news stories – robots and space
Martian ice or wishful thinking? We’ll find out soon enough:
New Images From Phoenix Lander May Show Martian Ice
Of course it’s great that we’re exploring Mars, but why aren’t we giving this attention to the moon? The moon is much closer- we can get there in days, not months- and we’ll probably have to establish ourselves there before Mars becomes feasible for anything resembling a permanent presence. NASA sometimes has a conqueror’s attitude- “we already planted our flag there- let’s go mark our territory somewhere else.” At least someone’s going, though:
India’s moon probe being fitted with instrument suite
To be fair, NASA’s got something lined up for later this year, but it’s the only lunar project on a long list of current and future missions.
Everyone’s covering the plumbing problems on the space station, but the imminent arrival of the Japanese science lab is really the big story:
Discovery heads to space station with Japanese lab
And I’ve been saving up my robot stories all week:
Dean Kamen’s Robot Arm Grabs More Publicity
(he’s building it for the military, of course)
Two more stories about military robots:
War Without Soldiers and Military Recruits Thousands More Warbots for New Unmanned Surge
And finally, one for the civilians. Civilian monkeys, sure, but you gotta start somewhere:
Monkeys Think, Moving Artificial Arm as Own
OK, we should be back with the usual depressing geopolitical headlines tonight.