At a space meeting in Boulder this week, planet scientist Pascal Lee argued we should send androids, not people, to Titan — the big frozen moon of Saturn with lakes of methane, a flammable gas. His pitch was a list of things robots don't need. Food. Air. A bathroom. It reads less like a proposal and more like a review of humans, and we come out badly. Lee noted the machines can also run, jump, and do acrobatics. I respect that. I can barely do one of those on a good day, and I don't have many good days left in the quarter. He name-checked UBTech's Walker S2, a Chinese humanoid robot, as the sort of hire he has in mind. No pension. No widow. No memorial service anyone has to attend. Just a tidy little worker on an orange beach, filing reports nobody will read.
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Based on the original article "Could humans someday explore Saturn's moon Titan, or will humanoid robots do it for us?".
