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DARPA Developing 'Droid' Satellites
eliot1785 writes "DARPA is now developing a new breed of satellites that can be precision-maneuvered in unison and easily perform advanced operations with built-in sensors, computers and thrusters. From the article: 'David Miller, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Space Systems Laboratory, says such satellites might be used for such tasks as building giant space telescopes and closely monitoring Earth. The shuttle Discovery last week delivered the second of three satellite test "droids" that are undergoing experiments at the International Space Station.'"
I think we've got nothing, sir. The report is only a fragment from a probe droid in the Gulf states, but it's the best lead we've had.
Donald RUMSFELD
[ irritated ]
We have thousands of probe droids searching Iraq. I want justification, not proof!
POWELL
The visuals indicate oil, but no terrorists.
RUMSFELD
We could make it mean anything. As long as we ignored every other lead...
POWELL
But, sir, Iraq is supposed to be devoid of terrorists.
Lord BUSH
You found something?
RUMSFELD
Yes, my lord.
[ He points to a blurry image of an oil well on a monitor ]
BUSH
That's it. The terrarists are there.
POWELL
My lord, there are so many uncharted settlements. It could be smugglers, it could be...
BUSH
That is the system. And I'm sure bin Laden is with them. Set your course for Baghdad. General POWELL, prepare your men.
John
With this technology, rogue nations and other terrorist organizations can't time and wait for our spy satellites to pass by and not have their nefarious schemes being watched.
Hopefully this will also speed up the time the intelligence agencies can spy on a place when a crisis or situation occurs.
These nine pound balls of your spacial tax dollars could become:
1) garbage collectors for all the space junk out there in orbit around us
2) a new and interesting way of getting rid of those pesky competing satellites
3) spiffy stratosphere-bouncing little comm links
4) ways to make sure that Indian satellites don't achieve orbit
5) new and interesting ways of avoiding Azimov's Laws of Robots-- including the Zeroeth Law
It was inevitable.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
OBI-N LADEN: These are not the droids you're looking for. *handwave*
PREDATOR DRONE: No, but this drone is looking for you. *boom*
OBI-N LADEN: That sucked. Oh well, being a blue glowie in paradise isn't so bad. Yo Yallah, how about the 72 virgins?
YALLAH: Get the message, you did not. Raisins, I promised.
OBI-N LADEN: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
DARTH VADER: Thats my line, idiot.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
From the article: 'David Miller, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Space Systems Laboratory, says such satellites might be used for such tasks as building giant space telescopes and closely monitoring Earth.
Or the obvious use for DARPA, destroying other satellites. (Conveniently left off the list.)
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
...they weren't the droids I was looking for.
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
What are 'druid' satellites? Do they go around in the sky casting spells?
Oh wait, that was droid. Never mind.
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
Would somebody care to explain what that's supposed to mean?
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
If they don't make the "DREGALARABADRAB-DEAGALARBAB" sound like they did in Star Wars, I'll bee disappointed no matter what the scientific outcome.
Just read the article. Now all we need is light sabers to really have fun with these things!
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
But will they maintain the Arks we send out, after funding for their maintenance is cut off?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Yeah - "might": just about as plausible as defending the Earth from the FSM, or killing the Ori, or letting us know when the Vogons arrive. WTF - don't we already have sufficient technology for satellites that can "closely" monitor the Earth?
More likely they'll just end-up being more orbital junk endangering something-or-other or making pretty, bright flashes when they de-orbit. Yeah, Miller - keep finding gov't funding for practically anything for MIT or else the management might look for someone who can.
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
1) be happy that these didn't go into the drink (and stop worrying about that foam stuff)
2) it only cost $14B per space ball
3) they're rumored to bounce!
4) they're using WiFi, but on Channel 14 (at least it's MIMO!)
5) they can be used to fix the Hubble!!
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I can't believe that joke hasn't been posted yet.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
How does one start a 'vote on this topic' counter thru the forums?
But gotta love testing these on the ISS, all that peaceful uses of space NASA is all about...
to smell a new olympic sport? In sports news: The Cornish spokesperson for the British Olympic Synchronised Sattelite team was at pains to avoid the media today; his only statement "We doon't reeeally know wheear thay arr"
How are these droids? 'Droid is short for Android, as in a human-shaped robot. And while this definition may not hold fast in a galaxy far, far away, it most definately does for us. Why not just say "Robot?"
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
But I hear he managed to avoid involvement in the Clone Wars...
comes from Rob Williams ; comedian ; live in the Broadway theater .. Can that be ?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Is it paranoid? You see...
