

Russia, Japan aim to establish permanent bases on the Moon - ananyob
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/05/russia-japan-aim-for-the-moon.html

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Paul_S
We should stop sending humans into space and start sending lots of robots but
first we need to create better robots.

There's no reason or advantage of a human being there. Well, that's not really
true now but only because robots still suck too much and it's only a matter of
time.

~~~
geon
There is a _long_ way left before a robot will be anywhere near as good as a
human.

First of all, we need better mechanics. The mars rovers are a great example.
They work really well until they get stuck in the dirt. Something like that
should ideally not be possible.

We might solve that problem soon enough, but doing stuff in space is
problematic if you rely on teleoperation. Even on the moon, the delay makes it
difficult to control anything as unpredictable as a rover with wheels on a
rocky and dusty surface. Mars is obviously even worse. On Jupiter, you'd have
a delay of over two hours before you see what your commands did.

Obviously, we need autonomous robots. To make them even close to as useful as
a human, they need pretty strong AI. We simply don't have that technology yet
(if ever).

I think the best solution would be to send a human operator to monitor and
command a larger number of semi-autonomous robots. If we can get the operator
to control a robot Avatar-style, he won't even need to leave the space craft.
He could stay in orbit, removing the need for any sot of landing/take off
vehicle, considerably reducing the risk of getting stranded.

