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Space

Bouncing Robots Exploring Planets? 119

Posted by CmdrTaco from the if-only-for-the-video-clips dept.
revision1_1 writes: "New bouncing robots could advance planetary exploration by leaps and bounds. The exploration of other planets could benefit from a giant leap for robot-kind, according to researchers in New Mexico. Rather than use wheels or legs, robots could rove across alien landscapes far more effectively by bounding over the surface in an almost random fashion, they say." Well, science hasn't given me talking fruit and a jet pack yet, but this looks pretty close.
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Bouncing Robots Exploring Planets? More

Bouncing Robots Exploring Planets?

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  • Re:Are you kidding? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Then don't kill them and eat their little bodies. It's entirely senseless.

    If scientists were able to grow meat on trees, through the marvels of genetic engineering, would you eat that meat? After all, no animal had to die to provide it.

  • Re:Are you kidding? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We have neither the sharpened teeth nor the intestinal infrastructure necessary to be meat eaters.

    No, we are not cut out to be 100% carnivores, but that isn't the point: We're omnivores. Get used to it.

  • Taco, just because you don't have a Jet Pack [rocketmaninc.com], doesn't mean you should speak for every else.

    Invented by Bell Labs in the early 60's(?), and called the Rocketbelt, it could only maintain airborne for less than a minute, so you can imagine the altitude this puppy could get.

    More info here [si.edu] and here [the-strange.com].

  • Bouncing is what Space_Exploring_Robots do best!

    Next we will have a fat honey-grubbing mars lander...
  • Actually, it was the sub-contractor, Lockheed Martin's fault for the mis-calculation of units.
  • Unless, of course, the jump coordinates are calculated in metric units, and the "be careful not to land on" coordinates are calculated in Imperial units.

    --
  • We don't need to kill animals to eat

    How do you eat the animals if you don't kill them? They will really sit still for you that long? tee-hee ;)

    --
  • Mine did, after I glued them to my suction-cup-hopping-toys. Anybody remember the offical name for those suckers? They had a spring inside suction cup, and a large flat foot on the end of the spring. Stick the cup down, and after a few seconds, boing! Man, those were great!

    Excuse me, I have to go rummage in the closet, just might have some left.

    --
  • Robots + rabbits = robbits!
  • Keep in mind that we will never get there without commercial involvement and monetary backing.

    Since the demise of the cold war, the US space program really hasn't gone very far. NASA needs some competition, or even better, should be privatized. I don't advocate pillaging everything or putting up a 500 mile wide McDonald's sign in space, but getting businesses to push ahead into space is what's really going to open up those frontiers.

    For better or worse, it's the only way it's going to happen- we need to move off this rock and spread like a disease. I'm quite partial to humanity, versus the possibility of frozen bacteria on mars, or the like.

    I guess I'm just species-ist. or whatever the word would be for that :)
  • If we all decided that we wanted to blow it up for the fourth of july, then we should. It's our perogative as members of the human race. If someone else wanted to keep it, they should have put up some minimalls or something, you know- kind of a marking-the-territory kind of thing. my amateur experiences with telescopes haven't yielded a SINGLE parking lot view; and besides think of the tax dollars? some place like Delaware could annex mars and think of all the new corporations that could have virtual offices on mars.

    Either that, or the french could test their nuclear missles there, since the south pacific is getting rather crowded these days...
  • whoops, that should be french nuclear MISSILES even...

    or conversely, we could ship all those greenpeace activists there, and then let them test :)
  • one could argue that FDR caused many of the financial woes we have today. prior to his administration, the US government actually had a surplus, kind of like all INTELLIGENT people who maintain a savings account.

    While I realize there were drastic circumstances, it's still debatable if starting us on that course was better or worse in the long run.

    that, and you seriously need to learn to cope with humour. sheesh.
  • I like beating my wife while I eat large bloody steaks.

    I also have no problems with being the one slaughtering the cows.

    but to say "I don't *NEED* to eat meat, so therefore I *OUGHT* not to eat meat" ? that's an absolutely nonsensical viewpoint. If you are going to waste all of your short life on whining about things, pick something that actually makes a difference; help advance the human race. We're the top of the food chain, and I hate to break it to you but in the jungle animals don't all eat tofu. (although I'm sure you have a witty statement to make about how we should all eat tofu because we can.)

    I still say you're a vegetable murderer.
  • After seeing the pictures and reading the article, I'm a little dissapointed. I was hoping that these "bouncing probes" would be more like the Rover from "The Prisoner," which was of course just a weather balloon that roared.

