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Japanese startup Ispace raises $90M, targets landing on moon surface by 2020

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Re: Japanese startup Ispace raises $90M, targets landing on moon surface by 2020

#11

Post by deerpig »

melling wrote: post #9
lwansbrough wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So simple!

No one said it would be easy. You guys added that. It would be difficult and expensive, but cheaper, faster, and easier than man space flight.

So you would prefer JFK to have said: "We choose to send robots to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, because they are easy and cheaper and faster..."

It's worth reading the whole speech: https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm

It ends with:

"Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."

There will as many robots as you want in space, but man will be out there right along with them, no matter how difficult or dangerous or expensive it is.

Re: Japanese startup Ispace raises $90M, targets landing on moon surface by 2020

#12

Post by indubitable »

melling wrote: post #2

First, we should accelerate building better robots to do the work of humans, then send thousands throughout the solar system. This will be cheaper and faster than manned space flight... Anyway, I went through this a few years ago on HN after the Virgin Galactic accident. People argued that it was only a minor setback. Any setback that involves humans costs a lot of money and time.

Curiosity cost us about $2 billion and it has some of the most state of the art systems on board. Among these was its drill, which was supposed to provide some of the most important science from the mission. And as my use of past tense probably belies, it broke after 15 activations. [1] Redundancies and the best NASA has on it notwithstanding, it remains broken. They've now, a year later, developed a high risk idea to try to get some drilling done. We'll see how that works out. This would have been something a human on site could have repaired in relatively short order.

The point is that robotics and other technologies are advancing extremely rapidly, but they're still not anywhere even remotely close to being able to compare to humans in general purpose functionality - let alone improvisation. Don't forget that those amazing videos of Atlas are the result of countless takes and on-site specialization. This [2] article describes the results of the most recent DARPA Robotics Challenge which featured all the big names, including Atlas. The competition included tasks like walking, opening a door, and climbing up stairs. The most ostensibly difficult would be navigating a specially modified vehicle after having humans carefully place and suspend their robot inside it. And the developers all knew ahead of time exactly what the tasks would be and the circumstance, except for one surprise task which ended up being pulling a lever. The long and short is that it was a disaster. Quoting the article:

"If there's a single lesson from the [DARPA Robotics Challenge], it's that humanoid robots are falling robots. Also, that the road to humanoids that aren't so clumsy will be long, and strewn with shattered components. If DARPA doesn't hold another version of the DRC, then the first one will have been little more than a grim status update, and a self-contained failure, for the few of us that realized it happened."

The point here is that we are a long ways away from robots that can remotely compare to humans for general purpose tasks. The timeline for getting to the Moon and even to Mars on the other hand is very near future.

--

Beyond all this, space exploration is not just about science. Did you know China put a probe on the moon in 2013? Technically it was a rover, but back to those robotics problems - it became a probe. It was the first time anything had soft landed on the moon since 1976. If you did know this you're probably already a huge enthusiast in the field because the world collectively yawned, even though it made some groundbreaking discoveries including discovering the moon's geographic makeup was far different than we thought. That discovery is playing no minor role in driving the recent moon race.

But people want to see and discover space themselves. And there are lots of people willing to pay lots of money for the privilege. Two individuals have already purchased a Moon flyby from SpaceX - scheduled for next year. And even though a flyby is nothing compared to a soft landing, that will not be met with a yawn. Action requires money. Money requires public drive. Public drive requires manned operations.

[1] - http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2017/0906-cu...

[2] - https://www.popsci.com/darpa-robotics-challenge-was-bust-why...

Re: Japanese startup Ispace raises $90M, targets landing on moon surface by 2020

#13

Post by melling »

deerpig wrote: post #11
melling wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one said it would be easy. You guys added that. It would be difficult and expensive, but cheaper, faster, and easier than man space flight.

So you would prefer JFK to have said: "We choose to send robots to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, because they are easy and cheaper and faster..." It's worth reading the whole speech: https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm It ends with: "Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are…

Let me blog it. I get tired of answering this question. The short answer is if we had built robots and sent hundreds into space, we'd have more humans in space now because it would be safer and cheaper. We'd also learn more quickly. We'd also have more advanced robots because of the investment.

We reached the moon, spent a few years, then gave up because of cost.

Would you rather have a new robotic explorer, or two or three, queued for Mars, Titan, etc every year or a few people on Mars by 2040?

Re: Japanese startup Ispace raises $90M, targets landing on moon surface by 2020

#14

Post by melling »

indubitable wrote: post #12
melling wrote: post #2

First, we should accelerate building better robots to do the work of humans, then send thousands throughout the solar system. This will be cheaper and faster than manned space flight... Anyway, I went through this a few years ago on HN after the Virgin Galactic accident. People argued that it was only a minor setback. Any setback that involves humans costs a lot of money and time.

Curiosity cost us about $2 billion and it has some of the most state of the art systems on board. Among these was its drill, which was supposed to provide some of the most important science from the mission. And as my use of past tense probably belies, it broke after 15 activations. [1] Redundancies and the best NASA has on it notwithstanding, it remains broken. They've now, a year later, developed a high risk idea t…

It will cost $200 billion to get to Mars by 2040?

That's a lot of cheaper robotic missions. If something breaks, there's another one in the works.

We should also be developing robots that can do what the human can do. That investment will pay off in many ways.

Btw, the first DARPA Grand Challenge was a bust in 2004. No one finished.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2004_Gra...

