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Radiation Robot Makes Troops Safer
Darkman, Walkin Dude wrote to mention a plucky little radiation-proof robot working to make life easier for folks in the military. From the article: "By this time an hour and a half had gone by, and the team was temporarily out of ideas. Phil had estimated that the robot could remain ambulatory in the radiation field for only 50 minutes, and in fact the robot's lower portion was no longer responding to commands. The RAP team, as a precaution against this very circumstance, working with White Sands personnel had tied a rope to M2 before sending it into the work area. The rope, attached to a RAP team winch 100 feet outside the structure, ensured the robot could be hauled out if radiation damaged its drive unit. But radiation shields now blocked a direct haul. M2 was hemmed in. Using a ten-foot-long pole and standing at the edge of the field (which fanned out like a flashlight beam, strongest at its center and weakest at its edges), team members hooked and then tugged at the rope hauling M2. The deflection of the rope's pull slid the robot around a moveable radiation shield without knocking it over. The RAP team's winch then pulled the robot directly out. "
"But radiation that can kill a human also can kill a robot's electronics. Bennett estimated M2 could withstand intense radiation for only 50 minutes." That's alot of elaboration. I know how cells are affected by radiation, and have and idea of how electronics would be, but I haven't heard alot about this problem and don't know for sure. How exactly are electronics affected by this radiation? Cool robot, though. It'll make a great new overlord.
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Perhaps this event will help set a new model for nuclear power plants. While nuclear power plants should not and probably could not be fully automated, deployment of similar robots could make nuclear power safer. Human contact with high levels of radiation could be reduced and the robots might be able to perform maintenance functions that humans could not.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
The media always covers all these high tech devices that the military supposedley has. I spent 15 months in Iraq and never saw any kind of bomb disposal robot--although I saw a lot of bombs. Those unmanned recon planes are a myth, too. The troops don't have access to this stuff.
Seriously, a military humvee looks like something an 8 year old built with an erector set. It's definately not where I'd want to be when an IED goes off. A real military vehicle would be armored. A real military vehicle would have the seats (except for the driver's) facing outward--so you can shoot at the bad guys.
The government just wastes our tax money handing out big contracts to corrupt businesses. Then, they go to the media with stuff like this to try and convince us otherwise.
From wiki: "As Slashdot is a gathering ground for those interested in things technical, it is inevitable that a highly advanced sense of technical humor has arisen."
You know, the story where the robot was programmed wit a variation on the 3 directives where it would obey a rule unless it caused the robot harm, so it would go into the harmful zone, the cause robot harm rule would trigger, it would back out, the follow rule condition would reassert itself, and so on until the people got back into radio contact and told the robot that this mission needed to be done or the people would die.