Rustam's techno-feed

Why do people work in heavily radioactive environment in Fu­kushima, Japan?

Instead of building robots that go where humans never could, this country renowned for its robotics expertise invested in machines that do things that humans can already do — like talk, dance, play the violin and preside over weddings.

“The government believed this accident wouldn’t happen,” said Hirose Shigeo, a robotics researcher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. “Most of the robot experts are concentrating on humanoid [robots] and home use.”

Tadokoro said that after Japan’s 1999 nuclear accident, regulatory officials and the country’s power companies discussed developing a robot response squad like those in Europe. It never happened.

“A decision was made not to invest,” Tadokoro said. “It’s very frustrating.”

“It’s very hard to have a business model that waits for nuclear disaster” – Eric C. Close, chief executive at RedZone Robotics.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

The second Boeing X-37B orbital test vehicle (OTV-2) launched into space on 5 March, riding atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from space launch complex-41 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The flight is a follow-up to the 270-day mission of the OTV-1 that ended on 3 December, with the spacecraft de-orbiting and landing at Vandenberg AFB, California.

US Air Force officials have declined to answer questions about whether any payloads have intended to be tested or deployed with either OTV-1 or OTV-2.
Read more…