Robonaut To Escort On Space Shuttle Mission 74
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."
It tweets. (Score:3, Informative)
Nice photo (Score:3, Informative)
The gold visored helmet. WANT
Pumping IRON: http://www.engadget.com/photos/nasa-and-gms-robonaut2/2677799/#2677804 [engadget.com]
Re:Nice photo (Score:3, Informative)
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 [engadget.com]
When I open that page, it disappears in a second, so here's the direct url to the picture:
Robonaut 2 [blogcdn.com]
Re:Robotic enslavement (Score:1, Informative)
The PETR activists are gonna have a field day with this one...
I don't think robots are all that tasty.
L. Ron Hoover [killuglyradio.com] from the Church of Appliantology [killuglyradio.com] would agree.
Re:about fucking time (Score:3, Informative)
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 [nasa.gov]
not a robot (Score:4, Informative)
Re:about fucking time (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:about fucking time (Score:3, Informative)
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 :-/