C3PO on the Moon?

Sylvia Else wrote:
A multi-legged machine could lower itself, or just the camera, so as to
look at samples. Keeping the bulk of the machine away from the surface
reduces its exposure to dust kicked up by its own activities. True, the
dust follow a parabolic trajectory when it's kicked up, because there's
no atmosphere, but while it's travelling it can impact the machine and
get into places it's not wanted.

It can also stick to the machine via electrostatic attraction, which
could be a real problem for its joints, as it's highly abrasive.
That's been one of the challenges that designers of full-pressure lunar
hard suits have had to address.
If someone ever does a live-action version of Starship Troopers that
actually has the powersuits in it, this would be a great basis to start
from when building them for the movie:
http://www.nuytco.com/products/exosuit.shtml

Pat

Sylvia Else wrote:

I can't take credit for that. But I'm sure the publicity guys would have
a heart attack when told they need to drum up public support for a spider.

You tell him if he doesn't build up public support for it, the spider's
going to be mad: http://www.badmovies.org/movies/angryred/angryred6.jpg
Sylvia sees the angry spider:
http://www.badmovies.org/movies/angryred/angryred4.jpg
From that website:
"Dr. Iris Ryan - Nicknamed "Irish," she is here to scream at all the
scary monsters. Her entire face unhinges. I swear the woman is part
snake." :-)
This is one of the few cheapo sci-fi films that I haven't seen.


Pat

Neil Gerace wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

We could get exopomorphic with it in that case:
http://www.midwinter.com/b5/Pictures...s/shadows2.gif

That looks like the cerebral blood supply after you take all the other
tissue away

One of the few really original looking alien being designs in science
fiction on the big or little screen, as were their ships.
(I have one of the Howling Wolf Shadow "Battlecrab" models, and it's a
real buety of a kit.)
Another great alien was the Spielberg War Of The Worlds Martian (or
whatever they were)
Both looked like the end product of a completly differnt evolutionary
process, rather than a modification of something from Earth's evolution
or someone in a monster suit, although the Shadow looks a bit like a
Mantis of some sort.
The WOTW ones are pure artistic genius, unlike anything from Earth at
all, yet you can picture something like that actually existing.
They are going to have a model of one of those and the War Machine from
the same movie out this year.
Actually, the Pal WOTW Martians are pretty strange also, if anyone could
ever figure out what their never-shown legs were like.
Two legs? Three legs? No legs?:

Neil Gerace wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

We could get exopomorphic with it in that case:
http://www.midwinter.com/b5/Pictures...s/shadows2.gif

That looks like the cerebral blood supply after you take all the other
tissue away

One of the few really original looking alien being designs in science
fiction on the big or little screen, as were their ships.
(I have one of the Howling Wolf Shadow "Battlecrab" models, and it's a
real beauty of a kit.)
Another great alien was the Spielberg War Of The Worlds Martian (or
wherever they were from)
Both looked like the end product of a completely different evolutionary
process, rather than a modification of something from Earth's evolution
or someone in a monster suit, although the Shadow looks a bit like a
Mantis of some sort.
The Spielberg WOTW ones are pure artistic genius, unlike anything from
Earth at all, yet you can picture something like that actually existing.
They are going to have a model of one of those and the War Machine from
the same movie out this year.
Actually, the Pal WOTW Martians are pretty strange also, if anyone could
ever figure out what their never-shown legs were like.
Two legs? Three legs? ...No legs?:
http://www.culttvman2.com/dnn/Portal...y2009peg05.jpg
Yeah, right.
It can get from Mars to Earth, but not from the kitchen to the bathroom
in under a hour's time. ;-)

Pat

Fred J. McCall wrote:

But that will never happen until there is something to drive the
launch rates up so that cost to orbit comes down. High cost to orbit
is actually one of the reasons to go to the Moon. Set up smelting
operations, etc, and produce space infrastructure out of Lunar
materials. 'Cheaper' to get them off the Moon than to lift them from
Earth.

Once you've got a lot of stuff built in space as destinations, THEN
launch costs will come down based on the volume of people coming up.

