...for the day. See you later.

Rand, your pieces on space policy and topics have always been excellent.
It'd be very interesting to hear your thoughts on this potentially very critical future matter:
"General purpose" aka. humanoid robotics ( note: industrial robotics is completely different area, and is not the subject of this post) If you have spare time, please do skim over couple of the pages what has been written here:
http://plyojump.indiespace.com/weblog/

In short, this guy makes it seem as US has fallen _very_ much behind on topic of practical, general-purpose robotics. Japan, in other hand, has taken huge leaps and strides. Its kinda like the old science vs. engineering matter: US research has been so focussed on pure science aspect of robotics, so that engineering side has been looked at like nothing particularly importan. The result: Japs have dozens of robots that can walk, jump, perform somersaults and recently began running. In addition they are capable of driving machinery, remotely assisted, perform limited tasks on order, and do other stuff that begins to see practical, commercial mainstream uses.
US robots have never gotten out of the lab.

The topic ties in with space, too. There are dozens of people who constantly say, that robotic orbital assembly, for instance, is still a pipedream. Well, if japs have robots that can drive heavy machinery, i'd think robots that can weld trusses and bolt them together are not far at all. Neither are robonauts who could be landed on the moon, with a regular shovel and couple of standard issue lab instruments, to dig some holes in dirt, to check whether the ice is there or not.
Those being general, production robots, not hundred-million dollar special purpose robotic landers that are basically one-shot wonders.

In short, id love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

As long as these robots aren't the ONLY Earth presence in space or on the moon, I personally don't see it as a big problem. In fact, it might help, if we can truly get low-cost robots, to land ahead of humans and start assembling habitation modules, which humans would later inspect and live in on the moon.

I'm not sure of the current specificatoins for such machines, but I'd imagine that they can probably lay a welding bead as evenly or moreso than any expert welder. The only problem is building in the "fuzzy logic" in case something goes wrong during the weld, to recognize it so you don't end up with a heap of scrap afterwards. Presumably it can be done with cameras and sensors mounted on the robot.

I'm curious to hear what Rand has to say, as well, now that you brought it up.

"The only problem is building in the "fuzzy logic" in case something goes wrong during the weld, "

That can be done via human tele-assist, or even simply tele-supervision. The case with HRP-II model operating a backhoe was done somewhat similarly, i.e. the human behind remote controls was just guiding the movements, whereas the robot was in control of individual low-level actions ( grab a handle, push, pull etc. )

How about putting a couple of robotic TBMs (tunnel boring machines) on the moon and turning them loose for a couple of years?

"How about putting a couple of robotic TBMs "
The problem with them is that they are massive, and boring tunnels is their only function.
Current humanoid robots are 0.5-2.0 meters tall, can probably dig tunnels soon enough ( albeit much slower and will need to be assisted by tele-operator ), _and_ do a lot of other things. They are not humans, far from it.
But they could do a lot of stuff that humans spend their time on, and dont require humans unique properties like creative, abstract thinking and high-level decision making.
They have two significant advantages, when used in place of astronauts: they dont have to be brought back, and their only "life support" requirement is couple spare sets of charged batteries.

This is not the "leave space to robots" push. Im totally unimpressed by any robot that has been sent to space up to this day. Im not speaking about simple satellite-type probes, packed with science instruments like Voyager etc, these do their job fine. But the ones that have tried to be robots int the real sense of the word, starting with Lunokhod, have been totally underperforming.
In fact, IMO there's no point in sending robots at all, if we dont intend to go after them ourselves. Im just noting that general-purpose robots, that have been through significant breakthroughs recently, could open doors to a whole bunch of different new space development concepts, including potentially profitable business cases.

> In short, id love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

If you want my money/political support, there has to be ordinary people in space.

Not one dime from me for science. That well is full of urine.

"If you want my money/political support, there has to be ordinary people in space.
Not one dime from me for science."
I'd fully agree. Im not speaking of sending robots to do science, thats the job for the probes.
I'd send robots to do something of practical value instead. Like prepare the ground for human habitation, verify existence of essential resource like lunar ice, verify and debug ISRU pilot plants operations, perform some mountain engineering ( explosives! ) on NEO's again to check for resources etc.

I must be in the minority here, I really don't see the point to human expansion in space. A population boom in space would only strain Earth's resources that much more. For me, science is at the pinnacle of space exploration. I support human missions so far as scientific exploration goes and pushing the technological envelope just for the hell of it, but not for permanent settlement.

"A population boom in space would only strain Earth's resources that much more."

Not if earths exports dont exceed imports. Thats counting all types of imports, raw materials/energy, products and useful services like space weather monitoring, tourism, data communications etc.

A population boom in space would be supported by the population IN space. Once significant advancements can be made that allow mass numbers of humans to move to space, there still needs to be a reason to be out there. The only way to get a population "boom" is to have an industrial or commercial need to be in space in the first place. Without mines, manufacturing facilities, etc, there would be no need for people to be on the moon or in the Asteroid belt, and thus there would be no "boom". These industries and commerce centers would necessarily become self-sustaining, inasmuch as they would either provide their own food, water, etc, or they would provide a resource valuable enough to trade to the earth in exchange for their needs.

I see no point in building a "colony" on the moon for 10 or 15 scientists. It serves no useful purpose to me, no matter how many medical breakthroughs they can make. BioSphere2 was interesting, but at least I could visit it if I wanted to.

I also have a feeling that many countries would be readily willing to trade crops and other "earth resources" to the "space people" in exchange for massive amounts of rare-earth metals that are in abundance and mined out in "space".

While you may not see the point, that doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. Allow it to happen, don't overly legislate it, and let it works its own course out.

here's more on the same topic
http://roboticnation.blogspot.com/