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Japan Plans Moon Base Built By Robots For Robots

Posted by Soulskill on from the ceding-the-moon-to-skynet dept.

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.'"

59 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. optimistic Japanese by Dyinobal · · Score: 4, Funny

    Ya I'm not so optimistic about the trust worthiness of robots. This sounds to me like they are practically giving them the perfect rebel base, for when the robot rebellion comes.

    1. Re:optimistic Japanese by KDR_11k · · Score: 2, Funny

      So what if they rebel? We'll send up our own HERCs and wreck the Prometheus core.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  2. The start of the revolution... by Geraden · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's all good, until they start to hurl moon rocks at us, via a robot-built rail gun.

    1. Re:The start of the revolution... by Seth+Kriticos · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's not very far fetched. Moon rocks (regolth) contains a vast amount of He3, so the idea for building a robotic moon base is probably to send back minerals sooner or later.

      I doubt they will use a railgun for that purpose though. It needs too much energy and the propellant has to have specific physical attributes (has to be conductive?).

      I think they will opt for rockets, or something like that, though the railgun version would be admittedly much cooler.

    2. Re:The start of the revolution... by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 4, Informative

      The grandparent was referring to "The moon is a harsh mistress" by Robert Heinlein. Worth a read, has held up very well despite it's age IMHO.

      --
      .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
    3. Re:The start of the revolution... by wagnerrp · · Score: 2, Informative

      Moon rocks (regolth) contain a trace amount of He3

      Fixed that for you. The actual quantities are somewhere around 10 parts per billion.

    4. Re:The start of the revolution... by TroyM · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I keep hearing the He3 meme on Slashdot, but it sounds like just a far fetched attempt to make going to the moon financially worth while. I've read a lot about fusion attempts like ITER and the National Ignition Facility, but have yet to hear of anyone doing fusion using He3. A quick search of the web found this, which says that He3 fusion will be much harder to achieve than fusion using Tritium or Deuterium. I think the main "advantage" of He3 fusion is that it would force us to go back to the moon

    5. Re:The start of the revolution... by durrr · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm starting to grow a bit tired of repeating this, but He3 is not the ultimate fusion fuel. It's only because it's an exotic off world resource that it gets all the hype.
      The benefits of He3 is that it's a aneutronic fuel, but it is definitely not the only such fuel, and considerin the shipping cost from the moon it is quite likely that He3 will have a hard time competing with other aneutronic fuels.
      Also, The temperature requried for He3 fusion is higher than for other fuels, so to actually get anything out of He3 fusion we're probably going to wait until second generation commercial fusion reactors pop up, the first ones that will feed our grid and establish the standards for fusion energy are unlikely to be He3 fusion reactors. Probably, we won't bother to ever use He3 fusion on earth, possibly we won't even bother to use it on the moon either.

    6. Re:The start of the revolution... by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2, Informative

      large changes to the balance of mass between Earth and the Moon

      I sincerely hope your post was meant as a joke, but if not...

      Removing the top 10 km of the entire lunar surface represents around 10^16 tons of material.

      It also represents less than 2% of the total lunar mass.

      In other words "large changes" isn't even in the timezone of what we're talking about....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    7. Re:The start of the revolution... by Yergle143 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here's a handy link to the University of Wisconsin Fusion website dealing with the advantages/disadvantages of 3He as fuel
      http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/research/dhe3
      A key feature -- even though it requires more energy, burning D+3He yields far less neutrons which would be an important advantage in a commercial reactor.
      Fusion is still a dream but there is a lot of action with "alternative configurations" so we should keep our fingers crossed.
      Me: if fusion can work, why stop at the moon? Betcha there is more 3He to be sucked out of the regolith on Mercury!

  3. What about the sailors? by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Should they bite your shiny metal ass?

  4. Just $2.2 Billion? by timeOday · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Funding to the Space Shuttle has been around $5 billion per year for most of the last 30 years or so, and just keeping the program on operational life support was quoted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program">$2.5 billion per year in early 2009.

    So if they deliver that entire program whose lifetime costs are only 2.2 Billion, I would be super impressed. In fact I would be impressed if we did it ourselves for 5 times that amount.

    1. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by sqrt(2) · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would imagine that the prices drop dramatically once you don't have to worry about sending humans up, keeping them alive, and returning them safely.

