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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?
... 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.
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.
"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)
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.
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.
We were a seafaring people for about 6000 years before we discovered some of the islands of the world. Industrialization is in its infancy, we are currently in the pre-history phase of space travel.
As closely as possible?
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
No we wouldn't. The problems are deep rooted in various areas aside from inevitable apparent bureaucracy in NASA.
- NASA is VASTLY underfunded, with it's funding being cut on key projects year by year
- Most of the American public don't give a crap about the pre-history of space, such as throwing up robots and plants and 'seeing what happens'. It's hard to gain funding if noone cares.
- The current presidency has no charisma or enthusiasm to push space travel, it is simply not in his interests.
- Space travel is expensive and overall, has very little capitalist pleasing return. When it comes to space, what money you throw up there certainly does not come down. Scientific merit is in hoardes, but it's hard to argue with wall street that it has any merit.
- Some space technology does not follow 'Moores Law' so sometimes progress slows considerably. In some fields such as propulsion we really are waiting for a breakthrough that is not just 'proven on paper'.
- Putting humans in space holds very little merit to many scientists. Even NASA don't want people getting sent up for no good reason.
There's 100 more reasons why we're not living some SciFi dream. I want my space habitat as much as any geek, but I know why I don't have it...
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?"
Industrialization is in its infancy only if one makes a straight, one-to-one comparison between time elapsed since the first planted crop with time elasped since the first operational factory. I think that metric is flawed, as it assumes that a year in the 1st or 2d century BC has the same production and innovation value as a year in the 19th or 20th century AD. Industrial processes have brought agriculture as close to maturity as possible considering the variables (quantity of sun and rain, quality of soil). I do agree, however, that we are pre-historic in terms of space travel and are more like the first tribes of humans teaching themselves to knap flint than the tribes which followed them (and taught themselves to grow gardens).
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?
Well, then I say many thanks to NASA and its bureaucracy for keeping the moon right where it is! I'm also glad silver mini skirts never really caught on. However, perhaps "dangling-on-strings" advanced spacecraft propulsion warrants further study.
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...
Actually, the very reasons you listed may very well be why we're at the level of practical technology available to us today. Scientists, and surprisingly, even the government, are aware of the lack of merit space travel technologies have. Wasting massive amounts of public funding on 'space habitats' is probably the worst attempt at 'some SciFi dream'. NASA does important work, unfortunately manned space travel and the whole 'let's go to the moon again' fiasco isn't in this category.
Manned space travel would encourage the next 'big leap'. The one advantage of robotic missions over manned ones that really makes the difference right now is simply mass. The next 'big leap' IMHO is getting off of chemical propulsion, and the weight and mission time requirements for a manned Mars mission rather requires bigger thinking than just using more chemicals. It should hopefully see serious consideration for ion drives powered by something bigger than a battery, something like a nuclear sub reactor. Putting that kind of propulsion system in orbit could allow manned exploration of not only Mars but much more of the solar system as well.
Excuse me while I go visit a goatse link to get that image out of my mind.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
- NASA is VASTLY underfunded, with it's funding being cut on key projects year by year
NASA's budget is around $16 billion dollars, which is more than Jordan's entire GDP and about another 100 countries as well according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
We spend more on rockets than entire countries produce in a year. $16 billion dollars is a lot of money no matter how you look at it. I am a geek, and space exploration is good and all, but I think $16 billion is more than enough to spend thanks. Remember, this is not imaginary money, this is your money coming out of YOUR paycheck every month. Personally I would rather see some of that money spent on developing alternative energy technologies. NASA's funding in real dollars is less than its 1966 peak where it had a stated mission of going to the moon and an unstated mission of developing ICBM technology, but NASA is actually receiving funding (in real terms) that is well above its 1980's levels, and on par with most of the 1990's.
Do you realize that NASA has some of the best PR people in the planet? If anyone dares to suggest even a budget increase that is not to their liking, immediately a press release is sent out about how one of the cheaper and most successful missions is "unfortunately going to have to be cut off. budget cuts you know?" If things started getting a little tight in your town's government, is the first thing they turn off the water supply? F no. If your mayor suggested that he would be run out of office and possibly hanged. Nobody even blinks when NASA does this though. NASA plays slashdotters who are supposed to be smarter than that like fiddles.
Next time you read an article about how they have to eliminate the voyager project that only costs about $4million dollar a year and has been running for 20+ years as the probes exit the solar system ask yourself if there are really competent people running the show or maybe they are just saying this to grab some headlines and stir up outrage.
Are We Giving Robots Too Much Power?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGxdgNJ_lZM