  • Mars (Score:1)

    by jrs ( 27486 )
    Then it leaps into one mars's mile deep canyons.
  • I take it you've never been pregnant?

    MEAT! I will have MEAT! NOW! NOW NOW NOW! Red, juicy! I WILL REND THE COW MYSELF!!

    Oh, the carnage....
  • Leave it to us humans to deny to lonely, lifeless planets the joy of happy, bouncing robotic goodness.

    For, what is beauty without a viewer, even if only a mechanical one?

    Does not the unobserved particle live in a confused superposition of quantum states without an observer to collapse them?

    Nay, it is the selfish species self-hate of we pathetic humans that prevents us from delivering to as many planets as possible the rich, abundant delight of sapient appreciation.

    Write to your Congressdroids today! Tell them in no uncertain terms that you will not accept any more delay in spreading our aegis over the entire Solar System!


    ;^)



    --

  • http://www.newscientist.com/ new s/news.jsp?id=ns226113 [newscientist.com]
    A HOVERING spy craft only 23 centimetres across could soon be flying behind enemy lines to conduct surveillance, or darting about inside buildings to help police find hostage-takers


    This is the Toy i want for Xmas -- with the X10 wireless cam!!!!

  • Ok, no jet packs (at least yet), but here [dole5aday.com] is your talking fruit. Just add THC.

  • This post is completely off topic. Why on earth is it 'Insightful?' It's not even factually correct.

    Humans have evolved into omnivores, which means we have the necessary equipment to eat both meat and vegetable matter. If we were inherently vegetarians, we would have evolved the rest equipment that other vegetarian animals come with (a much longer intestinal tract and the ability to digest cellulose, to name a few). Our teeth are highly adapted (with sharp cutting incisors and tearing canines, alongside our crushing molars) to eating a variety of foodstuffs, as well.

    Not to make light of the moral/health arguments for vegetarianism (for which they are many), we must at a minimum demand more rigor in our informed discussion of any topic. Of course, this slashdot topic has absolutely nothing to do with vegetarianism.
  • No, I'm really not a foaming at the mouth enviromentalist. I just don't like the idea of leaving a bunch of shit around knowing full well that you're never going to come back and pick it up.

    I do have to agree with you that having some exploration of Mars is much better than having none and that if these little bouncy things help us to do that then it's a good thing. However, I think that it's something that should be discussed. That's why I posted my thought here, and it did in fact lead to some discussion, so I got what I wanted. Thank you for your input.
    ________________
    They're - They are
    Their - Belonging to them

  • That was the greatest game. Nothing like the old PC Jr. I found an abondoned DOS demo version at download.com does anyone know of a full version of this game for either DOS or linux. I didn't find anything at the usual places.
    ________________
    They're - They are
    Their - Belonging to them
  • This is exactly why I couldn't finish Robinson's Mars series. The religious environmentalism disgusted me.
  • hehe... yeah it does now that i think about it... thats a bad sign if i am forgetting the old star wars... ESB was the first one that i saw in the theatre. MMMMM Star Wars...


    mov ax, 13h
    int 10h
  • Reminds me of Darth Maul's nifty probes in phantom menace. Same sort of image, ne?


    mov ax, 13h
    int 10h
  • But there is control, at least a little bit. it is kinda like when you are *really* trashed and trying to walk home (or drive home for that matter) from the bar. not every step goes in the right direction, but things even out and you pretty much still get where you are going.

    although i could be wrong.
  • I don't see how it can right itself with a shape like that.

  • Except Weebles didn't hop around like this.

    Didn't some Weebles have arms? I always thought of them as walking forward on their hands and bottom.

  • That's funny; I was about to say it reminded me of the dozens of probes launched in every direction at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back.
  • A robot could land, survey the area, select a target based on some parameters--level appearance, distance, etc--and then jump over. maybe it would have overhead surveys to work from as well. Also, if it was small and light, it might not do or incur much damage. I don't think we're talking the robot version of Tigger here. (attractive as that Idea might be!)
  • Hmm, and I'm reminded of sf novels where future descendants of environmentalists complain about how mining the Kupier belt or Jupiter's hydrogen will be violating their worth...

    Makes you wonder if there's some n-th dimensional being thinking, "Hmm, nobody's really using those first three dimensions. Maybe a hyperspatial bypass would be a good use..." :)

  • Download a C64 or Atari emulator, and play the original versions of Jumpman and Jumpman Jr in all their 8-bit glory.
  • ...wouldn't happen to be Yakko, Wacko, and Dot, would they?

