Cute Japanese Robots in Spaaaace

[yanpa]

Japan's mission to troll the world reaches new heights...

Cute Robots Will Be Launched Into Space

This summer, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to launch two amazingly cute yet advanced, white-helmeted robots into space. Then an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will attempt to converse with one of them.

Robot astronaut Kirobo and backup robot Mirata were created as part of the Kibo Robot Project, a collaboration among Robo Garage, Toyota, the University of Tokyo and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA. They aim to send the robots with the JAXA mission to the ISS on Aug. 4, Engadget’s Steve Dent reported.

These diminutive bots might look like playful anime characters, but their sophisticated capabilities include voice recognition, facial recognition, and the ability to communicate in Japanese. They can also move around freely.

...more...

... in space nobody can here you scream "kawaiiiiiiiii"...

[wuchan]

and people wonder why I spend so much time on my taxes... the more in the red I appear, the more farm subsidy they have to pay me.

better than paying them to send asimo into space.

[Samurai_Jerk]

and people wonder why I spend so much time on my taxes... the more in the red I appear, the more farm subsidy they have to pay me.

better than paying them to send asimo into space.

Guys, this is why you should do the world a favor and shoot any first-world farmer you see. They're bigger parasites than Coligny.

[Tsuru]

I'd rather have my tax money being spent on space exploration or even subsidising farmers than flying our soldiers 3000 miles to fight a war in my name that isn't ours to fight. Subsidizing your own farmers to compete with 3rd world imports at least has a clear strategic objective (not having your population starve when the shit hits the fan).

Last I heard we're starting negotiations directly with the Taliban. After 10 years of fighting, and countless billions and lives wasted, this is what it's come down to. The fact that the Iraq war cost the US the equivalent of a brand new space shuttle every couple of days always puts things into perspective for me.... Any western nations budget for space exploration and scientific development is a blip compared to the sums we spend on waging war.

I mean, the taliban for fuck's sake.

[Coligny]

Last I heard we're starting negotiations directly with the Taliban. After 10 years of fighting, and countless billions and lives wasted, this is what it's come down to. The fact that the Iraq war cost the US the equivalent of a brand new space shuttle every couple of days always puts things into perspective for me.... Any western nations budget for space exploration and scientific development is a blip compared to the sums we spend on waging war.

I mean, the taliban for fuck's sake.

Come on... It worked so well against the soviets in Afghanistan...

Awww shit...

[Coligny]

Guys, this is why you should do the world a favor and shoot any first-world farmer you see. They're bigger parasites than Coligny.

Your mom doesn't find me too big...

Wait...

It doesn't sound quite right...

[Tsuru]

Last I heard we're starting negotiations directly with the Taliban. After 10 years of fighting, and countless billions and lives wasted, this is what it's come down to. The fact that the Iraq war cost the US the equivalent of a brand new space shuttle every couple of days always puts things into perspective for me.... Any western nations budget for space exploration and scientific development is a blip compared to the sums we spend on waging war.

I mean, the taliban for fuck's sake.

Come on... It worked so well against the soviets in Afghanistan...

Awww shit...

Our company has a high turnover of HR managers.... from time to time I like to use the simile of afghanistan and its myriad of invading forces to describe this peculiar effect. They come in with their big ideas on cutbacks on people other than themselves despite our company never having posted a loss, and at the end they always leave broken and desillusioned. We're still not going anywhere, of course.

[Coligny]

We could sooo use these guys...

image.jpg

[matsuki]

Japan's mission to troll the world reaches new heights...

LOL, next thing will be a JAV crew filming space porn on the ISS....bukkake in space might be worth a watch though.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Oh, fuck...this was not a joke news story...

I'm with Tsuru about the money spent in Afghanistan, unfortunately, the U.S.'s latest Vietnam. I feel sorry that the U.S. has been defeated by a Taliban it created, funded, trained, destroyed and rebuilt because that regime is fucken evil. and if ever a regime needed to be destroyed, that was it. Thus I'm not surprised to see the Merkins willingly chatting with it nowadays.
But, unlike Tsuru, I'm opposed to almost any funding of space exploration. What the fuck is it for? How about we spend it on feeding starving people and fighting disease, especially the AIDS killing millions of Africans yearly? Or the environment? We could turn the military-industrial complex into a business dedicated to creating an environmentally sustainable mass market economy and everyone could be happy (and sit around the campfire and sing Kumbayah)

[Russell]

Here is a merit of space exploration.

[GargoyleTS]

Reasons to explore space:

We need space....for more people to live. All those poor people keep doing that thing that gives them more poor kids. Also, we get to test really neat things that we then to use to try and improve those same poor people's lives...even though we know their corrupt governments are jsut going to take it all before it gets there to help.

We need materials. Asteroids are chock full of iron, ripe for the taking. And other metals. But mainly iron. Lots of iron. We like iron, we use it for lots of things.

Its cool. Seriously, its space!

We need faster interconnected networks.....to censor. Yes you can talk to anyone in the world from anywhere in the world. Except them. And them. And them too. And all of them.

*sighs* ok what are we doing up there again?

[Coligny]

Not that I give a flying fuck aboot dying African kids anyway since I'm much more a cat person than a h00man person...
(and they certainly could be turned into biofuel or something)

but you also need to remember that...

asteroids-are-natures-way-of-asking.jpeg

[Tsuru]

Oh, fuck...this was not a joke news story...

