Japanese robots to colonize Moon

Bill Weinberg

We wish we were joking. From the NY Daily News, June 1:

Move over C-3PO.

The Japanese space agency is embarking on a mammoth $2.2 billion project to put humanoid robots on the moon and create an unmanned robot lunar base by 2020, according to Prime Ministers office.

The robots will be 660-pound machines equipped with tank-like treads, solar panels, seismographs, high-def cameras, according to CNet.com.

They will also have human-like arms that can collect samples and debris from the moons surface which can then be sent back to Earth via rocket ship.

“Humanoid robots are glamorous, and they tend to get people fired up,” Japanese space entrepreneur Noriyuki Yoshida told The Daily Yomiuri. “We hope to develop a charming robot to fulfill the dream of going to space.”

But the robots main objective will be to construct the unmanned base, which the Japanese believe will be essential to future research and exploration of the solar system.

The robots are also said to operate with a degree of autonomy, although hopefully not the extent of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Bad enough that the technosphere is rapidly colonizing Planet Earth. Now they want to export it to the rest of the solar system.

See our last posts on Japan, the struggle for control of space, and the rule of the robots.

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  1. US imperialist aggression against the Moon
    No we aren’t joking. From the New York Times, Dec. 17:

    Ebb and Flow are no more. The two spacecraft of NASA’s Grail mission crashed on the Moon at about 5:28 p.m. Eastern time, about 30 seconds apart, one of the few times that cheers and claps have been heard in the control room to celebrate the loss of a spacecraft.

    NASA also announced it had named the impact sites after Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

    The crashes into a lunar mountain brought the yearlong mission to map the Moon’s gravity field to an end. The twin spacecraft were running low on maneuvering fuel, and NASA wanted to make sure that they did not accidentally destroy a historical site like one of the Apollo landings — ­ unlikely, but possible.

    NASA broadcast live commentary of the impacts on its Web site, but provided no live video showing the probes hitting the Moon.

    Why doesn’t the “Hands Off Syria” crowd ever get excited about this? We’re serious.

  2. Yes, the Administration does support blowing up planets!
    Too, too, too ironic. The White House coyly responds to a petition urging construction of a Death Star (not sure if it was intentionally ironic or not) with the line: “The Administration does not support blowing up planets.” (NBC’s Cosmic Log blog, Jan. 11)

    What?!? Just days after they bombed the Moon?! Who are they kidding!?!

    And why are we alone in pointing this out?