    *Boingie Boingie Boingie*
  • What we are looking at here is either a robotic springbok (African gazelle-like creature that jumps around a lot), or a robotic Jumping Spider.

    Personally I always thought a eight leg spider robot is a great design, especially if he can rotate his legs about their axes! Flip upside down? No problem! I'll just spin my legs over!

    --

  • That sounds pretty cool. Quite a while ago I was thinking that if I were to enter a robot into Robot Wars, it'd be something along those lines. (Though maybe jumping 3 feet instead of 10 meters!)
    I figure a simple design that can jump, and aim before jumping could do fairly well at all aspects of the contest except for the fight. (It'd have to wait for an attacker to approach, then use itself as a projectile, so it'd get low aggression scores.)
  • What happens when they inevitably hop into a volcano or off a cliff? Are they cheap enough to be considered disposable?

    The potential for watching these things under the influence of alcohol is mind-boggling...

  • Yeah! And somebody let the solar system know about the new "no littering" law on Mars. Damn thing has been dumping its crap there for years.

    I'm an eco-terrorist myself, but one with common sense.


    Andrew Borntreger
  • Now instead of 1 little wheeled thing per mission we could have dozens of bouncing machines littering the planet

    Yeah but beer cans aren't magnetic (Not anymore anyway). You could have those things hop within a sweeping electro magnet's range, and grab em all. I doubt being so small they transmit their findings back, they probably have to be picked up at some point..
  • Before I saw the pictures in the article, I was under the assumption that the device had, like, 3 legs and was smart about it's hopping. The landings would then be shock absorbed by the legs, and the things could bound off into the sunset at a rather quick rate with minimal impact on the body. If the thing got turned over, just retract the legs, let it roll to the weeble-wobble position, extend the legs, move on.

    The programming could allow the thing to move in random directions, or can go into a semi-directed mode where coordinates are fed to it, and a path finding algorithm goes into effect to get it there.

  • *Sigh* I wish I had an imposter. I guess I'm not good enough at this.
  • Animals have souls. Plants don't. Do I really have to explain this? I know a few cucumbers and at least an apple who would love to discuss theology with you. But they're so stupid that I don't let them use my Slashdot account any more (although they are better at Karma whoring than I am).

    All kidding aside, why would mother Nature tell us that we don't need to eat meat to get by in life while giving us sharpened teeth to eat meat better? The point is not that we can live without eating meat; we could survive on fruit juice and vegetables, but do we *have* to?

    I do frown upon senseless violence to animals (killing rabbits just to try out a new mascara or shampoo, when a cell experiment could work out just as well). But eating meat is a part of almost every human culture.
  • Since you believe in souls you must be in some form of religion funny thing is theres quite a few religions that believe only people have souls.
  • I don't *need* a computer, TV, artificial lights, soda, clocks, potato chips, a newspaper, and a whole host of other things. Does this mean that I shouldn't have them? No.
  • That's the reason why we don't have any real soil samples from Mars. The ammount of fuel to get to/from the planet and pick up all your little tin can probes would be massive probably several million tons in propellent. Also you have to time the arrival and departure of the probes very carefully to match the orbits of Earth and Mars.
  • I mean if you want a simple look at the terrain it's ok but if you insist on doing this it just seems like more of the same.
  • I submitted a story to /. on 28092000 regarding a New Scientist story about this same fellow developing this for landmine redistribution to cover cleared paths in minefields. I guess he didn't sell it to the military and is now trying to peddle it to NASA.
  • Has NASA traded in all its ingenuity for hollow creativity, much like Apple and Adobe did? Seriously, whose bright idea was this? Why don't they just stick to orbiters and rovers?

    These bouncing probes might become a space hazard if we manage to populate planets. Astronauts in space suits might have to duck bouncing objects, else suffer the same fate as Homer Simpson in HOMER^3.

  • That begs the question whether Mars should be doing us any good at all. It can be asked whether everything we see should just be assumed to be ours to do as we wish.
  • All kidding aside, why would mother Nature tell us that we don't need to eat meat to get by in life while giving us harpened teeth to eat meat better?

    I have some news for you, which you might find somewhat suprising: the Neolithic happened about 10,000 years ago, and we haven't evolved since then. Whatever we are genetically adapted to doesn't matter, since we don't live in an environment remotely close to it. That environment no longer exists.

    Paleolithic hunter-gatherers ate meat that they hunted themselves; these were wild animals that had very lean meat. And they ate tons upon tons of wild plants-- and a variety of plants that would absolutely shock you. The diets one might call "natural" are nothing like the dairy, cholesterol-filled, huge hunk of steak carnivor diet that you vegetarian-haters like to call "natural".