      --
      If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
    2. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by toppavak · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The largest gains would be in fuel costs and life support / living space. One way trips cost about half as much because you don't have to carry nearly as much fuel with you, plus without the need for oxygen, manual interfaces, displays, living spaces, seats, etc. the total mission weight can be drastically reduced.

    3. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, the prices drop - though less than you might think since not only are the robots themselves very expensive, so are the support/operations crew back on Earth. There's also considerable loss in the amount of science and work performed, so the difference in your 'bang for your buck' isn't all that great.

    4. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by khallow · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would imagine that the prices drop dramatically once you don't have to worry about sending humans up, keeping them alive, and returning them safely.

      The price drop occurs when you limit the scope of your mission to what two robots can do. Yes, a small, relatively simple robotic mission is cheaper than a complex manned mission, but it also does less. I will say that due to the small communication delay with Earth, the argument for a manned presence is far less compelling than it'll be for anything outside of the Earth-Moon system. You really can run complex operations mostly from Earth via teleoperations. That's not an option that works well on Mars, for example.

    5. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by sznupi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What they currently have can put close to 20 ton payload into LEO; that should be comfortably sufficient for robotic "base", in few shots.

      (and it's in the league of SpaceX anyway; especially if Japan modifies (only) their heaviest launcher even more - it is already a modification of one which could put half the above payload into LEO)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    6. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by Gorobei · · Score: 2, Informative

      One-way trips only half as much? More like 1/100th.

      Apollo was on the edge of the possible: everything was maxed out to just get a few hundred pounds of rocks back to earth: huge 3 stage rocket, complex LEM + command module on the far end to hold energy costs down, piles of heat shielding, etc, for a difficult insertion back into the earth's orbit. Plus, as you say, all the junk needed to keep your automation systems (people) alive.

    7. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by Dragoniz3r · · Score: 4, Informative

      For a better comparison, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers:
      "The total cost of building, launching, landing and operating the rovers on the surface for the initial 90-Martian-day (sol) primary mission was US$820 million." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover
      The moon is a lot closer than Mars, so it doesn't seem entirely infeasible that they could do things significantly cheaper.

    8. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by Gorobei · · Score: 5, Informative

      On running the math a bit more: getting 1kg of payload mass to the moon with a soft landing is more like 1/1000 the cost of the round trip.

      So, $2B for an automated moon-base is pretty reasonable.

      Yes, I am a rocket scientist.

    9. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by fizzup · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah, you get less. But, man-oh-man, this seems like very high value. For comparison, here are some expenditures from groups that "can't afford" to go to the moon:

      It's such a small amount of money, I can't even believe it's true.

    10. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by Like2Byte · · Score: 4, Interesting

      OK, here's a question for you then. I understand the moon's surface is made up of a bunch of tiny particulate - "dust" is you will. This dust, as I understand, got into everything during the Apollo Moon Missions. Now, for arguments sake, let's say Japan is able to install a moon base operated wholly (locally) by robots.

      What kinds of effects would the dust have upon the rails, pathways, gears and whatever other machinery is necessary to operate? I imagine that the gust would wear down the machinery and the robots might not have the ability to recognize wear and tear in such an environment - both on themselves and the machinery.

    11. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by rubycodez · · Score: 2, Interesting

      it is a fallacy to continue to believe man can do more than a robot in near-earth space. Anything a human can do could have been by remote control. We've made the space program extremely wasteful by bothering to send humans. Some also believe the nonsense that humans in space help us toward the goal of colonizing space, but the truth is that the means we support humans in space now have nothing to do with how a self-sustaining colony would operate and in fact only degrade human health such that long term existence in space would be impossible. Incredible the tens of billions of dollars we've burned to no purpose.

    12. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by Gorobei · · Score: 5, Funny

      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)

    13. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by Kjella · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think it boils down to this: If we send humans to the Moon, they'll be remarkably like the humans Mark I we sent in 1969, while the most advanced robot we could have sent then was probably a digital watch. In 2050, if we still send humans for a round three they'll still be very similar to the 1969 humans, while if we send robots the next generation is likely to be much, much better than the last one. That means to a country running a space program, which hopefully have a little bit of foresight beyond this one mission, robots are still the way to go.

