RE: NASA is back on track to colonize the moon, by destroying some grains of moon material brought back by Apollo 17.
Old Old:
Wow. Mars Rover. Older than I thought. So, with the moon, when you say Lava Tubes, does that mean there is lava on the moon? I don't mind having people keep robots together but I would prefer using people as a last resort if at all possible.
Humans + Androids
For example, ideally, I would send people to the moon with robots. I would have the robots do the repairs. The astronauts would give the bots, drones, machines, tasks. I would try to make sure that the robots could repair each other upon command.
Last Resort
But for anything that goes wrong, the humans could come in and fix whatever goes wrong. And I understand that.
Flexibility Like Trees
I just want to try my best, if I were them, to minimize the need to repair. For example, in architecture, some of the stronger skyscrapers which withheld earthquakes were made to be flexible like trees as opposed to rigid. I know robots are a lot more complex than buildings. So, I know my analogy here is not perfect.
Robot Body Guards
Yes. We should have robot body guards to protect ourselves from future robot police, robotic terrorism, etc.
They had to be sure it would survive the cosmic radiation, so they picked a mil spec rad hardened microprocessor (AKA Old). The Lava tubes are something from the moon's past, and are simple to seal up. The will provide a lot of space, and be Safe from small meteoroids.
The best way to work (for people) is to have a recovery robot to send to pick up the damaged unit, and bring it to a central facility. The person can repair and upgrade, then send it back to the recovery Robot; to be returned to it's test site. That way, it can go back to work quickly.
The people run the central facility, and figure extraction of materials; and direct the Robot exploration. The people provide the thought required to push things forward.
Flexibility is Not a robot's kettle of fish, so the people will fill this gap. The A.I. decision level needed for 'robocop' is why they made him into a cyborg.
Still need some programming to get there. The processor speed is beginning to get there, it was a processing speed problem on prosthetic limbs a decade ago. That is something I would like to build, especially with electrodes to allow the user to move the limb by thinking....
:)>So, you don't think we are anywhere close to having Terminator robots, Star Trek Data, Wall-E androids, the Robin Williams Bicentennial Man, Short Circuit Johnny Five with the wheels, the danger danger bot from Lost in Space, C3PO from Star Wars, R2D2, Alita, the Cylon from Battlestar Galactica, etc? Yeah, that does make sense, that they put a human inside an avatar, I mean RoboCop. They did a similar thing to General Grevious and Darth Vader in Star Wars.
They are trying, but to date they are just bairly able to walk. We will need a lost more processor power, and a better power source first. A lot of today's robots are teathered for power, and some need charge after just a few hours. Tracked units have trouble with dust in bearings, even with sealed bearings.
Not hopeless, just an Inherent oroblem. They could recover the lunar rover for recovery use....
:)>Don't they have robots that can run?
Not that I have seen, the ones that walk use almost all their processor power to do so. It is hard to balance and to walk, you have to actually fall forward (in a controlled way). We will get there, a lot of progress has been made already.
Progress is the sum of many small steps, and we are tallying up a lot of small steps! It will happen soon.
The power problem worries me more, especially in space. We need to find a power system with a significantly higher power density. Solar power, as a primary source, is what killed the Mars Rover. We need to do better!
If we had People local, we could recover and reset that robot. We also need satellites to allow remote reporting for the long range prospecting robots. I really would enjoy working up there, it would be exciting!
We are getting close!
:)>How did solar power kill the Mars Rover? Did it have no backup power in case there was no sun or was there some kind of surge, as in too much power all of sudden, like EMP or something that fried the power? Was there no like buffer or surge protection or what about solar power that would kill the rover on Mars? I'm asking because I love solar power and I hate to see it cause problems at all. If it was just a lack of sun, I'd understand.
I also love solar power, and I am building a full system for my homestead.
The problem was that the rover was stuck in a sand storm for over two weeks, and her onboard battery died. When sun returned, she undoubtedly recharged; but no longer knew where Earth was due to memory loss. Further communications are no longer possible without antenna alignment reprogramming.
She was a tough little rover that was supposed to only run for 90 days, and she hung in a little longer, LOL!
I wrote on herr about a year ago, a salute to a heroic little robot! They got weather data that changed some of the colony planning from this little beast. We really got our monies worth from this mission!
She should be recovered and placed in the first Martian Museum.
:)>Did you say she is still moving around on Mars but that we are not receiving a signal from the Mars Rover any longer? So, the memory was lost because it was not powered for the two weeks? Don't they have external hard drives that can retain memory like a DVD or how long can drives last without power? Did the sand storm create an EMP or something that would shock the memory? Did her program not have a if-then protocol for what to do if there are storms? Did she have the ability to scan the weather in order to attempt to run away from storms or to dig a hole and turn off to wait the storm out?