  • Why not supply the Hopper with a pair of good old-fashioned wheels? In that case, when it detects less movement than anticipated (due to hit-the-wall-and-roll-back effects) it could manoever itself out of the pit 'on foot' and resume the hopping from a safe distance. Hoping not to hop itself back into trouble.
  • I got it from an old Fitz of Depression (Olympia, WA band) T-Shirt that I have from 1991. Sort of funny how it came around again. It's a neat shirt with a lot of history too -- one of my favorites.
  • The bounder approach sounds like an idea that might not have been very well thought out. The area that is intended to be researched is likely a large circle, spotted with points that are researched (ala the monte carlo method).

    As already pointed out, crater and other hazards would send these robots to never-never land, so the area that is researched never covers areas beyond the hazards.

    Wouldn't it make more sense to disperse several smaller shrapnel "robots" with a missle shot upward, with a controlled explosion above the surface sending the robots over a truer detailing of the circle in question.

    The robots could be small, with no moving parts, just a hell of a cushioning system. Some other method would need to be devised for exploring cracks in the surface etc, and details would have to be worked out for this too...
  • Given how much of the planet we have to explore, pretty much any place they bounce is going to be interesting.
    Although, random bouncing can still eventually get you where you want to be. Another New Scientist article says the military is looking into this as an option to replace current anti-tank mines.
    See, right now the U.S. refuses to sign with other countries in the anti-personnel mine ban. Reason, they are afraid of their anti-tank fields getting cleared.
    But if the mines communicated with one another, they would start hopping around again once a path was cleared, stopping once the gap was filled.
    Same researcher, same deal. Presumably the NASA bots would just keep hopping 'till they hit something useful. Still faster then crawling around, or getting stuck...
    Hm. Perhaps a combination of the two. Crawling for precision maneuvering, hopping to avoid getting stuck, or to cover a lot of ground?

  • These are the most expensive Weebles yet!

    Prior Art will not allow any patents though.

  • one giant for mankind

    Or is it "pronk"?
    (According to Cat's Paws and Catapults [the name of the author escapes me at the moment], the name of the 'gait' ("gallop","trot",etc.) for a creature pushing upwards off of all four legs simultaneously is called 'pronk'. I wonder, would this apply to these robots, the pictures of which imply that they are 'one-legged'?)

  • On landing, the hopper's egglike shape allows it to pop back upright before reassessing its position, ready for the next leap.

    Weebles Wobble But They DON'T FALL DOWN!!!

    Neato!

    --

  • Re:No! (Score:2)

    by Jerf ( 17166 )
    Thanks for the warning! :-)

  • Re:No! (Score:2)

    by Jerf ( 17166 )
    Wouldn't a bouncing robot harm the pristine natural setting of the planet?

    What "natural" setting? In case you haven't noticed, there isn't much "nature" on Mars!

    Concern for the enviroment stems from concerns about life, not about "pristine states". Earth's "pristine natural setting" is a planet with no life and not much in the way of free oxygen. Concerns about the condition of Mars are limited to how the inhabitants of Mars feels about that environment. As of right now, there aren't very many.

    The universe doesn't give a damn!

    (not to mention Mars is pretty big; if our robot was a nuclear bomb it still would have no particular effect on Mars!)

  • Blah. (Score:2)

    by No-op ( 19111 )
    You are a murderer of innocent vegetables.

    How can you stand the torture? all those ears of corn screaming as they are ripped off their stalks.

    I am proudly a meatatarian, and I wear fur. lots of it. even my underwear.

    FUR- we evolved, they didn't. Sucks to be them. (tm)
  • Don't disturb the dirt... the dirt firsters will hunt you down.
  • The Special Forces are developing/experimenting with microuavs. These things are less than 2inches long and transmit images back to a ground station. Great for urban settings.
  • Because the last time we thought of bouncing probes, it was to kill eachother and blow up things...

    http://ravecentral.com/dambusters.html
  • Nifty engineering project. Overall it seems like a pretty cool toy. I'd love to have one of these to chase around a field someplace. Cats would probably get a kick out of it too.

    However, I'm not sure that it's really all that wise to be sending all kinds of junk all over Mars. Now instead of 1 little wheeled thing per mission we could have dozens of bouncing machines littering the planet. Just reminds me a little too much of finding Bud cans laying all over after a rodeo.
    ________________
    They're - They are
    Their - Belonging to them

  • Imagine these things decked out with sharp spikes and dropped from bombers by the thousands landing in a downtown area and just jumping and shredding people to pieces. Put a counter on them and the one with the most frags goes to the Smithsonian.
  • I used to have bounce balls that I would shoot from hights to accelerrate faster than gravity, they would then bounce past their starting points.


