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Japan Plans Moon Base Built By Robots For Robots
An anonymous reader writes "The Japanese space agency, JAXA, has plans to build a base on the Moon by 2020. Not for humans, but for robots — and built by robots, too. A panel authorized by Japan's prime minister has drawn up preliminary plans for how humanoid and rover robots will begin surveying the moon by 2015, and then begin construction of a base near the south pole of the moon. The robots and the base will run on solar power, with total costs about $2.2 billion USD, according to the panel chaired by Waseda University President Katsuhiko Shirai. 'As currently envisioned, the robots that will land on the lunar surface in 2015 will be 660-pound behemoths equipped with rolling tank-like treads, solar panels, seismographs, high-def cameras, and a smattering of scientific instruments. They'll also have human-like arms for collecting rock samples that will be returned to Earth via rocket.'"
I guess I'm from the 1st category "people who own America" according to your hierarchy. I'm Chinese.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
We're whalers on the Moon, we carry a harpoon. But there ain't no whales so we tell tall tales and sing our whaling tune.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Hey, I just do rockets. I can figure the cheapest way to get mass X to position Y with velocity Z.
Dust? Ask the guys who build targets (I think they are called civil engineers or something)
Remember they are Japanese - these robots will probably look like adolescent schoolgirls.