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Thank you! This report is most encouraging. Telepresence will surely become a major part of off-Earth activity.
(th)
]]>Looks like a scorpion...
Robots invaded the Sahara Desert for Europe's largest rover field test, taking place in a Mars-like part of Morocco. For two weeks three rovers and more than 40 engineers tested automated navigation systems at up to five different sites.
"Lab testing of the hardware we design doesn't take account of the variability nature brings, from the light of the sky to the shape of the landscape, the texture and colours of the sand and rock. Operating outdoors in this way proves that our systems work in much more complex and elaborate settings than can ever be simulated.
"To give an example during this field test, the very smoothness and homogeneity of some of the big sand dunes proved difficult for computer vision algorithms to navigate, because they are based on identifying features based on difference, so they started to behave in unexpected ways we haven't seen before.
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ESA's 8 x 8 m Mars Yard 'sandbox', filled with different sizes of sand, gravel, and rock, is part of the Planetary Robotics Laboratory at the Agency's ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
The reason for Legged robots is that they can traverse unstructured terrain. Places that wheels can not go.
]]>And it mustn't be called HAL.
The name "HAL" was an acronym, but that was an excuse. In reality, each letter is just the one in the alphabet before IBM. Computers on Space Shuttle were made by IBM. The new computer on ISS was made by Hewlett Packard. When they install an artificial intelligence by IBM...
]]>A talking Etch-A-Sketch wasn't what I had in mind.
]]>Meet the robots looking for fuel after Fukushima's Daiichi nuclear disaster
The earthquake struck March 11, 2011, causing several huge tsunami waves that swamped Daiichi, cutting power to the seaside facility's cooling pumps. Three reactors melted down, creating up to 3,000 tons of deadly radioactive fuel and debris that lays in the plant's ruins.
]]>That can't possibly be the best that German scientists can come up with.
]]>Crew assistant CIMON successfully completes first tasks in space
]]>But it won't be until after we're all dead so.......
]]>Even when you would be dealing with small synthetic gravity space stations, you should be able to make a "Garage" to put the station inside of. Made from bricks of moon materials. That then would also allow the placing of extensive solar cells on the outside of the garage.
The garage would offer some protections from the harsh environment such as thermal variations, micrometeorites, and some radiation.
For the rest you might want a magnetic shield.
So it is not never, it is preferred not to, until it becomes possible to put a magnetic shield around the whole planet, and also until it becomes valuable to have extensive activities in the Mars Orbitsphere.
Done.
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