    A few of these I am sure are wandering the universe, bouncing among the planets.


    Oh, and science has already brought you talking fruit. It is called LSD-25.



    www.mp3.com/Undocumented [mp3.com]

  • I can just imagine one these things bouncing around, suddenly disappearing into a cave, a 30 foot deep dustbowl, or a 2-mile deep canyon.

    There had better be a LOT of these things in each package to justify the overall cost of getting them to the surface of another planet and be willing to lose a few!

    As far as fuel is concerned, would combustion be the best? Maybe a slightly slower process, each little guy would slowly charge a big capacitor with solar panels, then use up the stored charge in a big burst for a jump at a time.
  • Dunno how dissecting grasshoppers came into a topic where it sounds like somebody was just watching them & came up with an engineering idea, but whatever...

    The only reason you have the luxury of being a vegetarian is because "modern" society has the means of bringing you the selection of vegetables from all over the world that you need to maintain your dietary needs. If you were part of a hunter/gatherer tribe, you'd eat meat or die of malnutrition.

    Meat represents CONCENTRATED nutrition - nutrition which has been gathered, refined & stored in a high-calorie, high-protein form through biology - if humans didn't eat meat, there isn't a chance in hell that humans would have made it out of the tree-swinging stage.

    It's fairly well-known that it is possible for a human in very good shape to run down (and kill from exhaustion) a horse, over some period of time (I think it was at least a few days). The _reason_ that a human can do that, is because they can scarf down in a couple minutes the same calories & nutrients (relative to body size) that it takes the horse HOURS to eat. And the human is NOT getting that energy by scarfing down lettuce!
  • Hmmm...this could be quite a popular sport-hunting event, even more so than shooting those dumb clay "pigeons".
  • I'm pretty sure that it has been documented as possible for a human with excellent hunting skills & health (which, admittedly, does exclude most of the current world's population :) to run a herbivore like a horse or deer to death, over the period of multiple days.

    I'm not sure I can find a web reference though, so you can call me an idiot and feel pretty comfortable about not being proven wrong :)
  • &nbsp But eating meat is a part of almost every human culture.

    Our digestive system is not that of a carnivore that needs meat. We have the digestive system of an omnivore that can eat almost everything, but eats mostly a vegetarian diet.

    In most societies, eating meat is a rarity. Even in western society, eating meat used to be a rarity, limited mostly to special occaisions. Historically, however, it was found that sub groups which consciously decided to go with a pure vegetarian diet have tended to live longer than their more carniverous relatives.

    _______
    The process that got me to go from carnivore to vegetarian was an understanding of how much resources it takes to create meat. With the resources devoted to a heavily carniverous diet, we could probably feed a dozen vegetarians quite well.

    Once I switched to a vegetarian diet, I also found that my digestive system would be generally stressed when I ate meat -- although there is some reason to believe that much of that stress may due to the heavily chemical upbringing of farmed meat.
    `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!

  • NASA manages to crash into the red planet, and not a "bouncing bot"? A million new jokes for this, I can just see it now....
    • How do you say splat in martian?
    • If a NASA bouncer crashes on mars and no one is there does it still go splat?
    • How do you stop a NASA martian explorer? Simple, invite the "SLAM dunk champ" from Regnas 5 to Mars and point him to the new ball!
    I like it, now if they will simply let me work on my mouse trap powered rocket....
  • Check out Bruce Sterling's old essay [eserver.org] "Outer Cyberspace" for a discussion of deployment strategies for these little buggers.

    Yes, one or two might fall down crevases. So what. Get a bunch of 'em.

    "And because they are small and numerous, they should be cheap. The entire point of this scenario is to create a new kind of space-probe that is cheap, small, disposable, and numerous: as cheap and disposable as their parent technologies, microchips and video, while taking advantage of new materials like carbon-fiber, fiber-optics, ceramic, and artificial diamond."
  • I actually had an idea along these lines while looking over the rules for RoboWars on their website (the British version). One of the really important objectives for robots in that series is mobility - many of the challenges involve knocking things over or avoiding obstacles such as the hostile house robots, pits, and uneven terrain. I thought that a robot which moves by bouncing or jumping, rather than rolling or walking, might be ideal for overcoming such difficulties, as well as confounding the usual combat techniques used by other robots. The fact that NASA would be interested in similar techniques for their exploration robots suggests that maybe RoboWars isn't quite as inapplicable to real life as one might think.
    Now if only NASA could build its robots on something closer to a RoboWars budget...
  • ...talking fruit are you looking for Mr Taco?
  • What good will this be when it accidently bounces into a crevasse?

