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Private Firm Plots Robotic Lunar Exploration
DeviceGuru writes "Astrobotic Technology has unveiled plans for a series of robotic expeditions to the Moon. The lunar rovers will explore high-interest areas of the Moon's surface and beam the data back to the Earth. The plan is to accumulate an extensive library of lunar data and sell it to governments and private corporations (PDF), much as Navteq's data forms the backbone of most terrestrial GPS services. Astrobotic's first goal is to win Google's $30 million Lunar X Prize, with a May, 2010 trip to the Apollo 11 landing site at Mare Tranquillitatis."
The problem with beaming data from the Earth to the Moon is that anyone with an antenna can listen to the signal. Unless Astrobotic has a unique way of obfuscating the data stream so that only they know what's being beamed back, what's to stop a government from simply erecting a few antennae and getting all the information for free?
And another question, if the cost of paying people to decode the obfuscated datastream is cheaper than the cost of buying the information directly from Astrobotic, how can the company realistically expect to have any customers?
Seriously. I know that this is /., but try. You might enjoy it.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
I call bullshit on your artificial separation of exploration and investigation for space travel.
Who do you think controls those machines? "Self-aware" beings like us. Even programs are just well planned lists of actions that a human would do, if he were there. This is not that far away from a delayed control.
It's a sad day when even people here on Slashdot use "but, the computer did it" arguments. You're supposed to know this better. Or you must be new here. ;)
Oh, and by the way: Self-awareness is no feature that some creatures have, and some don't. Like with the question if something is alive, there are infinite steps in between. And maybe it's even just an artefact of how we see ourselves and justify free will.
"fragments can be found..." is an irrelevant strawman argument, with no relation to the terms "investigate" and "explore".
Your real point is, that we should spread our DNA.
Well... on that I agree... it's the point of our existence.
But don't forget the second level of procreation: The spreading of philosophies, world views, thoughts and knowledge.
I argue, that if we once create a robot civilization on another planet, that lives like we do, and loves what we love,
then our fleshy bodies could die, and we would still have survived.
(Of course, by then, we could be able to read the content of brains and transfer it to that planet via some radio system, to embed it into androids.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I totally agree, the gp is mixing exploring and kolonizing.
All the mars probes have been exploring mars: the athmosphere, minerals, history, water, and subsurface. All by remote control.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
We already know that Earth is our only hope for sustaining the human race inside the solar system.
No, we don't.
We know it's the only one we can go outside with a t-shirt on, but it's hardly our only hope for sustaining the human race.
If we needed to, we could create self-sustaining bases on Mars, the Moon, some of the Jovian moons, etc. Sure, we wouldn't be able to go outside and breathe fresh air, but humanity could survive.