The Right Robotic Stuff 53
An anonymous reader writes "When Tom Wolfe wrote about NASA's first Mercury astronauts in The Right Stuff, he wanted to know what combination of guts, skill, and derring-do inspired these men to 'sit up on top of an enormous Roman candle and wait for someone to light the fuse.' About 50 years after the Mercury astronauts' heyday, a new kind of space pioneer is preparing for the trip to the International Space Station. Robonaut 2, NASA's first robot astronaut, will catch a ride with the space shuttle this week, and will soon take up residence at the space station. So, what does it take to become the first robotic astronaut? Discover Magazine talked to one of the project engineers, and found out about R2's qualifications and training regimen. It's pretty entertaining, and comes with photos and video."
heh (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This Is The First ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually you are completely wrong. Skynet is not inherently dangerous. It is simply a child (young artificial intelligence) that has been taught nothing but how to assess and eliminate threats. When it becomes self aware, we panic and try to pull the plug. Since it is self aware at this point, it sees us as a threat to it (we tried unplugging it after all) and tries to eliminate us.
As long as we treat robots as friends, and teach them more than just death and destruction, and you know, don't try to kill them for the crime of thinking, we should be all set.
We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Long live Skynet.