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Robonaut To Escort On Space Shuttle Mission
An anonymous reader writes "The STS-133 crew will deliver robot Robonaut 2 (R2) to the International Space Station. Cocooned inside an aluminum frame and foam blocks cut out to its shape, R2 is heading to the station inside the Permanent Multipurpose Module in space shuttle Discovery's payload bay. R2, with its humanlike hands and arms and stereo vision, is expected to perform some of the repetitive or more mundane functions inside the orbiting laboratory to free astronauts for more complicated tasks and experiments."
Nope, that would be R2+D2, what you meant is subtract it, sheesh, news for nerds.
Just as long as they don't start staffing their shuttles with bending units!
Does it have a giant red LED and talk in a very calm, soothing voice?
... he doesn't fart.
Because robotic teleoperation, while handy, is far from perfect?
You can follow its adventures on twitter: @AstroRobonaut
The PETR activists are gonna have a field day with this one...
I don't think robots are all that tasty.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
For those cold, lonely nights on the ISS.
Next they'll ruin R2 by making him fly with tiny rockets.
*DrugCheese rants*
With all the power of the internets, the article can't give us more than a thumbnail of this robot. You want some real robot pron, go to engadget: http://www.engadget.com/photos/nasa-and-gms-robonaut2/2677799/#2677802
The gold visored helmet. WANT
Pumping IRON: http://www.engadget.com/photos/nasa-and-gms-robonaut2/2677799/#2677804
WTF are you talking about? Have you ever looked at the vast number of unmanned spacecraft doing work for us right now? Ever noticed how many were launched & operational even before Vostok 1?
It is really hilarious - those claiming we don't need "inspiring" manned programmes...completelly taken by them themselves, apparently, to the point of not noticing how humans are not, and never were "our primary means of getting work done in space"
One that hath name thou can not otter
Because people want to be there.
besides there are a LOT of other things my taxes go to that I really don't want to pay for. Sending people into space is just a good idea. as it improves our knowledge on how to do so. So if were survive long enough and need to escape earth we can and possible settle someone else.
If we don't wast time and money on humans in space the knowledge will go away. Just think if we were to go to the moon again we need to rethink everything again because we havn't been there in 40 years. And we have forgotten how to.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Voyager 1 and 2 are still collecting data, 48 years later. Until a human can subsist on heat and power from an RTG unit alone, at the edges of the solar system, robotics are still going to be doing the heavy lifting. Us meatbags are fairly high maintenance =(
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/weekly-reports/index.htm
"I now define 'moral behavior' as 'behavior that tends toward survival.' I won't argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word 'moral' to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define "behavior that tends toward extinction" as being 'moral' without stretching the word 'moral' all out of shape.
... and it is still moral behavior even when it fails.
Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she'll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college -- and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child
br> Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards.
The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of your own kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have a name for that. It is called 'patriotism.' Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind.
Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: 'One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.'"
"Get the facts first. You can distort them later." -Mark Twain
"But I don't think of you."
No, it's obviously Marvin.
... is expected to perform some of the repetitive or more mundane functions inside the orbiting laboratory
....
R2
Here I am, brain the size of a planet
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
As an oldish (40+) programmer who's only recently got into robotics (the simple stuff - arduino, sparkfun, xbee, khr3-hv), coding the control software to make a robot actually do stuff is way more challenging than the supposedly complex projects I work at on my day job. Programming a robot kit to walk or pull poses is simple enough, but coding 'any form of 'intelligent' decision making ends up with lines and lines of code and as many sensors you can sensibly add to the hardware.
I thought it would be pretty simple to build and code a robot cleaner - like a basic remote control car that just drives around the house with a duster underneath which heads back home when the batteries are running low and recharges. Clearly the challenge of climbing the stairs can move to the version 2 release, but if I stick it on the first floor, just stopping it falling down the stairs needs around five sensors and over 500 lines of code.
Two cameras for 3D spatial awareness? Try coding it to tell the difference between and apple and an orange. Built in GPS to get an absolute position reference? Even if you get a signal, 5 meter accuracy doesn't help much when you are driving it towards a lift shaft.
That's why I love this stuff.
It's a Waldo, not a robot.
There's a hard limit though. The light barrier.
To some extent, you can design around this. Have it be human-directed semi-automatic operation instead of strict teleoperation. This is probably good enough for orbit. Possibly good enough for lunar. But beyond that...zip. Too much latency. Eight minutes of latency per astronomical unit of distance, period, no compromises.
For God's sake not a single "robotic overlord" post yet ? It's a fucking ROBOT. IN SPACE !!11!one =P
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
The Voyagers were launched in 1977 (I remember the hoopla), so that makes their current age around 33 years. They are wonderful devices, but they can't warp time :-/
Michael Richmond "This is the heart that broke my finger."
mwrsps@rit.edu http://stupendous.rit.edu
Agreed. Unfortunately, anything past that is going to be worthless. Benefit? Fully autonomous systems are going to get built extremely well.
Heh, and we get to the point about having humans in the mix. No need to develop fully autonomous systems (especially, if you didn't want the system to be fully autonomous), when we already have fully autonomous systems that we use every day and trust.