    I think the idea is to have lots of these things running around because they're so cheap. Sure some will get stuck or destroyed, but the majority will survive. You can see from this picture [darpa.mil] how small (check out the size of the chips relative to the overall size) and inexpensive it must be.

  • It's easy to get robots to bounce! Just give 'em enough caffiene. I do it all the time here at work... just switch out the decaf, and my useless robotic cow-orkers are repainting the building, talking at 100mph, and yes, bouncing!
  • What good will this be when it accidently bounces into a crevasse? I appreciate the bounding mode of transportation, and once again we can look to the insect world on the best ways to accomplish this, but if there isn't any control then what is the purpose? Movement for the sake of motion is wasteful. Movement to get to a specific different area (over that rock, 20 feet to the right, etc.) is meaningful.
  • You could throw out a dozen of these to search in all directions

    Now that would be super-cool to witness. Mechanical 'grasshopper' search teams bouncing around your backyard. I wonder if that 10 meter estimate is in the moons gravity or mars or earth or what...
  • Ok. I'll bite. I don't have anything else to do at the moment. On with the trolling:

    I have some news for you, which you might find somewhat suprising: the Neolithic happened about 10,000 years ago, and we haven't evolved since then.
    Well, judging from the quality of some posts here on Slashdot, some people are closer to the Neolithic than others. But I disgress. We have evolved since then, if only in small changes. Like losing a few back teeth, shape of the foreheads, things like that.

    Whatever we are genetically adapted to doesn't matter, since we don't live in an environment remotely close to it. That environment no longer exists.Oh, really? So the masai in Africa or the aborigines in Australia live in environments so dissimilar to those 10k years ago? I'll grant you that civilized societies (let's skip the usual arguments over civilization and culture) change the way they regard to nature. But step outside of a city, and you'll see the same environment that has been around for ages. All we do is take a little piece of civilized environment with us while we go outside.

    and a variety of plants that would absolutely shock you.
    No! Don't tell me they ate... green stuff that grows from the ground! Or colored stuff that hangs from green tall things! Oh, the humanity! The horror! The un-civilized behavior of those poor primitive savages!

    There, I was shocked. Did that come out ok? I do need to practice my acting skills.

    The diets one might call "natural" are nothing like the dairy, cholesterol-filled, huge hunk of steak carnivor diet that you vegetarian-haters like to call "natural".
    *Turns around, looking for a vegetarian-hater* Nope, no such animal around here. Please excuse me if by writing what I thought anyone got the impression that I hate vegetarians. I dont. I have vegetarian friends. I just don't share their ideas.

    And you're right. Filling up with cholesterol is not my idea of healthy living. I'd rather be like the japanese and eat more fish instead of steaks and pork.
  • well Taco, if you want a jet pack you should join NASA. Then we'd have some "Geeks in Space" news again... :-)
  • If this article reminds you of The Great Gatsby, you probably paid more attention in English class than did the average Slashdotter....

    Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
    If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
    Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
    I must have you!"

    Bouncing robots exploring other planets -- and Rob's complaining that he doesn't have talking fruit!?!

    ---------

  • We have neither the sharpened teeth nor the intestinal infrastructure necessary to be meat eaters.

    Really? I mean, really really? If we are herbivores, then, why the heck don't we have fermenting vats in our stomachs? Last I checked, humans were omnivores, a type of animal that is biologically equipped to eat both plants and animals. Omnivores. Yes, we're not carnivores; for crying out loud, though, we're certainly not herbivores. Stating such is pure rhetoric, and whatever scientific evidence is used to back said rhetoric is carefully picked from context, massaged, and paraphrased so as to conform to the ideological goal rather than actually prove it. The Vegitarian Resource Group has a good short article posted here [vrg.org] that goes into a bit more depth on the science of the matter.

    Besides, my point wasn't one of material necessity but of moral obligation. You don't *need* to eat meat; therefore, you *ought* not eat meat.

    Much like how since we don't *need* to have premarital sex, we *ought* not have premarital sex, no? Your morality != my morality. I, for one, happen to really, really like things like Tandoori Chicken and Beef Bourguignon. You'll have to pry my fork out of my cold, dead hands before I'll stop eating such things. I also maintain a diet high in veggies, since I know that eating veggies is healthy for me, and while I do enjoy eating meat, I do so in moderation, since I know that eating too much can be bad for my health (much like the glass of wine I have with dinner.)