      Also, I think many people grossly exaggerate the "doing" part of science. We can design the mission down here, we can do the analysis down here, only very rarely does a scientist discover something to change his plans so on the fly that we couldn't tell the robot to go back and do it again tomorrow. If the robot lacks the tools, it's very likely a human would also lack the tools. The execution can be a fairly set of simple menial tasks like collect rocks, photograph every sample, put in processing chamber, wait for analysis - no great intelligence required. It's not like we're going to bring a huge lab of equipment we might use if and only if we found something interesting, humans or not.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    14. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by khallow · · Score: 2, Interesting

      it is a fallacy to continue to believe man can do more than a robot in near-earth space. Anything a human can do could have been by remote control.

      No. Repairing complex instruments like the Hubble couldn't have been done by robot.

      We've made the space program extremely wasteful by bothering to send humans. Some also believe the nonsense that humans in space help us toward the goal of colonizing space, but the truth is that the means we support humans in space now have nothing to do with how a self-sustaining colony would operate and in fact only degrade human health such that long term existence in space would be impossible. Incredible the tens of billions of dollars we've burned to no purpose.

      There are various reasons the global space programs are wasteful. The presence of humans is not one of the reasons (unless you think the space programs which have humans should do less than they currently are). It remains that you can't understand how to live in space long term, if you don't have people doing things in space at some point. Finally, far more public money is squandered on other things such as wars, government retirement and health care services, and corruption.

    15. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by DriedClexler · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You think that's bad? Wait till you compare $2.2 billion to what some companies spend on advertising.

      Advertising Age estimated global measured advertising expenditure of $2.7bn in 2008, making Coca-Cola the world's #6 advertiser.

      Source.

      --
      Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
    16. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by Lloyd_Bryant · · Score: 3, Interesting

      For a better comparison, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers:
      "The total cost of building, launching, landing and operating the rovers on the surface for the initial 90-Martian-day (sol) primary mission was US$820 million." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover
      The moon is a lot closer than Mars, so it doesn't seem entirely infeasible that they could do things significantly cheaper.

      Sorry, but that simply isn't true. For any space mission, a very large chunk of the total cost is the cost of getting the payload into Earth orbit. Once there, you can use high-efficiency low-energy transfer orbits to get to just about anywhere in the solar system, with very little in the way of energy expenditure compared to the trip up to orbit.

      The only real difference between having the Moon as a target as opposed to Mars is that the Mars mission will have a transit time measured in years, as opposed to days for the the Moon mission. For manned missions, those transit times are very significant (life support requirements), but for unmanned missions they don't add substantially to the cost.

      Costs do increase with distance (you have to pay ground controllers to monitor things during those longer transits), but the the difference isn't as great as you appear to believe.

      --
      Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
    17. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hey, I just do rockets.

      This may be the first time I've seen someone seriously say, in effect, "I'm just a rocket scientist, how am I supposed to know?".

    18. Re:Just $2.2 Billion? by fustakrakich · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
      That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  5. and why, exactly? by Johann+Lau · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why would you want the US to "take the Moon"?

    Fuck Empire. Everywhere, always. Don't take that bullshit to space, kthx.

    1. Re:and why, exactly? by gzipped_tar · · Score: 4, Funny

      Your UID sounds un-American. All your bases will be belong to US.

      --
      Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
    2. Re:and why, exactly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I believe the grandparent means "take the moon seriously" (concatenate the title and the text).

    3. Re:and why, exactly? by Johann+Lau · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's because I'm German and when it comes to the things you jokingly brag about, America is nothing but a shitty noob compared to stuff which sadly is much closer to my home. (I guess any European could say that: America is a kid still utterly fascinated by things the adolescents are growing tired of...)

      As such I'm very much aware of the following hierarchy (just an example):

      [people who own America]
      [people who own third world countries like Germany]
      ["Americans"]
      ["Germans"]

      So when such a patriot says "we pwn you", it just means "the people that pwn me also pwn you." Another example is "we (sic!) have the nukes": nope, your owners do, they also own the bunkers, and they definitely lack a healthy lack of concern for you or anyone you care about.

      It's true, too, and that's why all the flag/dick waving is utterly ridiculous unless you're a billionaire. You're basically waving someone elses dick.

      Which is an icky thing to do.

      Fuck Empire.