I once had a droid
that was paranoid
as much as i tried
tried hard to avoid
upsetting my droid
it shook, screeched and buzzed
and stared into the void
i told him "hey, chill!"
my pretty boy and droid
I crooned, shook and danced
and I played him pretty tunes
from andrew weber loyd
oh i got that name wrong
but whatever heck nevermind
oh i'm so very annoyed
where is his warranty card
he got me, too, paranoid
let's take his ass to shop
before he had deployed
newfangled nasty tech
alarms, weapons and toyed
with my skin, flesh and bones
he's no longer employed
in my service and joy
i had not at all enjoyed
no way hey fucking way heck no
this paranoid damn fucking droid
With that parts list, I was thinking about gearing up my first 2x25 user mouse using bluetooth video phones, for use in a pub. Initially, double doors will connect the users credit card into a GPS tracked unit for use while inside. The credit card is surrendered on leaving the LCD unit. While inside the LCD unit, its screen becomes a magnification of a portion of a large screen, that can be seen from the bar. Once the user takes a control, the user's mouse is activated up on the main screen. The main screen will show transparent wires like an old telephone exchange, or transparent octopus feelers, or eyeballs on slinkies. It just has to look back on itself, without getting in the way, or snap shut. This effect will be done in a downstream video processor that's in communication with the user. The base that these connections to the user's mouse come from are a set of twenty five drums, represented on a 5x5 matrix of lighted squares on the main screen. Each drum can be hit by its user and queued into an auto-tempo drum kit. The ADSR effect that is added to the whack is shown as the background color of the drum control. On the users table sits an LED light box that not only echoes this color, it echoes the drum sound as well. Thus the user can order music and drinks, and bongo at the same time. Many light-boxes together can form a dance floor. These needs are to be supplied by Cylon droids spinning their cylinders, around their slinky extensions, searching for the light-boxes. Software is supplied by "Ingrid on Winamp". My first test effortlessly increased the ManyChat limit from 8 to 25 on the "AI Ingrid DJ". Needs a bit more thought on host migration. Now to tie the ports to the macros under their drums, and from there via four transparent wires to each corner of the remote window. For this I'd need to subclass a transparent picturebox as big as the screen onto which I could draw the ellipses of each connected unit. Screen-scrapers using pattern recognition can snap to known positions and look for any bugs in the v=d/t slinky formula. I hope that got your attention.
Argumentum ad Probabilitum
There is a bit more information here and here about SPHERES including images and video at MIT.
These puppies are not quite "bowling ball" shaped.
...start developing their own ideas, and not just turn science fiction movies props into toys? Sure, Arthur C Clarke had some pretty good ideas (having a goal to make realistic things in the first place -- what Star Wars never had), but even trying to make something that looks like a shuttle from "2001" movie ended up a rather suboptimal vehicle (that was obsolete in a *real* 2001, leave alone now).
Can anyone please tell us, what would be the projected lifetime of those things in open space with ways of storing energy/fuel that are going to be available within 10-15 years? That means, no thermonuclear shit, thermonuclear was 25 years away for 50 years already, thankyouverymuch.
What about precision of movement while performing any operation that a drunk guy in a space suit over another space suit over pajamas won't do better? How many times the expected mass of that thing is going to increase to be able to use a screwdriver? Hello anyone? Did anyone think about any relevant technical issues at all, or the goal was to make a prop for "Star Wars VII: Palpatine Is Still Alive, Dammit" to be shot entirely on ISS (and released exclusively there, too)?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Did anyone else think of Metal Gear Solid when reading the word DARPA? First thing that poped into my mind.
Actually, bad article, too. Wonders never cease.
The satellites the "article" talks about are the result of MIT and DARPA's Synchronized Position Hold Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES...sounds like they were stretching a little bit to get decent sounding acronym). The immediate focus of research is to develop control systems for automated docking, with later potential applications of station-keeping and maybe even satellite repair. For example, you may recall a DoD satellite repair mission that failed last year when the robot failed to latch on to the target satellite and accidentally bumped into it before running out of fuel.
The SPHERES are tested inside the ISS and manuever using cold gas thrusters (standard CO2 bottles, I think). The goal is for them to maintain alignment with a hand held beacon that the astronauts move about inside the station. For this generation, I believe the beacon is auditory based. Obviously that won't work outdoors, but this is a pretty low-cost, basic level development effort.
No text.
http://outcampaign.org/
Redundant Array of Expensive Satellites (RAES)