Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Please RTFA.
It's only called the Penguin because it was originally designed to explore the south pole of the moon to search for ice.
Penguins are native only to the Antarctic region (near the South Pole) here on Earth.
I don't know where they are native to on other planets.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Already done.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Penguins live in many more regions in the southern hemisphere than just the antarctic. Here is a nice little interactive map of penguin habitats around the world. Looks like a school project of some sort, but it is the first page returned in a google search for penguins and it looks pretty informative. My favorite are the Macaroni penguins. Penguins with mullets, what could be cooler?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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); }
Yes, did you check your link with Snopes.com? A simple search yields:
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.h tm
(e) has a *much* shallower gravity well for lifting raw materials or manufactured subcomponents for in space assembly of interplantery craft
(f) has lower escape velocity than LEO
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