    4. Re:and why, exactly? by gzipped_tar · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.
    5. Re:and why, exactly? by Johann+Lau · · Score: 3, Insightful

      unless you're very, very rich, that'd make you "Chinese" though, not "people who own China" or "people who own America". that's the whole point! a pawn is a pawn is a pawn, and it's better to not own anybody or anything and not be a pawn, than to be super mostest world leader of #1 acclaim and, well, be a pawn.

      pawn. pawn pawn pawn. :D

    6. Re:and why, exactly? by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Insightful

      For what it's worth, I hate it when people use the title to start their post; it's meant to be the subject, not the first part of the first sentence...

      --
      It's official. Most of you are morons.
    7. Re:and why, exactly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Fuck Empire.

      Look at me guys, I'm against nationalism! Am I cool yet?

    8. Re:and why, exactly? by FranklinWebber · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hello Johann Lau,

      I think you are responding seriously to a post that was not meant to be taken seriously. In case you are not familiar with the phrase, see

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us

      for the reference behind the GP's humor.

    9. Re:and why, exactly? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Funny

      Careful! He's German - this sort of humour might give him an aneurysm.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    10. Re:and why, exactly? by daemonenwind · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I guess you have not yet realized that all the people with the genetic makeup to make something of themselves left the Fatherland in the political unrest of the late 19th century. (For us, 1848) Most went to the US.

      This means that what was left in Europe is all the adolescent attitude and garbage. The US is, in fact, the proper maturation of Western thought after Europe went to nothing in the course of it's wars.

      In fact, the longest peace Europe has known (1945-now) exists because it is occupied by these people you call children. Before 1946, the history of Europe is of some tribes of barbarians wandering in and spending the next 1500 years fighting amongst themselves.

      You do speak properly when you refer to yourself as an adolescent, though. This sort of arrogant, self-righteous attitude is seen primarily in adolescents and in Europeans. We Germans are particularly bad about it. Perhaps if we could even decide amongst ourselves if Greece is worth saving, we could tell the Americans how to use their power. We have forgotten how to be the European Gleichgewicht.

      Thankfully the US has taken up the cause. And for this, you call them Empire. You don't know what Empire is.

    11. Re:and why, exactly? by Issarlk · · Score: 2, Informative

      African countries actually build rockets and plan to put satelittes into space. As can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR97o_FuX-c

  6. Re:Obligatory by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 2, Funny

    Moon Base Built By Robots For Robots

    So these robots are already planning to build a moon base that discriminates against humans? I wonder if that's because they'll be doing secret robot research there into the preliminary SkyNET satellite network? The moon is in the sky, and SkyNET is in the sky ... coincidence? I think not.

  7. Look to see human exploration fans squirm... by bradbury · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All I can say is "Its about time." The human body is not designed to operate in space, indeed almost all biological systems on Earth that reside under nice "shields" including the magnetic field, the atmosphere, the ozone layer or even the oceans and they were not designed (evolved) to withstand the hazards of space. Ignoring minor topics like micrometeorites and the lack of atmosphere one has the ongoing problem of radiation exposure. Humans for example have 150-200 genes in the genome (~1%) whose purpose is to repair DNA damage. It does not do so reliably (so radiation causes gradual genome decay). And although one may develop "shields" this makes activities by humans in space inherently more expensive than using the right "organism" [1]. Anyone aware of robotics research knows that the Japanese are pushing this forward at a very rapid pace. Presumably much faster than one can push forward human "evolution" [2].

    Yes humans can engineer suits, habitats, shields, rovers, etc. which would allow humans to operate in such alien environments. But *why* do this? One has to remember that the "moon rocks" were brought back to Earth for analysis. We have to develop the remote robotics operations capabilities for exploration anyway [3]. Lets do it for the moon first.

    If people want to go places to say "I have been there", then fine let them pay for it (as private citizens or organizations) -- just don't expect all the rest of us to pay for your expensive vacation. The robotic development of the moon could serve as a prelude for human colonies there (to preserve humanity from terrestrial impacts) or taking vacations there. The moon is close enough that round trip radio can be used to control or reprogram robots in the event of complex/unforseen situations (remember we reprogrammed the Galileo mission when it proved necessary). The "nightmare" scenario of robots evolving into autonomous entities (a new robotic species) only arises when one is dealing with situations where remote control and/or reprogramming are not possible and one has designed the robots both self-reproduction and intelligence enhancement capabilities -- and I think we are still quite some distance from those achievements.

