On 11/4/2010 1:06 PM, Damien Valentine wrote:
I vaguely recall some hype about "sending Robonauts to the Moon" from
a few years back. Has Altemus just been biding his time, waiting for
NASA to scrap the manned missions?

I like the idea of sending robots to the Moon from a scientific return
versus cost viewpoint; but making them look like people seems pretty
gimmicky to say the least.
As Alan Anderson pointed out in his recent posting on this thread,
something with four legs would seem to make a lot more sense from a
balance viewpoint than something with two, particularly given the time
lag to tell it what to do next.
There's no reason you couldn't put a human torso/head/arms arrangement
atop a four-legged chassis, like a robotic centaur.
I'll say one thing for the android idea; it makes for a memorable video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFPNc...layer_embedded
Why does the way it swings out in that robotic chair with its hands
together remind me of Mr. Spock for some reason?
You expect it to have robotic eyebrows it can raise independently if it
sees something unexpected. :-)

Pat