I'm with Tsuru about the money spent in Afghanistan, unfortunately, the U.S.'s latest Vietnam. I feel sorry that the U.S. has been defeated by a Taliban it created, funded, trained, destroyed and rebuilt because that regime is fucken evil. and if ever a regime needed to be destroyed, that was it. Thus I'm not surprised to see the Merkins willingly chatting with it nowadays.
But, unlike Tsuru, I'm opposed to almost any funding of space exploration. What the fuck is it for? How about we spend it on feeding starving people and fighting disease, especially the AIDS killing millions of Africans yearly? Or the environment? We could turn the military-industrial complex into a business dedicated to creating an environmentally sustainable mass market economy and everyone could be happy (and sit around the campfire and sing Kumbayah)

War is a racket. They go on for as long as politically feasible to funnel as much public money as possible into the pockets of the people who make the weapons, vehicles and provide other services to the armed forces.

The point of space travel is not to plant a flag in something, but the knowledge and the technology we need to develop in order to get the guy+flag to that point is the objective. Every dollar invested in the Apollo program has been returned something like 14 times over. These days the return is something in the region of 40 times.

And we need to defend ourselves against asteroids, that goes without saying...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

The point of space travel is not to plant a flag in something, but the knowledge and the technology we need to develop in order to get the guy+flag to that point is the objective. Every dollar invested in the Apollo program has been returned something like 14 times over. These days the return is something in the region of 40 times.

The same could be said of war and the military-industrial complex. Or any type of research and development. Or anything without empirical data in the (correct) assumption that I'm too lazy to look it up and challenge your assertion.

I'll conceded that one thing we have learned about space is that there's nowhere else we can go within an average human lifetime. That should be our biggest lesson (or, at leas up there with the big three of asteroids, commies suck and Buzz Aldrin and cosmonauts wear bras on their heads).

If you haven't noticed, we've fucked up the environment pretty badly, pretty quickly. Without reasonably health ecosystems, we're fucked. The environment seems to be the sensible choice for me. Or, we could put it to really good use and get whores and do some lines and stuff, but I don't think the taxpayers who miss out on that would be too happy....

I love space. I remember Apollo, adored NASA and wanted to be an astronaut...but it's a useless luxury

[Tsuru]

The point of space travel is not to plant a flag in something, but the knowledge and the technology we need to develop in order to get the guy+flag to that point is the objective. Every dollar invested in the Apollo program has been returned something like 14 times over. These days the return is something in the region of 40 times.

The same could be said of war and the military-industrial complex. Or any type of research and development. Or anything without empirical data in the (correct) assumption that I'm too lazy to look it up and challenge your assertion.

The difference is that wars are typically waged at the expense of other people(s).

The earth is a spaceship, I think that is all anyone needs to know. Once you find out how much effort it takes to sustain human life outside of the atmosphere you know how fragile our own ecosystem really is. I know it's cheeky, but I really think that as long as we can afford to go to war all the fucking time I think we can afford to explore space. I refer you back to my earlier point about space shuttles.

[Russell]

The point of space travel is not to plant a flag in something, but the knowledge and the technology we need to develop in order to get the guy+flag to that point is the objective. Every dollar invested in the Apollo program has been returned something like 14 times over. These days the return is something in the region of 40 times.

The same could be said of war and the military-industrial complex. Or any type of research and development. Or anything without empirical data in the (correct) assumption that I'm too lazy to look it up and challenge your assertion.

The difference is that wars are typically waged at the expense of other people(s).

The earth is a spaceship, I think that is all anyone needs to know. Once you find out how much effort it takes to sustain human life outside of the atmosphere you know how fragile our own ecosystem really is. I know it's cheeky, but I really think that as long as we can afford to go to war all the fucking time I think we can afford to explore space. I refer you back to my earlier point about space shuttles.

This!

[yanpa]

The point of space travel is not to plant a flag in something, but the knowledge and the technology we need to develop in order to get the guy+flag to that point is the objective. Every dollar invested in the Apollo program has been returned something like 14 times over. These days the return is something in the region of 40 times.

The same could be said of war and the military-industrial complex. Or any type of research and development. Or anything without empirical data in the (correct) assumption that I'm too lazy to look it up and challenge your assertion.

The difference is that wars are typically waged at the expense of other people(s).

The earth is a spaceship, I think that is all anyone needs to know. Once you find out how much effort it takes to sustain human life outside of the atmosphere you know how fragile our own ecosystem really is. I know it's cheeky, but I really think that as long as we can afford to go to war all the fucking time I think we can afford to explore space. I refer you back to my earlier point about space shuttles.

This!

+1.

If the effort which has been pumped into finding new and innovative ways of oppressing sandy countries had been directed spacewards, who knows what interesting, useful developments could have been had, as well as the whole save-us-from-space-rocks thing. And the US military-industrial complex could still have had its fat contracts.

Maybe if we could come up with credible evidence that the real Bin Laden is hiding out on an asteroid somewhere...

[Grumpy Gramps]

Now the little molester comes back as Kirobo mini and you can carry it everywhere you go...

What a fucking annoyance

[Isle of View]

The point of space travel is not to plant a flag in something, but the knowledge and the technology we need to develop in order to get the guy+flag to that point is the objective. Every dollar invested in the Apollo program has been returned something like 14 times over. These days the return is something in the region of 40 times.

The same could be said of war and the military-industrial complex. Or any type of research and development. Or anything without empirical data in the (correct) assumption that I'm too lazy to look it up and challenge your assertion.

The difference is that wars are typically waged at the expense of other people(s).

The earth is a spaceship, I think that is all anyone needs to know. Once you find out how much effort it takes to sustain human life outside of the atmosphere you know how fragile our own ecosystem really is. I know it's cheeky, but I really think that as long as we can afford to go to war all the fucking time I think we can afford to explore space. I refer you back to my earlier point about space shuttles.

Quite. That why life on earth has existed for 4 billion plus years.

[wagyl]

Maybe you haven't had a dangerous experience which rams it home to you that it is fucking miracle that life exists at all. Lucky you. Things are in a fine balance, and it doesn't take much to nudge it off that equilibrium.