    1. References to using a hammer as a screwdriver apply when using humans in space. Astronauts require additional tools and training to work in space. Instead design the systems to be easily maintained and repaired by robots in space.
    2. Ideally if one wanted humans to live in space one would use genetic engineering to produce humans which were radiation tolerant. This not only has benefits from a space exploration standpoint -- such humans would likely have reduced cancer rates as well. But such developments are at least a generation away.
    3. I have yet to see a single proposal for a single human "submarine" or a human colony to explore the oceans of Europa to search for life or provide a humanity "safe room".

    1. Re:Look to see human exploration fans squirm... by chowdahhead · · Score: 2, Informative

      The amount of exposure in REMs during the Apollo missions was extraordinarily low in contrast to the common misconception that it wasn't. There are many reasons for manned colonization and exploration being less practical than robotic missions, but radiation exposure shouldn't be one of them. In fact, in terms of technical hurdles, it should be one of the easier to overcome. I think one of the arguments in favor of manned space flight is adaptability. Robotics are limited to what their design specifications allow them to do. For example, the Spirit rover is a wonderful machine, but it can't repair itself or free its wheels. Humans can react instantaneously to unanticipated and catastrophic circumstances and succeed.

    2. Re:Look to see human exploration fans squirm... by kumanopuusan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft - and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. - Wernher von Braun

      --
      Use of the words "good", "bad" or "evil" is almost invariably the result of oversimplification.
    3. Re:Look to see human exploration fans squirm... by bradbury · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm not talking about REM sleep. I'm talking about physical damage to DNA caused by ionizing radiation (gamma-rays & X-rays where the photons have enough energy to split water molecules) which produces hydroxyl radicals in the nucleus that attack the DNA. Similar but more extensive damage is caused by heavy ions (charged Fe, C, O, etc. that stream through space -- and ultimately contribute to cosmic ray showers). The only way to shield from the high energy photons is a lot of mass (e.g. lead or an equivalent mass of liquid/solid H) [what one wants is "nucleus" density). In a pinch one could get by with a lot of water/ice which has other uses and probably has to be carried along unless you have a completely closed recycling environmental system with zero losses.

      I was quite surprised that current NASA policy limits total space time of astronauts so as to *only* increase their lifetime cancer risk by something like 4-6% -- and that is for non-lunar flights within the magnetosphere (which does a lot of the shielding for us). Presumably if one is willing to sit on top of tons of rocket fuel one can view future cancer risk as acceptable. But that wasn't considering months or years of total time in space.

      And while yes, the human body is capable of a lot of self-repair and most robots are not but that doesn't mean that they cannot be designed with sufficient redundancy (4 antennas instead of 2, 8 wheels instead of 6, etc.) or have "spares" available, etc. In case you haven't noticed a *lot* of what has been going up in the Space Shuttle recently has been spare parts to extend the lifetime of the space station. A properly designed robotic colony would have a robot replacement part warehouse just like any factory on Earth which requires 24/7 operation. And you might notice that on the Apollo missions I don't think there was a physician on the crew manifest nor was there an operating room available for serious injuries. So the repair capabilities for humans in space are somewhat limited compared to what they are in developed societies here on Earth. No holographic doctors at the Moon Colony.

    4. Re:Look to see human exploration fans squirm... by bradbury · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The satellites and the Mars rovers are not wholly "remote controlled" -- they are running "limited intelligence" programs that allow them significant amounts of autonomous operation. I'd put them as comparable to perhaps 4-8 year old humans in terms of "autonomous" operation. They needed external management and contributions from time to time. And as I recall Apollo 13 would fall into a similar category even though it had adult *human* operators.

      As far as "colonizing" goes -- there isn't a "hospitable planet" in the solar system. In order to make Mars hospitable you need to terraform it. In order to terraform it you need molecular nanotechnology. If you have molecular nanotechnology you might as well disassemble it and contribute its mass to the Matrioshka Brain. If you really want to colonize someplace alien but hospitable there are places like Antarctica, 1+ mile deep in the ocean, the cone of an active volcano, a lot of mountain peaks. Some of those have been colonized but not *really* since they have access to regular support on pretty much an "as needed" basis. If you want to *really* colonize some of those places simply send a team of humans there and don't provide them with any external support unless there is a life or death situation (and even then you are probably breaking the game rules). One could easily make up situations here on Earth that look like Moon, Mars or even Europa colonization efforts *WITHOUT* the expense of having to design new rockets, haul mass out of the Earth's gravity well, insert it safely into foreign gravity wells, etc. The "colonization" part is one aspect of the problem. What resources you do it with can be artificially constrained if you know enough about where you are starting from and where you are going to end up. If there is no ice on the South Pole at the moon then human colonization becomes an much different exercise than if there is. But we could fairly easily play out both scenarios here on Earth.