    How, though, do you see killing and eating one form of life as opposed to killing an eating another form of life as being more or less just or moral? For non photo-synthetic lifeforms here on earth, it is NECESSARY to kill and consume other life forms to survive. Killing and consuming plants still involves the premature termination of a living creature for the sake of your continued survival (unless, of course, you only eat plants that have died of natural causes after completing their entire life cycle, which I doubt that is the case.) If your morality dictates that you should not eat animals because their life is more valuable than that of plants, I understand and respect your views, even if I do not share them; it certainly is much easier to ignore the fact that you're stealing the life of something else to continue your own when it doesn't flee, thrash, and bleed when killed. But don't expect me to feel the least bit guilty or morally depraved for eating meat; my life is built entirely off the sacrifice of countless other lives, both plant and animal, and I can accept that fact without remorse.

  • It seems like such a simple idea. While the idea of little bouncing probes isn't as dignified as a more noble looking rover with treads, anything that actually gets used to explore space and other planets is fine with me.

  • Wow. My very own imposter, someone who aspires to be what I have become. You love me! You really really love me! *sob*
  • They're not worried about making careful precision measurements, as you'd know if you read the article:

    Robinett realised that this somewhat chaotic approach to navigation was a very cheap and effective way of getting about, compared to the complicated planning that most robots need to move.

    "We're just very used to wheels and complete control."

    It's for rapidly getting around the planet and covering as much area as possible, figuring out where the really interesting parts are, and then perhaps later sending back a precision probe for more careful analysis.
  • It's certainly an interesting idea, and would probably work well. However, as mentioned before, the robots would have to either be very tough or very cheap. The major problem I can see is that because of the level of toughness required, it would be hard to get much analysis equipment to work from inside the shell of the 'bot. Perhaps these could be used to 'scout' and then a more traditional tracked or wheeled bot used to actually investigate. That would also negate the problem of control; you would *want* the bots to bounce all over the place, beaming back collected info whenever they were able, so that you could send out a standard lander without getting it stuck, by plotting its path from the information sent back by the bouncing bots.

  • You know what this means.. (Score:3)

    by BilldaCat ( 19181 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @12:33PM (#691756) Homepage
    The return of Jumpman!

    Boing.. boing.. boing..

    Hopefully these planets will have ladders randomly placed everywhere.

  • Programming (Score:3)

    by bguilliams ( 68934 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @12:31PM (#691757)
    If the scientists need any help writing the code that will drive their randomly bouncing robot scouts, I may be able to help them. I still have the source code to the bouncing ball applet I wrote in a class a couple years ago...

  • That would be very hard to debug, IMO (Score:3)

    by smoondog ( 85133 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @12:32PM (#691758)
    The problem with bounding robots, is that the communication time is so slow, they need to have something that can move very slowly and make very carefull movements. Remember the rover moved one step at a time controlled by earth. To have something moving randomly around would limit the ability of researchers to look at specific things and to be careful. -Moondog

  • Distributed robotics for the Defense Department (Score:3)

    by rhea ( 104104 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @01:20PM (#691759) Homepage
    Researchers at the University of Minnesota have been working on bouncing robotic scouts for some years now for the US Department of Defense. They pair the scouts with "ranger" units which transport them and then launch them. Potential applications include scouting behind enemy lines, counting the number of terrorists with guns and transmitting to a nearby helicopter, etc. Fascinating stuff.

    See the Center for Distributed Robotics website [umn.edu] for lots of info, demos [umn.edu], etc. Or read this article [umn.edu] from the UMN CS Dept Newsletter featuring this project.

  • This reminds me (Score:3)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @12:40PM (#691760)
    Just to prove there's nothing new under the sun, I recall seeing movies of an experimental WWII mine-clearing device that was essentially a heavy sphere that had some sort of rockets or other propellant devices. It would be launched and bound through an area in a random fashion, supposedly detonating any mines. It looked pretty hazardous to be around, so I don't think it was ever used, but it was quite entertaining to watch.

  • Greenpeace? (Score:3)

    by Vuarnet ( 207505 ) <luis_milan@ho[ ]il.com ['tma' in gap]> on Thursday October 19, 2000 @01:21PM (#691761) Homepage
    what damage will it to do the "planet" it is exploring? where is green-peace at a time like this.

    Greenpeace in Mars. Hmm. Would that make them Redpeace? Besides, we all know that Mars, that so-calledd "planet", has to be preserved in its pristine natural setting until we arrive in hordes, build MarsDisney themeparks and eat Earth chocolate bars.

