the scientologist mumbo jumbo, Doc."
Scientist: "::sigh:: This one looks like a penguin."
Bush: "Ooh, a penguin? Heh heh, I like penguins. Approved!"
You had me at "Space Penguin"
The correct reference is "2010: The Year We Make Contact". Starring Roy Scheider (of Jaws Fame) and featuring the Russian exploration craft, The Leonov. However, being that it is the sequal to 2001 and the author of the book the movie is based on is indeed Arthur C. Clarke, you do get partial credit..."F".
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Q: What's the difference between maggots and Linux zealots?
A: Maggots love open sores.
To the moderators: This post could be considered to be Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, or Offensive. Please moderate +1 Funny... understanding that we all need to laugh at ourselves and few bad puns ever once in awhile
...if you had a Beowulf cluster of these and they all hopped at the same time, could they alter the orbit of the moon?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Let's see, short and squat with protruding spindly legs and it moved be periodically expelling gas from "jump jets".
Sound like they should call it the "Barking Spider" lander.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Bush: "Put some lasers on it and you got a deal!"
Scientist: "::sigh::"
Tough life - there's only 1 minute difference between (+5, Funny) and (1, Redundant).
Better luck next time.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
... on my mark say [Imitatim Homer Jay Simpson's voice]:
UHMMMMM Penguin!
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
Hopefully they have a better plan than a ruber band sling shot. I also hope they don't try to get the penguin in a loop around the moon trying to maximize the distance before he gets back to the shuttle. http://www.bigideafun.com/penguins/arcade/spaced_p enguin/default.htm
Why not just send a man to the moon ? Weve done it once - Why not again ? Maybe it was all a hoax
Q: Mr. President, why does this box run Linux?
A: Well, we figured that we didn't want to get ripped off by some proprietary software vendor
See, the box originally cost us US$70m, and after we switched to the free Linux OS, we only needed to spend US$69.99m!
Amazing how if you'd posted one minute earlier, you'd be (+5, Funny) instead of (1, Redundant).
I wonder how many people have posted something along these lines while I was composing this post.
We did a study of the tankage sizing changes required and a few other features and actually got some quotes back from some of the contractors. It would have been a relatively cheap mission, about the same as a geostationary satellite launch.
I don't recall whether Raytheon was one of the contractors we contacted for pricing.
Seastead this.
Scientists expect to deploy a Space Batman to thwart any crimes attempted by the Space Penguin. The Governor of California may come to the defense of the Penguin.
If you did have a Beowulf cluster of these sharing a RAID, and the RAID got corrupted, would you end up with a Beowulf cluster fsck?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
"Since we could set it down in such a precise location, the Penguin could be the delivery vehicle for the science community," hey taxi! pad five please.
1. Does it have a reference to a robot? CHECK
2. Does it have a reference to space exploration? CHECK
3. Does it reference Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica or will readers post about such references? CHECK
4. Does it have a reference to a penguin? CHECK
5. Does it bash Microsoft? PROBABLY
6. Is it a dupe? WHO CARES?
STATUS: PASSED.
Submit as Slashdot story.
Bet this
President Bush also cut NASA funding. They can't even get the shuttle into space without it falling to bits, despite a $1bn re-fit.
The fact that we are even debating the post shuttle/ISS space program is a credit to President Bush. The 'failure' to fix the space shuttle is illusory. The shuttle performs consistent with its design. It's just that the design can never be safer than 1 failure in 100 launches. First it was the SRB O-rings, then frayed wiring, and latest ET foam. If it keeps flying some other problem will reveal itself.
an ill wind that blows no good
It definitely runs NetBSD
...it resulted in a robotic penguin orgy.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
to kill Batman on the Moon.
Sorry, it just seems appropriate.
As to hopping, one would think this was more useful on the Moon than on Mars, as lunar gravity is much lower than martian gravity.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'm just sayin'.
Is something burning?
Oh, it's my karma.
...Microsoft CEO Bill Gates today stated that it would be far cheaper to fit giant Windows XP-powered rocket motors to the moon and fly it to Redmond, whereupon Steve Ballmer could hop around it in his shirt sleeves shouting "Developers, developers!"
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
who is this guy and why are you all mad at each other
I first read the title as "Space Penguin Could Hop Around the Moon".
No. Wait..
My other SIG is a Sauer.
If the penguins were running OS X the title of this article would be "Space Penguin Hops Around Moon."
