Express by By Carly Read 7/21/2018
RUSSIA is sending two robots into space in a bid to compete with boffins from China and the US which have claimed Mars and the Moon as a commonplace for orbital superpowers.
The Roskosmos space agency gave plans to send a pair of humanoid robots called FEDOR into space the nod with the mission due to take place next August.
It comes as a bid to compete with scientists from other countries such as China which has a lunar lander on the moon and the US’s two operational Mars rovers.
Vladimir Putin approved plans in 2011 to send several vehicles to the Moon and Mars, though they all now defunct.
Russia’s two FEDORS, an acronym for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research, are expected to “fly for the first time to the ISS as crew members, and not as cargo in the transport compartment", according to the RIA Novosti website.
The site also claimed the machines will travel into space in an unmanned
Soyuz rocket, which Russian state media called a “good PR moveâ€.
The bots were originally designed for rescue work but have since been programmed to perform human-like actions such as push-ups, lifting weights, power drilling, driving, fist-bumping and last year were given the ability to shoot guns.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin took to Twitter to deny the robot “was a Terminator†and insisted they were instead part of a larger effort to develop artificial intelligence for “practical significance in various fieldsâ€.
More:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/992334/russia-vladimir-putin-robots-space-china-us-fedor
