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."
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R2
Here I am, brain the size of a planet
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I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. Time to get of my lawn.
Re:R2-D2 (Score:5, Funny)
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If you added a 'D2' onto the name, you'd have R2-D2. There, I said it. Now nobody else can make lame puns.
Nope, that would be R2+D2, what you meant is subtract it, sheesh, news for nerds.
AC was proven wrong yet again!
"Bite my shiny metal ass" (Score:4, Funny)
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The lack of alcohol is of course what keeps me off the ISS.
Hey my sig is on topic.
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about fucking time (Score:1)
Re:about fucking time (Score:5, Insightful)
Because robotic teleoperation, while handy, is far from perfect?
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But, as this article shows, is getting better all the time. I'm not saying manned spaceflight shouldn't occur. But think about the cost benefits of having people using telerobotics to do on-orbit assembly in 3 shifts with multiple on-the-ground controllers. At that point, you're only limited on construction by a) how fast you can get new pieces into orbit to bolt together and b) power consumption of the telerobotics systems. Seems to work fairly well for UAV drivers out of Las Vegas.
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Should be fun on the Moon - it's just close enough to at least try teleoperation. I hope any future efforts will put a live stream on the web...
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Agreed. Unfortunately, anything past that is going to be worthless. Benefit? Fully autonomous systems are going to get built extremely well.
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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.
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...mostly teleoperating (when it's needed) a mostly autonomous fleet of robots nearby.
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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:5, Insightful)
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"
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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]
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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 :-/
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They are wonderful devices, but they can't warp time :-/
Yet. They can't warp time yet.
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Well, their clock does tick slightly slower...
Re:about fucking time (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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"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.'"
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Arnie, is that you? (Score:1)
R2 looks like the upper torso of a sculpted bodybuilder...
I'll be back. Fuck you asshole. Hasta la vista, baby.
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I'm thinking "no". Have you seen pictures of Arnie recently?
More like "In the flab on my back, you could say hasta la vista to a baby, or maybe a full-grown man."
Hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Robotic enslavement (Score:2)
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...
The PETR activists are gonna have a field day with this one...
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The PETR activists are gonna have a field day with this one...
I don't think robots are all that tasty.
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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.
the best thing about this new crewmate... (Score:3, Insightful)
... he doesn't fart.
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I'm not sure he would never emit odors, though. Probably smells like wiring and ozone all the time...
In before LucasFilms (Score:2)
In before LucasFilm sues their asses off.
And from the looks of the thing, Bungie/Microsoft may want to take a shot, too.
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It tweets. (Score:3, Informative)
A robotic escort... (Score:2, Funny)
For those cold, lonely nights on the ISS.
R2 has hands? (Score:5, Funny)
Next they'll ruin R2 by making him fly with tiny rockets.
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]
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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]
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oh crap! (Score:2)
that robot has a gun! we're totally screwed!
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that robot has a gun! we're totally screwed!
Is it a Point of View gun? If so I agree.
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"The gold visored helmet. WANT "
Visor? How about some fucking legs?
I can just see this thing dragging itself around the space station like some half-dead detritus of interstellar war, smoke and ozone wafting from the shattered remains of its lower torso....Groan!!!..Must reach repair module....energy reserves critical....bzzzt! Need...legs. Groan...Zap!
Oh. Right. No gravity.
Neat gun though!
Zap!...must reach self-destruct sequence activator...Fzzzt! Legs...destroyed...all...is...Zzzzzt! Zap!...lost!...Ssssss
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Some lucky Cosmonaut will end up wearing this robot as a backpack. "Hey, Ivan, turn around! I can't see anything!"
It is a banner Day (Score:1)
R2 Job Description (Score:1)
Immediate (FTO) NASA - Space Station Droid
Must be able to perform repetivite, mundane tasks while freeing humans to do more complicated tasks.
Droid must be:
- capable of surviving in-space jettisons
- able to store/deliver distress messages
- provide and manage combat and technical information in high-stress situations (eg: raids, combat)
- able to rescue and repair C-3P0 units
- capable of overriding security systems (in-depth knowledge of Vader Death Systems LLC a plus)
- able to maintain and troubleshoot Falco
Wouldn't it be better outside? (Score:1, Interesting)
... repetitive or more mundane functions inside the orbiting laboratory...
As a layman, I'd think the more troublesome tasks on the ISS involved the hassle of getting into an EVA suit for activities outside the space station. In which case the bulky pressure suit and heavy gloves are likely to give an astronaut no better manual dexterity than what could be provided by a robotic waldo. So wouldn't it be smarter to have the robot on an armature external to the station? Or is this just considered a testing phase to make sure that such robot is reliable and flexible enough before put
Robonauts on Moon By 2013 (Score:1)
http://boingboing.net/2010/07/08/nasa-robonauts-on-mo.html [boingboing.net]
It's cool and all... (Score:2)
It's cool and all, but did they seriously need to gold plate the thing?
I love this stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
not a robot (Score:4, Informative)
Space robots (Score:3, Funny)
holy crap (Score:2)
i had a bad feeling when i read the summary, but when I saw the picture of the thing it became very clear what is going to happen. I've seen enough sci-fi to know that thing is definitely going to turn on the crew when it gets up there. It will probably sample everyone's voices and for years it will provide radio communication and no one will realize that astronaut and cosmonaut corpses are circling the earth. Then it will watch from above as it figures out ways to manipulate government intelligence and
Robonaut To Escort On Space Shuttle Mission (Score:2)