Robonaut: Scaling space manufacturing

Hysterical criticism of humanoid robots in space is probably misguided.  I think that there is a place for humanoids, provided that tasks involving the combination of dextrous manipulation and sophisticated cognition, such as repair and assembly, remain difficult to automate entirely with AI.  Humanoid telerobots would be a much safer way of providing exterior maintenance and assembly of space stations, avoiding exposing astronauts to radiation risks and also permitting greater scalability via ground based teleoperation.

The "project M" scenario, as depicted in the following video, is probably not the best use of robotics though, unless you wish to begin doing industrial manufacturing on the lunar surface.  For exploration or science purposes a more conventional rover type of design would be likely to be more successful.



Those who are now criticizing Robonaut havn't thought carefully enough about what it would take to do things in space other than science in a cost effective manner - like manufacturing, mining and eventually building habitats for humans - under a conservative expectation that critical AI problems may remain difficult for at least the next few decades.

If after some testing it turns out that Robonaut can perform some basic teleoperated tasks, such as using a spanner, saw and drill (the same tools which astronauts use on EVAs), in a microgravity environment and in a way which isn't too demanding or confusing for the human operator, then the possibility exists to scale this up and have a workforce permanently stationed in orbit ready to receive modular components lifted by commercial rockets and assemble them on demand and without years of prior planning into whatever vehicles or products are required using terrestrially based tele-construction workers.  Teleworkers on Earth can be hired from the construction industry, at pretty much regular wage rates, and if a humanoid design is used then the amount of re-training which they'll require can be minimized.



With that sort of manufacturing ability more ambitious projects become possible, such as the construction of large ships which can mine asteroids for materials, solar power factories or sending humans on extended deep space missions.  A point worth noting is that humanoid telerobots do not necessarily need to be the same scale as a human - they could be much larger or much smaller, depending upon the tasks being undertaken.  From an ergonomic point of view all that matters is that the body proportions are sufficiently similar to a human to make the operation job as natural and cognitively lightweight as possible.