The shuttle Discovery is back in space – the last mission for this particular orbiter and the very first mission for Robonaut 2, a machine that looks like a guy from the waist up. Unfortunately, from the waist down, this R2 looks like a high–end speaker stand. But it’s the first foray off-planet for “humanoid” robots – stationary machines built to look like people. One small step for those who can’t take one small step.
Maybe the walking attachment will be called D2.

Too bad that Robonaut 2 is being permanently installed in the International Space Station on this trip – he would make a perfect government employee for the New Wisconsin. He draws no salary and has no fringe benefits. As for health care, a little more hydraulic fluid and we’re good. If long-term disability becomes an issue, upgrades are always available, but shipping is extra because he’s not allowed to go home (he could be a Democrat in the Wisconsin Senate!). Best of all, he’s the only one of his kind so collective bargaining is a non-starter.

R2 has an uncanny ability to mimic our arm and hand motions. He’s designed to duplicate some of the fine motor tasks the astronauts do, and his purpose on this trip is to be tested in the weightless environment of space. And also to freak out the other astronauts when they look up from their work to see a golden helmeted mechanical figure waving its arms around inside the space station.

“Danger, Will Robinson!”

If I were on the trip we’d get some good data on what happens when a machine gives you a strong case of the creeps in zero G. Good thing everybody wears astronaut diapers.

But best wishes to Robonaut 2 for a safe forever flight, and condolences for Robonaut 1, who didn’t qualify for space travel and will be working this summer as an automated fortune teller on various state fair midways.

Just like human space travelers, those who fly stand on the shoulders of those who remain behind.

If they have legs, that is.

What chore would you unload on a Dexterous Human Robot?

Former legit radio reporter Bud Buck has been sending breathless, fact-free, over-the-top dispatches for the past two years as he tries to find his place in the new world of digital journalism. Few have taken notice. I know he has been disappointed that none of his reports have “gone viral”. He can’t even get sued. In his latest act of desperation, he’s abandoning the pretense of reporting a story, and is hoping to gain our attention as a commentator.

“Fake” Mars Landing is Clearly Fake
by Bud Buck

What would you do if you were leading a government project that couldn’t be kept secret, that needed plenty of time and an incredible amount of luck to succeed? Something so dangerous it could easily fail and cause widespread embarrassment? Something so provocative and unsettling to the rest of the world that it’s completion could upset the balance of power?

You would lower expectations, of course. You would tell the story of your project in such a way that people would feel sorry for you. You would frame the discussion so that it centered around all the ways your efforts are probably inadequate. In short, you would perpetrate the biggest ruse in history with the most shocking surprise ending since they opened the Trojan Horse and all those soldiers tumbled out.

That’s why I believe yesterday’s “fake” Marswalk, staged by the European Space Agency and Moscow’s Institute of Biomedical Problems is, in fact, real.

Yes, they’re up there. And of course they’re saying it’s simulated. That takes the pressure off, and managing pressure differentials is crucial in all space travel. Had word gone out that this effort was an actual mission, every step would be covered live on global television. That would set the stage for a possible humiliation. Nobody wants to be the guy whose space suit springs a leak with three billion watching in prime time. And nobody wants to have to explain to people whose blood is boiling why they let a guy’s blood actually boil.

Better to pretend that it’s just six guys playing “space house” in a Moscow suburb.

Nothing is more attractive to the world’s press than an obvious effort to hide something, and that’s why the genius stroke in all this was the decision to invite coverage of the mission as a “simulation”. As soon as it appeared the scientists were desperate for our attention, interest from the world’s press faded to almost nothing.

Meanwhile, these space pioneers, masquerading as test subjects, climbed into what is obviously a child’s version of a rocket set up in some Russian warehouse, and immediately went out a secret exit in back, where they were piled into a waiting van and driven to a launch pad in Siberia where they began the real mission in utter secrecy.

Do I have proof? Of course not! The mere existence of proof would prove that there is not a highly competent and vast conspiracy to cloak the diabolical nature of this effort.

Look carefully at the photos they claim were made as part of the “test”. Check out the soil. That color red is not found anywhere on Earth. Not even in Russia!

Officials claim the crew for this 520 day “experiment” is made up of six “men”. But I’ve seen photos of the “Marswalkers” in their space suits, and I don’t think there’s any way you could get a European man to wear something so roomy, or to look so soft and adorable. Of course they’re saying all the guys are men. That keeps us from thinking about the real purpose of the trip, which is to populate Mars with aggressive Russians and haughty Europeans so they can look down their noses at us from even farther away.

When the first Mars baby is born, that’s when we’ll start to get the actual story.

The timing of this thing is perfect. America has just faced a “Sputnik Moment” with regard to school test scores, and other “Sputnik Moments” in foreign manufacturing, green technology, and telemarketing. We have “Sputnik Moment” fatigue. And we’re also running low on quotation marks to indicate something is “phony”.

All I’m saying is that we need to prepare for a shocker. Mark my words. The fake mission is REAL!

This is Bud Buck!

