Humanoid robot to keep Japanese astronaut company on space station

Skip the robot, and send one of those "rent-a-date" girls we heard about here recently.

sensei258, I agree, poor gut must be lonely.

oops, sorry for the typo.

Name it "SpyBot"

Give it to the Japanese, the country will turn into a nation of robots. Soon the movie irobot will become a reality for Japan where the robots will control the whole country.

Childish. Surely a commander should be talking to real people, not some silly little toy.

Such inspiring comments while many here should take this cute little thing they're doing more positively.

The marketing guys are missing the Christmas season opportunity of a lifetime.Why not just send up a load of Furbies!

Wee-tah-kah-loo-loo!

Is it really a robot if all it can do is talk? Surely it's just a machine or software program., kind of stretching reality a bit.

Probie>

Hardly childish. Compare costs of sending a robot with sending a rent-a-date human or a commander which have to eat drink and poo and you'll soon see the financial advantage to sending robots. Nasa has now canned all it's manned space missions and has opted for robotics. China, which has the biggest space budget these days is aiming to send robots to the moon by 2020, which is currently the most exciting space mission any nation is working on. Robots are the future, this one is just has a Japanese flavour and so may appear childish to us.

I suggest Max and Moritz :)

Truly infantile, just like what we see here on the ground year round, will Japan EVER grow up!

"Shogannai, Dave..."

@lunchbox

It's there to talk to him and take pictures, not to be something like an unmanned probe or whatever. It's probably the idea of a manchild who has watched too many silly cartoons.

What if the guy falls in love with it? He might need a special sound-proof closet for their conversations.

Seriously though, the two of them speaking Japanese all day will surely drive the other crew members nuts, and do nothing for Wakata's English-speaking skills. Waste of a good homestay. (Expect to see mysterious damage to Kibo-robo's wiring.)

"Open the pod bay doors, HAL." "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

Isn't this redundant?

Remarkable ...well we love Miku so why not a space bot buddy?

Why couldn't they make it in Miku's image? That would be cuter.

Please name it HAL.

Then again, if I were up in space for six months, I am pretty sure I would prefer a female robot.

Hehehehehe it's nice to read that at least there is someone posting with sense. @alliswellinjapan

Slumdog...my thoughts exactly. I'm sure the robot feels the same ;-)

I'm sure he's disappointed that actual tech hasn't reached the Japanese porn stage of humanoid robots yet.

I was expecting a little ash can on wheels... R2D2 where are you?

Space experiments are now aimed at long duration stay for coming Mars projects. It would be very interesting to know how this cute little robot will psychologically affect Wakata san. I don't know why some people feel that this is childish. We can explore the possibility of robot utilization in space by this project, which is great, too.

so a Japanese astronaut needs a toy in space.................it would be more honest we can send him a sexbot.

When I was a kid I remember one episode of a black and white TV series (?) where a guy is in solitary imprisonment on an uninhabited planet somewhere in the universe. He has lived there for years and together with his robot woman companion they are self-sufficient. They share so much and fall in love. Then the very last spaceship ever lands, taking all prisoners back to earth for some political reason, but there is only enough room for him, and not the woman... at the end he is faced with a choice. Is this the future?

Or, as John Updike would describe it: "Two robots having a conversation."

It's 6 months, not 6 years. Not to mention, there are other people there. While, it's nice to see them make some little gizmo like this, it would have been better if it was programmed with the languages of every astronaut up there and teach them all English. Then they can just talk with each other.

Childish. Surely a commander should be talking to real people, not some silly little toy.

Besides, space stations were built by humans. Nowadays, humans are still operating them and solving various problems onboard, including technical glitches. Instead of useless toy, JAXA would better make a robotic system of automated docking for their cargo crafts. It woud be much more useful.

I wonder if it sounds like Siri.

It's not like he's going to be alone up there. What about the 4 other people? What are they chopped liver? Or, are they saying that since the robot can speak Japanese, it is better than humans that can't?