SKIRMISHER

The smart guys at NASA’s JPL are having so much fun with their man-toys that they want to spread the love in other places in the solar system, like the moon and some hot neighbor called Mars. But to be frank, they’re simply repeating what has been the core wisdom of Japanese mecha manga for so long: there’s no robot like the humanoid robot.

To give you an idea of when we mortals can expect to begin seeing these humanoids in action, here’s NASA’s “Vision for Space Exploration,” established in 2004:

• 2023- 2030 Include humanoid robot technology in some space missions
• 2028 - Humanoids assist in lunar habitat assembly
• 2033 - Humanoid robots build habitats without human intervention
• 2040 - Robots perform site selection, sample collection and laboratory analysis of samples.
• 2050 - Robot colonists run large scale commercial mining operations including processing materials, transporting to Earth and energy production.

That’s one exciting timetable, especially that when you look at today, all our most advanced robots can do are what eerily look like “baby steps“– navigating around rooms full of balls and physical obstacles, looking and recognizing which is “annoying pet cat,” “yummy food,” and “mommy.” It’s pretty intriguing what these robots would do when they’ve reached their angsty teeny kind of mode. Might fembots grow up, say, into slutty girls? I just hope somebody remembers to put some sugar tits on them.

via ROBOT GOSSIP

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