Comment by cstross | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cstross | Hacker News Reader

One foreseeable use:

Sending astronauts to Mars surface and bringing them home is energetically horrific. It's not so much the getting to Mars orbit bit that's hard work (at least, from Earth orbit), as descending into a gravity well and then getting back out of it again.

But current Mars robots have a huge control lag due to speed of light delays (up to 30 minutes between Earth/Mars, depending on where both planets are). It'd be easier to explore the surface using robots if they were controlled by astronauts in orbit -- say, in a small space station dug into the surface of Phobos or Deimos for radiation shielding.

And the easiest robots for a human to control directly using a conceivable circa-2030s AR rig are either a car-like machine or a human-body-shaped machine.

You could trial such a device on the Moon (as part of the Starship HLS plans NASA is currently backing for the Artemis Program), as an adjunct to actual astronauts on EVA (which is always a risky task). And the software for a human-controlled humanoid robot would be vastly easier to develop than the sort of fully autonomous control system Boston Dynamics is aiming for, hence (I suspect) Musk's over-optimistic projection.

TLDR: I think Musk is trolling Boston Dynamics et al, and his real goal is something a lot more practical. (Either that or he's been hitting the magic mushrooms again.)

The previous thread on this topic actually laid out a plausible general "Musk strategy"

(edit: here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28243811 )

IIRC it went some thing like:

1) Declare a ludicrous "pie in the sky" / "City on Mars" goal.

2) Use that to inspire, hire clever but starry eyed people who will work 7 days a week in service of that.

3) Iterate rapidly on do-able things in the general direction of the goal.

4) Reach some some point that's far from the original goal, but is still a huge achievement (e.g. re-usable rockets to LEO).

5) Profit!

6) Use the profits to start again, with another field that has synergy to the last (e.g. if you have electric cars, then add solar panels and battery packs)

In terms of humanoid robots this makes sense, the "10% to the goal" point is useful, and ties into the space plan. Robotics and space have synergies.

Note: original post calls the big goal "relatable, unoriginal" - this is a feature not a bug: to inspire, pick something that people already understand. Something that you don't have to explain.

While Musk lost some credibility over cryptocurrency related topics, it is important that he manages to repackage these already "thought of" stuff in an almost Steve Jobs sort of fashion and insert into the public consciousness. Apart from the hiring, many companies start up just to get acquired by Tesla, or to compete with them. Which creates the much needed innovation by itself.

I think he uses his media power for a good purpose even if he himself or his company cannot reach such goals, he creates the stepping stones in a future that I really like to see happen.

Just for reference, you’re extrapolating all the way to things like digging holes in moons of other planets from a starting point of a guy dancing around a stage in a white spandex outfit.

Yes, yes I am. (Failure is always an option!)

However, I think digging holes for radiation shielding in a smallish asteroid-like body -- especially if it's a gravel pile similar to 101955 Bennu -- may prove easier than landing, provisioning, and returning human beings from the Martian surface.

(101955 Bennu, target of the OSIRIS-REx probe, turned out to be a rubble pile. It's an order of magnitude smaller than the Martian moons, which are nevertheless also believed to be rubble piles -- they're not large enough to have significant surface gravity, let alone enough to melt/fuse their rocks.)

But a humanoid is a pretty useless form factor for that kind of work. Humanoid robots are good in the kind of environments where humans evolved, or that they built for themselves.

Asteroid mining is pretty far from that.

You misunderstood.

Astronauts in Mars orbit need radiation shielding. So: dig their spacecraft/habitat into one of the Moons.

Humanoid robots: put them on Mars, instead of landing astronauts. That way, you don't need to bring them home afterwards. Meanwhile, with a good AR/VR rig, the astronauts (dug into the Phobos base) can control them remotely with no lag.

But why humanoid robots, rather than robots with a shape that is actually optimised for the task?

I'm now picturing "humanoid" only in the loosest sense, e.g. a head and arms only, for remote operation by a human inside the Mars (or Phobos) base, mounted on the outside of a cybertruck, like some Terminator Centaur.

The operator would be able to toggle between "drive the truck" and "pick up rocks" modes, depending on which shape is appropriate for the task at hand.

But that is not what was announced, and very little of the hard problems involved in building an actual humanoid robot like the one Musk announced are relevant to building what you suggest.

> But that is not what was announced

yes, so what? We expect that.

Previous comment here touches upon the connection and inevitable gap between the inspirational BS "what was announced" and final outcomes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28255768

Robots digging holes on other planets is already a very real thing. It has been done so many times that it's boring by now.

It is easier than dancing and genuinely viable as a product, with that viability increasing with the degree of autonomy.

Yes I thought something similar. Basically, whenever Musk announces anything, I ask myself “how does this relate to Mars?”

Mostly it’s pretty obvious. Tunnel boring machines to dig hyperloop tunnels to take passengers from the starship spaceport to the nearest city on Mars? Check. (Why isn’t he building hyperloops himself? No need to create a vacuum on Mars… but the vehicle research will be interesting)

Tesla is an infrastructure company. He’s building infrastructural components for Mars as much as Earth, for sure.

Tunnels are one of the most important things you could build on any planet or satellite like the moon.

Remember there is no atmosphere nor magnetic fields on other planets to protect you from cosmic rays, so a good solution is make people live underground.

Some time ago a teacher offered me to make my Master thesis on that(I did not take it) because there were people already working on this problem.

BTW, places like the moon are very interesting. Because there is no fluid erosion every single grain of sand is extremely abrasive.

Deploying robots on the moon would be extremely useful even if they have minimal autonomy and have to be remote controlled from Earth.

All current efforts are rovers with scientific instruments, nobody has yet attempted to build something capable of clearing rocks for a launch pad let alone mounting solar panels.

This needs to move on from research projects into actual series production.

The last thing you need for those things is humanoid robots.

Especially with the 2.6 second lightspeed delay in any remote control inputs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com