The problem isn't the low cost of on-site lunar manufacturing once
everything is up and running compared to sending it out of Earth's
gravity well; that's a obvious advantage.
It's the cost of sending up all the infrastructure to make the
manufacturing possible from the bottom of Earth's gravity well that
busts the bank.
If you haven't seen the movie "Moon" yet, they have a nearly
fully-automated lunar Helium 3 mining operation going on as the
background story.
They also have come up with some fairly "outside the box" means of cost
cutting to maximize profits despite the high cost of sending things to
the Moon.
Fascinating movie, showing once again that a really interesting concept
and small budget beats a formula concept and huge budget any day of the
week.
Now, if I could just figure out what exactly all those unexplained
storyline points in "District 9" are all about.
Peter Jackson had _better_ do a sequel, as I've got around a hundred
questions about what exactly is going on in the original.

Pat

Sylvia Else wrote:

I can't take credit for that. But I'm sure the publicity guys would have
a heart attack when told they need to drum up public support for a spider.

BTW, the two nicknames that tended to be used for the LM during its
development at NASA were "the bug" and "the spider".
Fun story about that and Apollo 9 he
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...900631,00.html
The "spider" nickname shows up in the movie "Apollo 13" where Tom Hanks,
portraying Jim Lovell, refers to the LM as "this spidery looking guy"
when using models to explain his upcoming Apollo mission to his youngest
son.

Pat

David Spain writes:

Pat Flannery writes:
legs rather than using wheels? The legs would have to be automated somehow
because of the time lag in communicating with it to prevent it from falling
over.

Pat,

I'm not sure that is even necessary. Since we're teleoperating with active resistance
to deal with the time lag, we might be able to keep the teleoperator 'in sync' with the
robot well enough to let our autonomous nervous system compensate for an on-site gryoscopic
system to keep the robot upright during a walk.

I think the tricky part that makes all this very hard is touch sensation feedback,
for example, to know when you're stepping on a moon rock laying just below the surface
and therefore not visible for instance. If you can get the proper feedback the human
nervous system deals with it remarkably well.

By carefully setting up a proper 'harness' for the teleoperator that provides active
resistance to compensate for the time delay, plus adding the proper tensions to simulate
1/6 G, it'd be interesting to see if it's possible to teleoperate a 'walking' robot.

Certainly all this could be first tested in ground experiments on both the controller and
Mr. Roboto. Maybe it already has?

Boy, if this could be done, it would open up all kinds of exploration avenues. Not only
walking but with an anthropomorpic robot, climbing might be a possiblity as well.

It's interesting to speculate on how much climbing strain the ground operator could take
in a single shift, assuming the robot power supply is up for it.

Maybe a job opportunity for those on Earth with lots of this type of experience and
stamina, like Greg Moore for example... ;-) Greg, would you be willing to donate one
of your hard hats to NASA to put on your robot's head? :-)

Not to mention wielding a pick axe, or a drill, with the equivalent muscular ability of
ten Aaaarnold's driven by a single 'Wally Cox' operator. :-)

Dave

PS: No, I'm not comparing Greg to Wally Cox. I've never met Greg in person! As they say
in the movies, 'all similarities between our fictional characters and actual persons
living or dead is purely co-incidental.

(And you can take that in any order you like)

:-)

David Spain writes:

Maybe a job opportunity for those on Earth with lots of this type of experience and
stamina, like Greg Moore for example... ;-) Greg, would you be willing to donate one
of your hard hats to NASA to put on your robot's head? :-)

I just thought of a new NASA tradition...

If we start calling these robots 'turtles' and Greg gets a job at NASA operating
one of these 'turtles' then we can ask the question:

'Hey Greg, are you a turtle?'

to which, of course, the required answer is:

'You bet it's sweet ass I am!'
^^^^
Otherwise you owe the asker a round....

;-)

Dave

Pat Flannery wrote:
Fred J. McCall wrote:

This looks like Program Funding Via Flash to me. Making your
teleoperated robot anthropomorphic is great for SF, but for actual
exploration it probably makes better sense to optimize form to
something 8 legged that's designed so it can always right itself, with
a couple of the legs having 'tool adapters' to use specially designed
tools housed in the body.


Legs are complex and use a lot of energy; go with wheels or treads:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/WED_T...l_repair_droid

Legs are superior to wheels or treads when going in a zone with
boulders of a size comparable to the animal/robot. They are just
more versatile. Robots capable of walking are available off the
shelf, why not use them, it allows you to go most anywhere.


Alain Fournier

Tourism is the obvious NEXT step in space. Since nearly everything
produced from MOON materials can be easier and cheaper produced right
here on earth