Japan wants robot moon base by 2025

If there's any country we can trust with building a robot moon base it's Japan, right? It's not entirely clear that they'll have the means or the money to actually follow through, but Keiji Tachikawa, the head of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, has announced plans to build a lunar base populated with humanoid bots by 2025. Humans optional.

[Bsrian @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I don't think they can do that. After all, America owns the moon, right? They're the only ones to get there, and they have their flag there, right? So Japan would have to make a deal with America for this to happen.

[David @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Didn't anyone in Japan watch the Terminator movies?

Seriously, it would have been nice to learn what the plan for having robots on the moon was. It's cool to think that some form of "permanent" installation could be started as early as 2020. Aside from the generalization of using it as a staging point for Mars exploration, what else would it be used for? What would the humanoid robots be doing? Plotting the downfall of humanity?

I'm sure that mining materials could be on the list of things to do. Other jobs that we humans couldn't do without things like radiation protection and an atmosphere as well.

[Michael @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

America's not interested in the moon anymore, there's no oil there.

[hiredgoonz @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

#1, I suspect you're kidding, but just in case there are two things to bear in mind.

First, the Soviets landed a few probes on the moon, one of which returned lunar samples to earth. The Soviets are also the only country to land probes on Venus that survived long enough to send back pictures, does that mean they own Venus?

Second, I don't know that there is a written agreement, but there has been, since the exploration of space began, a verbal agreement that space would not belong to any one nation.

[Metus @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

#3 Best comment this month!

Other than that: All your base are belong to us

(as in US?)

[010111 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

good idea japan. give them a base of operations far far from the watchful eye of their oppressive human masters. *golf clap

[mephistox @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

aye. #3 gets best post of the month =)


as for the moon base. Go ahead. I wouldnt mind space exploration. Maybe every nation could have its own planet and the US wouldnt force themselves on anyone.... but we know that would NEVER happen :)

[someone @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Soon there will be a colony movement for space and that's how Gundam all started! LOL!

[Bob @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

A robotic moon base would be great just to observe space. There are craters on the moon that are deep enough that they never see sunlight. Never ending total darkness is the perfect condition for an awesome, way better than Hubble, telescope.

And as to the whole "who owns the moon" thing, well, history shows us that first we'll have to give the Japanese moon robots plague infected blankets before we can rightly claim the moon as ours to keep.

[Matt2 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Actully this is great for Japan since the lesser amount of gravity mean you could send rocket off into space from the moon much cheaper than on eartj
send everthign to the moon-moon sends everythign off into space

[Dan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Aren't there a ton (uhh..pun?) of useful natural resources on the Moon (i.e., Titanium?) Set up a manufacturing/mining plant up there...build your spaceships and other various evil devices, take off from there...?

[MickelMan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I did some research on this way back and I have watched a few science channel documentaries, so that makes me an expert, right? Aparently there is gas on the moon, in the form of 'Lunar Oxygen' which is somehow stored in the rocks. Blah blah blah, I guess they can somehow refine it into rocket fuel... so, not exactly oil on the moon, but it's got rocket fuel! Even better whoo hoo!

[Andrew L. @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

> "send everthign to the moon-moon sends everythign off into space"

Right. Because you don't actually have to travel through space to get to the moon. Pure genius.

[Tom W @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

At the very least, you've got to give the Japanese credit for even talking about it. At some point someone has to start colonizing space. The human race depends on it. Eventually the Earth will be uninhabitable due to any number of possibilities. Either manmade or natural events out of our control. There used to be water on Mars. Look at it now. The same thing could happen to Earth, assuming it's not a nuclear wasteland before then...

[Wink @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

As I understand it, there are two, ratified U.N. treaties covering ownership of space.

The first, The 1967 U.N. Outer Space Treaty establishes exploration and use of outer space as the province of all mankind (article VI).

The second, The 1979 Moon Agreement, goes further and says that neither the surface nor the subsurface of the Moon, nor any part thereof, or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person.

But, I could be wrong. I mean the whole U.S. moon landings thing was faked in a movie sound stage. Right?

[kaolin fire @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Screw Terminator, check out Rudy Rucker's "Ware" series. There you've got your bots starting out on the moon. :)

software / wetware / freeware / realware

[jim @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

yes you are right. We never landed on the moon - http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/ConspiracyTheoryDidWeGototheMoon.htm

[OddManOut @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

" I mean the whole U.S. moon landings thing was faked in a movie sound stage. Right?"

Maybe the Japanese want to colonize our SOUND STAGE with mechanoids !

(as if the soundstage wasn't already populated with Sony tape recorders and Panasonic (Matsushita) microphones anyway...)

[mike @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

there�s any country we can trust with building a robot moon base it�s Japan, right?

---------------

Yeah, I mean.. they've had the most experience writing up countless cheesy 'moon base' plotlines into pretty much every cartoon ever to come out of JP.

Now they want the real thing..

[locknroll @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

#15 Forget the U.N. treaties. Whomever lands a man on the moon with a gun owns it. Period.

[Richard @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

What happens to the moon's orbit if we either substantially increase or decrease its mass? (Either from building things there or mining it.)

[90Od '0l 80y @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

If all goes down according to #19 locknroll's post, the moon will be the new Republic of Texas!

[Some guy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

#21:
absolutely nothing

[bangersandmash @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Does this mean that I have to remove *my* robot moonbase from the moon? Cuz my plot to destroy the world unless I'm paid one million dollars requires that my robot moon base be functional.

[Space 1999 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

They should call it moon base alpha

[Karl S. @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Robot-manned (can I say that?) moonbase? Of course. Why not? They're going to need a place that is safe and clean and secure to vat grow the organs that we're going to be needing to replace the pollution-destroyed faulty ones that we're living with now. I'll be 67. Can I put in an order for a pair of kidneys and a new liver now?

[jim @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

number 21 asked "What happens to the moon's orbit if we either substantially increase or decrease its mass? (Either from building things there or mining it.)"

number 26 points out "Um, the moon is roughly 1/50th as much as the Earth, so your fear is only 50 times less ridiculous than worrying if sending up space ships will decrease our mass enough for Earth to fly into the sun.

[acidreflux @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I would be more impressed with Mars, than the Moon.

[acidreflux @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I would be more impressed with Mars by 2035, than the Moon by 2025.

I think that this is Japan's niche, as well as a claim to fame in pioneering a robotic push into space. America with men, Japan with robots will be the history books.

The significance of Mars over the Moon is large enough to make me think that this is more of a challenge of feat, than for true scientific, industrialization, or colonization purposes.

[Chris @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

About who owns the moon... Once Japan has it's robotic moonbase, populated by self replicating robots, no-one's going to be able to take it back, unless they use some sort of weird logic paradox trick on the main robot.

[Nero Zeromus @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

#20, your comment is flawed. Do you reallyh believe 'guns' would really be able to operate on the moon? Despite the fact that there's no atmosphere, there's also no weight or gravity!

[Doctor Zoidberg @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Didn't you see that episode of futurama when Fry went to the moon ... "There's whalers on the moon, Whalers on on the moon..."

Japan clearly thinks there are Minke whales worth having on the moon.

Got to love those whacky Japanese!