Re: Japanese startup Ispace raises $90M, targets landing on moon surface by 2020

#15

Post by deadmetheny »

melling wrote: post #14
indubitable wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiosity cost us about $2 billion and it has some of the most state of the art systems on board. Among these was its drill, which was supposed to provide some of the most important science from the mission. And as my use of past tense probably belies, it broke after 15 activations. [1] Redundancies and the best NASA has on it notwithstanding, it remains broken. They've now, a year later, developed a high risk idea t…

It will cost $200 billion to get to Mars by 2040? That's a lot of cheaper robotic missions. If something breaks, there's another one in the works. We should also be developing robots that can do what the human can do. That investment will pay off in many ways. Btw, the first DARPA Grand Challenge was a bust in 2004. No one finished. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2004_Gra...

>We should also be developing robots that can do what the human can do. That investment will pay off in many ways

That investment is absolutely worthwhile, but we aren't even vaguely close to a general-purpose robot that can do what humans do. One human geologist could do the work of an entire fleet of Curiosity rovers. It's a matter of if all of the associated dangers of space travel worth all of that scientific knowledge gained from both sending people to do interplanetary science and from developing new tech to get us there is worth it - IMO, the answer is a resounding 'yes'.

Re: Japanese startup Ispace raises $90M, targets landing on moon surface by 2020

#16

Post by melling »

deadmetheny wrote: post #15
melling wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will cost $200 billion to get to Mars by 2040? That's a lot of cheaper robotic missions. If something breaks, there's another one in the works. We should also be developing robots that can do what the human can do. That investment will pay off in many ways. Btw, the first DARPA Grand Challenge was a bust in 2004. No one finished. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2004_Gra...

>We should also be developing robots that can do what the human can do. That investment will pay off in many ways That investment is absolutely worthwhile, but we aren't even vaguely close to a general-purpose robot that can do what humans do. One human geologist could do the work of an entire fleet of Curiosity rovers. It's a matter of if all of the associated dangers of space travel worth all of that scientific kno…

Yep, a lot of people think it's worth it. I'm with you. Good luck getting the money. One accident will cost years to "improve safety", and people will question if it's really worth it. Keeping humans safe is costly.

I bet we can get the money for better robots. It doesn't even need to come from NASA's budget. The DoD, private industry tax breaks, etc can pay for the research.

https://www.wired.com/story/atlas-robot-does-backflips-now/

If we lose a robot on Mars, not much changes.

Re: Japanese startup Ispace raises $90M, targets landing on moon surface by 2020

#17

Post by sushibowl »

azernik wrote: post #7
sushibowl wrote: post #3

Can you really get to the moon with just $90M? My impression is that SpaceX is just about the cheapest launch provider currently available, and they charge something like $50-60M to get to orbit. And then you need to do all the tech required to land on the lunar surface as well. Do they anticipate getting additional funding or decreasing costs?

They're the cheapest (probably) per kilogram; but if you're willing to settle for smaller payloads, you can get to orbit for quite a lot cheaper. For example, the European Vega will get you 2.5T to LEO for under $40M. Half your budget on launch costs isn't bad.

This article has some more details on their plans. Apparently they're looking to launch as a secondary payload on something like a falcon 9:

http://spacenews.com/japanese-lunar-exploration-company-ispa...

I'm not sure if launching as a secondary decreases costs. They do have two missions planned apparently, after which they hope to start generating revenue by carrying up to 30kg of customer payload to the moon per launch.

Re: Japanese startup Ispace raises $90M, targets landing on moon surface by 2020

#19

Post by bastawhiz »

melling wrote: post #14
indubitable wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiosity cost us about $2 billion and it has some of the most state of the art systems on board. Among these was its drill, which was supposed to provide some of the most important science from the mission. And as my use of past tense probably belies, it broke after 15 activations. [1] Redundancies and the best NASA has on it notwithstanding, it remains broken. They've now, a year later, developed a high risk idea t…

It will cost $200 billion to get to Mars by 2040? That's a lot of cheaper robotic missions. If something breaks, there's another one in the works. We should also be developing robots that can do what the human can do. That investment will pay off in many ways. Btw, the first DARPA Grand Challenge was a bust in 2004. No one finished. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2004_Gra...

There's more than just cost. Round trip latency to Mars can be reasonably measured in tens of minutes. Tasks that a human can do in seconds take days with a robot at that distance. Curiosity can move at up to 0.09mph. A human infant can move faster than that.

We've invested many billions of dollars on robots already and this is the best we have. If we could spend $200bn to do he science in a few years that trillions dollars in R&D and probably the better part of century of iteration would take, why wouldn't we send humans up?

It seems crazy to me to throw money at robotics that work well on Mars when we are already investing billions and billions of dollars on robots here on earth that aren't even able to do the things that humans do.

Re: Japanese startup Ispace raises $90M, targets landing on moon surface by 2020

#20

Post by pavel_lishin »

melling wrote: post #9
lwansbrough wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So simple!

No one said it would be easy. You guys added that. It would be difficult and expensive, but cheaper, faster, and easier than man space flight.

> cheaper, faster, and easier

We don't know that, right? We don't know how much it would cost to develop the tech; we don't know how long it would take; we don't know how difficult it would be.

It might actually be cheaper to send canned apes throughout the solar system, than human minds in robot bodies; we just don't know yet. This is at best a Fermi problem, where we can start throwing numbers out and hope our estimates are within a few orders of magnitude.

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