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The Next Leap In Space Exploration
An anonymous reader writes "The crew of the space shuttle Endeavor recently returned to Earth as ambassadors, harbingers of a new era of space exploration. Scientists at NASA are saying that the recent assembly of the Dextre bot is the first step in a long-term space-based man/machine partnership. '"The work we're doing now -- the robotics we're doing -- is what we're going to need to do to build any work station or habitat structure on the moon or Mars," said Allard Beutel, a spokesman for NASA. "Yes, this is just the beginning." Further joint human-robot projects will "be a symbiotic relationship. It's part of a long-term effort for us to branch out into the solar system. We're going to need this type of hand-in-robotic-hand [effort] to make this happen. We're in the infancy of space exploration. We have to start somewhere and this is as good a place as any."'"
Wouldn't it be cool to launch your robotic servants to Mars long before humans went, and remotely control them (or not) to build the infrastructure for us before we arrive?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Project "Borg".
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
...the Human-Robot projects! Will someone please think of the sharks?
... I feel like it happens quite late, quite slowly, costs too much and still is underfunded.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
welcome our new robotic overloards.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
At a press conference in Huston TX, Allard Beutel told reporters:
"We are the Borg. Lower your weapons and disarm yourselves. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."
Huey, Dewey and Louie would be proud..
... I'll have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster with a side of Plutonium Nyborg
Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?
I wonder just how 'closely' together they intend to have us working? *shudder*
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Yes! With our new robotic workers, which we call "Cylons," we will usher in a new era of peaceful space exploration and colonization.
Space 1999 is what we would be living it we didn't have NASA and it's bureaucracy.
"Long-term space-based man/machine partnership"? Come on, they installed an assembly robot. Sure, it's a very nice one and pretty complex, but it's not like they fired up freakin R. Daneel Olivaw.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
(skynet)
Come on, we been in space since the sixties, and exploring it even before then. Calling this the "infancy of space exploration" is simply inaccurate.
By now, imho, we should be building moonbase.
Or else we might have captains of starships exclaiming "Ho boy!" before every mission, just like that last guy (or should I say first?) on the U.S.S. Enterprise.
The crew of the space shuttle Endeavor recently returned to Earth as ambassadors
Er, no. Sorry.
They assembled and deployed the Ikea version of a semi-autonomous robot. Not even Darl could stretch that into returning as "ambassadors".
The "next leap in space exploration" will happen when we start sending out one-way manned missions. Until then, we've done nothing more than piddle around in the local sandbox and thrown some rocks at pigeons.
We could ride there in paper airplanes... seriously, the Japanese are already testing the concept!
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
....that we don't build any robots that can read lips.
As closely as possible?
For anyone familiar with the Berserkers, they WILL take over Earth at some point. I have the feeling that the very first was born last week :( We really have to worry about where this will lead. The ROBOTS WILL TAKE OVER!
Despite the overwrought and flowery prose, it's just a machine, albeit semi-autonomous. Kind of like a steam engine with a governor. It performs tasks that are difficult or impossible for humans. Thanks.
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
Symbiotic relationship? Man/machine partnership? Ambassadors? Hand-in-robotic-hand? WTF?
It's a fancy toaster, guys, get over yourselves. It's like having a symbiotic relationship with a swiss army knife.
I'd expect this kind of mystical crap from people who don't understand technology and view it all through Clarke's 3rd Law filters ("indistinguishable from magic"), just as any other primitives do when imbuing things they don't understand with mystical spirits. So is Dextre the god of space robotics now? I weep for the NASA that used to be.
-- Alastair
I can already hear the words "Dave? What are you doing Dave?"
Remote Controlling machines on the Moon would be tough with the 1 second lag. I ran across an article about Japanese researchers experimenting with the simulated lag to an orbiting satellite, but I can't find it right this second. Latencies to Mars are going to be many minutes. To do "remote control" you'd need to be able to give high-level commands, like: "okay, you assemble that wall over there. You help him by fastening the screws. You over there, you pile dirt on the back and sides of the hab module..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGxdgNJ_lZM&eurl=http://lj-toys.com/?journalid=837632&moduleid=9&auth_token=sessionless:1206637200:embedcontent:837632%269iurl=http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OGxdgNJ_lZM/default.jpg
It's one Hal of an idea!
Aren't robots supposed to be autonomous? From what I understand, Dextre is a cybernetic manipulator. Why do people refuse to distinguish between robots and cyborgs?
Funny how the Shuttle's Robotic arm and the ISS Dexter are called the robotic arms in the US, but called the "Canada-Arm" and "Canadian-Built Dexter Robotic Arm" here in Canada, where they were built and donated to the Shuttle program and ISS. Is this somehow related to yesterday's story about how the US tends to ignore rulings against them by the WTO, IMF, and NAFTA? ..and the snub after September 11th when GW thanked everyone for their help, except America's biggest trading partner and the country which received the largest invasion of US aircraft and civilians since WWII?
At least the US remembers us enough to "Blame Canada!"
Only 9 more months George...
...oh, nevermind.
What really needs to get done is we need to take rapid prototyping to the next level. Here is how it is done.
You build a machine that can be sent to the moon that can build most of the major parts that it is composed of and an all purpose humanoid robot that is remote controlled from earth. You power it with a combination of solar cells / nuclear generators. During the daytime you smelt lunar soil with the extra energy and make ingots of nearly pure elements along with capture the volitiles like Oxygen and other gasses. During the night time you use the rapid prototyping module to build parts of itself, you would use one laser beam to slowly vaporize the pure ingots and electorstatic confimement to shoot the atoms to a chamber where they are added to a smaller ingot a layer at a time when the ion beam hits the ingot you also converge a laser bear to heat up the material so the ions from the beam will "stick" to the small ingot, the remails of the ingot will be lasered off the finished product. You could use another process for larger items if the laser-ion deposition method is too slow for large items made of metal. This method may be ideal for making things like solar panels though....
Eventually you would build several duplicates of the the original factory that may only need a small shipment of parts that could only be produced on earth. After getting several small factories setup on the moon you would then use them to build an even bigger factory that could be more specialized to make specific items more efficently. After a fashion you may be able to make everything on the moon except for nuclear fule you need to run the place during the night or you could build you own Lunar power sattelites that could orbit the moon and beam power during the night. From there you can start building entire settlements on the moon supplied with pleanty of water, air, electricity, and everythign else humans need, all without needing a single human there to build it all. The people who them go to the moon would be settlers that are brough to moon by automated spacecraft that were built on the moon and all you need to do is send them to low earth orbit where they can rendezvous with the lunar built transport. These people would then live on the moon for the rest of their lives or for extended durations.
The whole idea here is to use exponential growth and technology to build huge ready to inhabit bases on the moon without needing to ship every goddammed nuit and bolt from the earth.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Hopefully we will never hear about "scary HAL moments" on CNN or Fox the day that these AI robot plans are realized ;)
Will be Man taking egg/sperm - freezing it and sending it into space in a ship. When ship arrives at target, if a survivable biosphere exists the ship will land, combine egg/sperm, shake and wait 9 months, then raise the childern.
Thus man will spread to other planets.
Are We Giving Robots Too Much Power?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGxdgNJ_lZM
space shuttle Endeavor
Typo alert: apparently shuttle's name is Endeavour, after the British ship, hence the British spelling.