      If on the other hand, colonization which is extremely difficult is your cup of tea, might I suggest a colony on the surface of Jupiter.

  8. Go go Grendizer! by XnR'rn · · Score: 2, Funny

    They were culturally indoctrinated for years for stuff like this (random link to random giant robot anime ommited). I am not surprised.

  9. Re:All Your Base Are Belong To Us by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Note, however, that this project is not going to be under the control of the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  10. Re:Yay and nay by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, it isn't pointless, not for teleoperation - and Moon is just close enough to at least consider it with skilled human operators.

    And the longer they're up there for, the cheaper this becomes, in comparison to humans. Even ignoring the costs of getting food and oxygen there and maintaining life support systems, humans need to be brought back periodically. You need to rotate the crew, and sending a couple of people to the moon and back, even once per year, quickly gets expensive. With robots up there, you can put different experts in the control center every week for a comparatively tiny cost.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  11. Ohhhhhhhhh by dreemernj · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  12. Off World will be a refuge for the robots... by Go_Ask_Alex · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Japanese robot moon base is a spectacular announcement. It provides the ability to perform all kind of work and activity on the moon without the burden of human life support, or risk to humans considering cosmic radiation cancer risk, silica moon dust hazards, etc.

    But here on Slashdot, many respond with nationalistic bickering and insults. Shouldn't this tech-savvy bunch be smarter and above this?

    Maybe humans in their present physical and psychological state aren't meant for really space? Off World will end up being a refuge for the robots and replicants.

  13. Not 660 lbs, 300kg. by KeithIrwin · · Score: 4, Informative

    See, this is one of those places where we should discuss mass, not weight. Because it's not clear whether we're talking about robots which would weigh 660 pounds on earth or 660 pounds on the moon (which would be about 3960 pounds on Earth, quite a difference). The C-Net article (on which the PopSci article is based) took the information from a blog post from a Japanese Blog called Node. In that blog post, it says 300kg. The author of the C-Net article (Tim Hornyak) did the sloppy thing and just converted it to pounds without giving context. If you really want it in imperial units, the correct unit of mass is slugs. So the robots can be correctly described as being 300 kg, 20.56 slugs, or 660 pounds on Earth at sea-level.

    1. Re:Not 660 lbs, 300kg. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think you're being a little too pedantic here. Mass or weight is *always* given in Earth terms unless explicitly stated otherwise.

  14. remote control by strack · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the interesting thing is the moon is close enough for near real time control of the robots. your looking at a 2-3 second delay between the command and the visual feedback, but id say thats enough for a remote control type situation. give them a way to melt rocks on the moon, and a way to do some robot cnc tool actions, and i bet you can make damn near anything.

  15. Re:Obligatory by racasper · · Score: 5, Funny

    Remember they are Japanese - these robots will probably look like adolescent schoolgirls.

  16. Who's the nutcase now? by pyalot · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://codeflow.org/articles/why-to-the-moon.html

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    Experiments and other stuff
  17. Re:install an industrial complex on the moon by pyalot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You'll have to excuse my [sigh], but you're falling into the same trap as most, but you're so close to realizing it, yet fail to make the leap.

    Launching things off earth is not very economical. Why do we do it? We do it because there are good reasons to do it (satellite industry and scientific endeavors). If you combine all commercially rendered space services, and then also add all the funding scientific missions get, you're at a multi trillion market a year.

    Building an industrial complex on the moon doesn't help you lift things off earth. What it does do is let you launch things off the moon, into earth orbit and elsewhere, quite easily.

    If you can build and launch things off the moon, you can suddenly offer a service that is worth trillions a year in Earth dollars, at a marginal cost. Yes, there is an up-front investment to make it happen. Yes that investment is rather large. But how long do you think you'll need to recover say a 500 billion investment if you can serve a multi trillion a year market and be able to underbid anybody else?

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    Experiments and other stuff