Japan building a robot moon base in 2020, and you're not invited

Not content with the sheer badassery of sending a humanoid robot to the moon in 2015, Japan has just unveiled a mission for 2020 that will involve setting up a whole robotic moon base. It will be unmanned in the flesh-and-blood sense, but will be populated with a 660 pound rolling bot. The station will be self-powered, and will let its citizen roam over 60+ miles of terrain, gathering scientific samples that can be sent back to earth. While rocks are great, we're even more excited about the HDTV the station will be beaming back as well. The whole project will run somewhere in the ballpark of $2.2, and will be developed simultaneously with Japan's manned moon program. We're going to get working on our "I'm 660 pound a scientific exploration robot" costume right away.

[cocopuffs Posted May 27th 2010 10:17PM]

I checked it out they had this story up at gizmodo it's 2.2 billion I wish it wouldve bein $2 lol

[sevenVIIghosts Posted May 27th 2010 10:20PM]

self sufficient moon base, code name D.O.M.E.

[aeromat Posted May 27th 2010 10:31PM]

Japan. Robots. The moon.

This story delivers.

[rk151094 Posted May 27th 2010 10:48PM]

DR OCTAGONAPUS BLAGHH!!!!

[Gregorian Posted May 27th 2010 11:20PM]

I think a stock of human clones to run things would be in the Japanese Style?

[onlymyrailgun Posted May 27th 2010 11:26PM]

@Gregorian
Not just clones. Newtypes.

[BKKKevin Posted May 28th 2010 12:36AM]

Did you say robot costume?...
http://www.break.com/pictures/always-knew-mother-goose-was-gay1840254.html

[BKKKevin Posted May 28th 2010 12:44AM]

@BKKKevin Sorry Here -

http://www.break.com/pictures/he-looks-wired-up1840255.html

[pika2000 Posted May 28th 2010 12:49AM]

Well, they need to follow through the Gundam timeline.

[Dante of the Inferno Posted May 28th 2010 12:51AM]

I thought we agreed that the moon belongs to America?


Stupid Obama, cancelling the Constellation program.

[KVirtanen Posted May 28th 2010 1:04AM]

THE SHADOWS AREN'T PARALLEL! THE SHADOWS AREN'T PARALLEL!

[detonator Posted May 28th 2010 1:55AM]

@KVirtanen
haven't you ever been to moon? everything's different there.

[gc3k Posted May 28th 2010 3:01AM]

Anyone else reminded of Policenauts? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policenauts

[beatupunit Posted May 28th 2010 4:56AM]

$2.20?

I'll take eight.

[GldRush98 Posted May 28th 2010 9:42AM]

Wow. Just as America is basically shutting down space exploration, Japan is sending robots to the moon. Nice.

[Plothole Posted May 28th 2010 2:02PM]

Yeah, well... I'm gonna go build my own robot moon base, with blackjack and hookers. In fact, forget the moon base!

[GamerFromJump Posted May 28th 2010 4:16PM]

The $2.2 is in Obama Bucks.

1 = $1,000,000,000.

[GamerFromJump Posted May 28th 2010 4:32PM]

But seriously, folks....

This is like the Von Neumann colonization method, version 0.3. When the robot can mine materials and build a structure suitable for humans, we'll really have something.

[wingm4n Posted May 31st 2010 9:30AM]

can i send my toaster for $2.2?