I wonder if they will add these to the next itteration of that Mentos commercial with the squawking birds (some were penguins).
Let's stop jack-a-lackin around and send some humans back to the moon, not another probe. If we could get there multiple 35 years ago, there should be nothing stopping us now.
It's time to end this conservativism in the space program and start taking risks again. I'm sure there are plenty of willing astronauts who would leap at a chance to man another mission to the moon. They know full well that every mission to space is a gamble with their lives. A mission to the moon is just a larger risk than LEO, but seems to cause the bureaucrats and politicians to freak out due to the recent shuttle tragedies. Which by the way wouldn't have happened if NASA were allowed to take risks and update their technology years ago.
Maybe I'm just an insensitive clod, but that's my 2 cents.
All this "Let's go back to the Moon" stuff is just political nonsense to get support from the science-and-technology-oriented citizens.
The first series of Moon landings were mainly done to show the Soviets that the US kicks ass and you don't. Mission accomplished. But now, we know that the moon is:
(a) very expensive to travel to and land on,
(b) completely unprotected from meteors,
(c) totally not hospitable to Earth life, and
(d) devoid of any particularly special minerals, ores, or anything else useful.
What combination of those attributes indicates that we should go back?
The lander sits on four legs, much like a small version of the original landers that brought astronauts to the moon. The squat, compact unit has a few tiny jump boosters protruding below and on its sides and looks nothing like an actual penguin.
Perhaps it looks like the Moon hooper from Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons made by Century 21 (Not the real-estate people).
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
But nobody in DC wants to talk about killing astronauts to 'save the ozone'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I see a rock drill, something to load a charge and a small dozer blade to tamp and clear the slag later. Perhaps attached with cables to a power unit at the top of a cliff face.
But I read too much scifi.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The moon, New Orleans, whereever; life will always try to occupy every niche, even if it appears dangerous to do so.
I, for one, Welcome our new Robotic Penguin Overlords.
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/imageDB.cgi?isbn=03 16106917
How can you post a story about a lunar penguin with no pictures?
I know penguins, and that, sir, is no penguin.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
See the hopping moon penguin in a field test here!
At the Google Moonbase!
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
that mean you cannot purchase the same as last year, therefore some thing are "cut" from the budget as there is not enough money to buy them.
Here's a funky idea (funky penguins!):
I don't know how much these things can carry, but let's say they can carry 100 pounds/50 kilograms. Why not build a couple dozen or a hundred or so, pack each one with 50 kilos of consumables (ice, dried food, medical supplies, etc) and stagger-launch them so that they land in roughly the same area. Also equip them with the means of "homing" on each others' signals, and let them "swarm" together, maybe set them to swarm to the first one to land safely. It might take some time, but after a while you'd have (if you made 100 of them) about 5000 kilograms of consumables in one easily-accessed place, without having to launch the whole mess at once, and without risking the entire mission. If a few of the things get lost, or fail to land correctly, or can't "hop", etc, you're not out a whole lot, you might only have 4500 kilos of consumables but it wouldn't hurt as badly as losing the whole thing.
Then you can launch a lighter human-rated lander, maybe with a habitat module, to land near the "flock" of "penguins" which will supply the consumbables for the mission. Shoot, you could even gather up the used ones to bring back to be recycled. People might even be able to track down the ones that got lost and recover what they were carrying.
Sure, there are lots of holes, and there's no telling how much it would cost to build 100 of them, but surely if you used the same pattern, the same supplies etc. economies of scale would take over and the cost would come down.
Well, anyway, that thought just came to me, and I figured I'd pass it on, now that there are so many other articles no one will read this!
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Somehow I was expecting the TUX icon not the MOON icon to be with this posting.
--- This meme is memory intensive
Slashdot said my karma was excellent. Slashdot lied!
I've seen promotional (or were they instruction manual introductions?) videos with jumping anti-tank mines, which were launched by a medium range rocket system (MARS?). They were a little smaller than R2D2, would fall down from the rocket with small parachutes, and then fold out some metal strips as feet hinged at the bottom. Think of a flower, just upside down. They then would sit there and wait for tanks (or rather, the magnetic field associated with a tank) to come through the area, and would jump on these feet towards the tanks. The video looked like they could jump up to 5 m high, and maybe 10-20 m long, which on the moon would make quite a distance.
It might be not too good for sensitive equipment though...
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense