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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Future of Space Has Been Launched

Posted by on Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 2:24 PM

NASA.jpg
  • NASA

I do not believe that a human or humans will ever permanently leave the earth. True, the transition life made from a liquid medium to a gas one was certainly great. But from earth to space and other worlds does not seem biologically possible. We have too much life in us. What could make this transition, however, is something that has lots of death in it, a robot, a man-machine.
A Robonaut (R2B) successfully launched up to the International Space Station on February 24th. R2 is the first humanoid robot in space. Once R2 is unpacked, likely several months from now, it will be initially operated inside the Destiny laboratory for operational testing, but over time, both its territory and its applications could expand. There are no plans to return R2 to Earth.

 

Comments (15) RSS

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1
Not just in space; Artificial intelligence is really the last best hope for intelligent beings to survive on this planet as well. Humans sure aren't going to make it in the long term.
Posted by Proteus on March 16, 2011 at 3:03 PM
yelahneb 2
The decision to make robots designed to work in human environments - with a head, arms, legs - is a sound one; those are the places we desire to have them do our work for us.

But over time, it will make more sense to engineers to design environments around the robots instead, for efficiency's sake - similar to how we started to design cities around cars rather than people - and this will be the beginning of the end.

In the distant future, robots are sending humans into places they consider too dangerous for themselves.
Posted by yelahneb http://www.strangebutharmless.com on March 16, 2011 at 3:29 PM
Cato the Younger Younger 3
Robots will eventually replace humans. It's obvious isn't it ? Or perhaps some sort of robot-human mixture...something that combines the best of the mechanical with the best of the organic... Hmmmm if only I could think of what that could be called.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger on March 16, 2011 at 3:33 PM
COMTE 4
I'm betting on a human-machine (i.e. cyborg) synthesis; mechanical durability paired with human intellect.

Homo Sapiens may not have a future in space long-term, but Homo Mechanicas probably does.
Posted by COMTE http://www.chriscomte.com on March 16, 2011 at 3:37 PM
pissy mcslogbot 5
"That's right R2, gonna set a new course, we're going to Cloud City...

(ahhh) That's a mighty good gin and tonic, why don't ya fix me up another?

Thing's are bout to get ugly"
Posted by pissy mcslogbot on March 16, 2011 at 3:42 PM
Dougsf 6
And NASA robot names R2 must have had you Google Alerts doin' a 3-way with your inbox.
Posted by Dougsf on March 16, 2011 at 3:43 PM
Supreme Ruler Of The Universe 7
Here's my take on it.

The Earth moves at 600Km/s through the Universe. It has endless air, water, and food and you can watch unlimited streaming movies for under $10 a month.

If you can't build a "spaceship" better than that, then you're not improving things much.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_fast_does_…
Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com on March 16, 2011 at 4:54 PM
Fish Wrench Asteroid 8
Moving out into the solar system and later the galaxy is entirely possible, and would extinction-proof our species.

Humanity hasn't displayed the kind of collective foresight that would be required to take on such a massive engineering project. The payoff would be millions of years in the future.

But of course, why would you think long term like that when Jesus and/or Mohammed are coming like next week to end the world?
Posted by Fish Wrench Asteroid on March 16, 2011 at 6:02 PM
Free Lunch 9
What is the advantage of a humanoid robot? Seems like four legs would be stabler and locomotively faster, and you could still give it arms in addition. Heck, it could even stand on its hind legs when it needs more than two hands.

When I see those videos of Asimov "running," my anti-humanoid bias only gets stronger.
Posted by Free Lunch on March 16, 2011 at 6:05 PM
OuterCow 10
Animals are just a cooperative of nanomachines. I really don't see a hardline difference betwixt us and robots.
Posted by OuterCow on March 16, 2011 at 6:24 PM
11
A robot has "lots of death in it"? Am I missing some pretentious reference here?
Posted by g on March 16, 2011 at 6:41 PM
Danger 12
@8 Way sooner. But it will probably not be driven by the U.S.

Orbital shuttle launch platform by 2050.
Mars 2-4 person base by 2060.
Permanent moon base by 2080.
Permanent mars colony by 2100.
Jupiter or Saturn moon base by 2200.
Posted by Danger on March 16, 2011 at 6:44 PM
COMTE 13
@9:

Believe it or not, but in a microgravity environment, legs are not particularly useful...
Posted by COMTE http://www.chriscomte.com on March 16, 2011 at 9:29 PM
Super Jesse 14
Fuck space, we need dozens of these robots operating at the nuke plant in Japan, like, yesterday. Why the hell don't they already have remote control robots holding fire hoses, erecting shielding, clearing debris and doing people work there already??? I thought Japan was in the future! The future!!!
Posted by Super Jesse on March 17, 2011 at 12:53 AM
Fistique 15
I vote we spam the cosmos with oxygen-blowing algae, just to fuck with any other kind of life that's out there.
Posted by Fistique on March 17, 2011 at 7:22 AM

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