  • Are you kidding? (Score:3)

    by Anne Marie ( 239347 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @02:02PM (#691762)
    [W]hy would mother Nature tell us that we don't need to eat meat to get by in life while giving us sharpened teeth to eat meat better?

    We have neither the sharpened teeth nor the intestinal infrastructure necessary to be meat eaters. Besides, my point wasn't one of material necessity but of moral obligation. You don't *need* to eat meat; therefore, you *ought* not eat meat.

    But eating meat is a part of almost every human culture.

    I do frown upon senseless violence to animals

    Then don't kill them and eat their little bodies. It's entirely senseless.

    So's spousal abuse. Social prevalence does not make it anything more than just popular. People like beating their spouses and they like eating their meat. It doesn't help your point.

  • Time to send space probes out in pairs again? (Score:4)

    by jamesc ( 37895 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @02:26PM (#691763)
    No doubt L-M was properly roasted for its mistake, but I think it is time for the mission planners to go back to sending out pairs of probes again.

    Just like the Viking missions, two spacecraft give you two chances to succeed. They are launched at different times, in slightly different orbits. The arrival times are usually set to be a couple of weeks apart, mostly because of limited ground crew resources.

    If there had been two such Mars probes, after the first one crashed there might have been enough time to diagnose the bug and upload a fix before the second one arrived.

    Also, two probes do not cost twice as much as one. Only the launch costs are duplicated. The R&D costs are the same, and the money needed to build two one-off engineering prototypes (the probes) is less than twice that for building one.

    Ob disclaimer: I realize that some persistent defects in two mechanically and electrically similar probes will fail in the same way, and may very well not be fixable from the ground. But, that's no reason not to try.
    --

  • Picture (Score:4)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @12:55PM (#691764)
    Here's a picture [darpa.mil] of the guts of the thing (which in government-speak, they call "Long Range Mesoscale Mobile Hopping Platform". Guess "hopper" doesn't cut it for the bureaucrats.)

  • Hopper or Hole Digger? (Score:4)

    by martyb ( 196687 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @12:52PM (#691765)

    First off, this sounds like a really interesting approach! It seems, at first, that it would go a long way to avoid problems with surface obstructions (e.g. large rocks).

    But, on further thought, can you imagine one of these things trying to hop out of a valley of loose sand? Sand gets kicked around, all right, but it'd be just digging itself in deeper and deeper! (It'd be even worse in an area where there was mud or a pond, but there's not too much of that on the moon <grin> and doubtful there'd be much on Mars.)

    Sure, you could make a larger "base". That is, the part that gets thrust against the surface. But, then there's another issue. From the article:

    On landing, the hopper's egglike shape allows it to pop back upright before reassessing its position, ready for the next leap.

    If you made the base larger, how would you make sure that it was on the bottom?

    Maybe a larger, birdcage-like superstructure? That might make it roll back into the proper orientation, but it would also add to the weight of the hopper and lessen its range. Further, it would risk the possibility of it getting mired in a crater:

    1. Hop!
    2. Hit side of crater.
    3. Roll to bottom of crater.
    4. Repeat.

    Same kinds of problems if it should land in a narrow ravine... it could hop itself right across to the other side of the ravine and imbed itself in that wall.

    I'd like to think they've considered these problems, but I saw no mention of them in the article. Any other ideas on potential problems and their solutions?

  • Are you insane? (Score:4)

    by karma_policeman ( 232005 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @12:44PM (#691766)
    I'm not sure that it's really all that wise to be sending all kinds of junk all over Mars. Now instead of 1 little wheeled thing per mission we could have dozens of bouncing machines littering the planet.

    That sounds like environmentalism taken quite a bit too far. That is almost as bad as the people who think we shouldn't colonize mars because "we'll just ruin it like we ruined earth". Nevermind that there's nothing on Mars to be ruined. No evidence of life, just thousands of acres of dust.

    If bouncing "litter" helps us one little bit in exploring mars, I say go for it. Mars isn't doing us any good just sitting there, all pristine.

  • Wanton acts of robotic destruction (Score:4)

    by Jothom ( 243828 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @12:32PM (#691767)
    Leave it to us humans to destroy the beauty of planets that we have yet to even inhabit with bouncing bundles of robotic goodness.

  • One small step for man... (Score:5)

    by Fat Rat Bastard ( 170520 ) on Thursday October 19, 2000 @12:29PM (#691768) Homepage
    "One small step for man... one giant <BONK> for mankind"

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