Bud is safe here in assuming that his commentary will have very few readers and almost nobody will “mark his words”. But if the impossible happens and his wild imaginings turn out to be true, he’ll be lauded as one of the world’s leading investigative journalists, and perhaps even a prophet!

Are you any good at keeping a secret?

Yesterday the Cassini mission released this photograph of Saturn’s closest moon, Mimas – an image taken less than a month ago, on October 16th. It has a wonderfully spooky vibe. I can only guess that while flying past Mimas you would get the impression that its singular gaze is following you.
Just about every modern moviegoer who sees this crater-pocked sphere thinks it bears an uncanny resemblance to a famous fictitious space object.

This is apparently a coincidence. Mimas was merely a dot in space for a very long time after William Herschel first spotted it in 1789. The first close-up photos revealing its Cyclopean flair came from the Voyager missions in 1980. The first (fourth) Star Wars movie was already in (and out of) the theaters by then, debuting in 1977.

If travel to Saturn’s moons ever becomes a common thing, one wonders if humans will call this object “The Death Star”. I have to believe it’s possible for a cultural reference to last long after it fades from common knowledge. After all, we’re calling it Mimas right now, and how many people know who Mimas is? But the currents of memory are hard to predict. Future movie loving space travelers might also re-name this moon Wazowski.

Perhaps it will be left to the moon’s colonizers to determine if they want to be thought of as Mimanteans, Imperial Storm Troopers or Wazowskers. Of course, given the pockmarked terrain, you can tell they have a local weather problem with intermittent boulder rain. Anyone looking to live on Mimas might just as well be called a dang fool.

Place names are important, though. Bali Ha’i, Shangri-la and El Dorado all sound like very nice places to go, but would you really want to live there?

If you had to live in a fictional place, where would you settle?

It seems like every time scientists consider the question of water on the moon, our natural satellite looks wetter and more hospitable than the time before. Last week, a data summary from the 2009 mission that crashed a rocket booster into a crater at the moon’s southern pole revealed a lunar area with a surprising number of useful minerals and more water than the Sahara Desert.

Not quite Wisconsin Dells, but it’s a good start.

So, mere weeks after the president signed a 2011 NASA budget authorization that scraps plans to return to the moon, people are talking about returning to the moon again. The tone of this chatter is overwhelmingly pro-Moon Base. The base would use existing water and available resources to provide a jumping off point for deep space travel, taking advantage of the moon’s weaker gravity to launch heavier vehicles. This notion lines up nicely with developing private space industry – something the Obama administration has said it favors. Maybe depressed Earthbound strip mall developers will find a new opportunity off-planet.

As a way station in space, our cold, airless moon already has all the charm of the Belvidere Oasis, my favorite over-the-freeway rest stop on the way to Chicago, which was described in Peter and Lou Berryman’s song about cleaning the refrigerator (When Did We Have Sauerkraut?) as “such a pretty name for such an ugly place to go”.

But at least it would be a place to go. And that’s all you need to draw tourists. So will our Moon Base be like the Belvidere Oasis, with a Panda Express and a Starbucks alongside the Mars Rocket fueling port? And as more water is discovered, could Tommy Bartlett eventually open up a Lunar Ski Show? With 1/6th Earth’s gravity, doing the pyramid would be easier, no?

Grandpa Branson has given you some retail / office / factory space at Moon Base Baboon. What is your plan?

As a person with officially-confirmed-by-Myers-Briggs introvert tendencies, it is always a delight to me when someone new enters the neighborhood, waves hello, and keeps on going.

Especially when the visitor is an asteroid.

2010 TD54 zipped by early Tuesday morning on its way to who knows where? Watchers of extra terrestrial rocks say this one wasn’t big enough to cause damage, even if it had entered Earth’s atmosphere. But the latest thinking about the asteroid threat suggests that these smaller rocks are worthy of our attention; not for a potentially planet killing impact, but rather for the possibility that they might merely penetrate the atmosphere just far enough to cause an aerial explosion, or “airburst”, that could create tree flattening winds and rock melting temperatures.

That would be enough to get my attention.

The experts say this is what happened at Tunguska in Siberia in 1908 with an airburst that devastated an area of about 830 square miles. Hennepin and Ramsey counties together cover 776 square miles, so it’s important to think about asteroids, both big and small. We can learn about the origins of the universe from them, mine them for precious metals and maybe even change their paths to avoid future collisions. In fact, President Obama signed a space bill earlier this week that sets us on course to land astronauts on an asteroid by 2025, under the theory that the best defense is a good offense. Let’s get in the face of Tiny Asteroid before he gets in ours!

Word about 2010 TD54 only surfaced on October 9th. One scientist was quoted by space.com as saying smaller, locally destructive asteroids are more numerous and harder to detect than the big ones, and even if we spotted a reckless intruder two weeks before impact, we’d just have to “take the hit”. Ow!

I wonder how much we would know about where an asteroid would enter the atmosphere and whose terrain might get cooked. Suppose you had a week to get out of the way …

Where would you go?