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Bascomb James
Author | Scientist | Science Fiction Fan

What Would Your Robot Say?

6/26/2014

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Last August, I read that Kirobo, the first robotic astronaut arrived at the International Space Station. The doll-sized humanoid robot weighs about 2 pounds, speaks Japanese, and has been heralded as the first robot to speak in space. When powered up, its historic greeting was, “On August 21, 2013, a robot took one small step toward a brighter future for all," paying homage to Neil Armstrong’s moon landing speech.   

While I understand and appreciate the sentiment behind the message, the SF fan in me wanted to hear something else. I would have been “over the moon” happy if the first words from a robotic astronaut were “Hello Dave” honoring instead, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick’s HAL9000 robot. After all, both Kirobo and HAL9000 have facial recognition, speech recognition, and natural language processing capabilities.  Lest you think of HAL9000 only as the villain, the computer saved the day in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010:  Odyssey Two.

If you could write the first words a robotic astronaut would speak in outer space, what would they be?  I would love to hear your responses.

You may be interested in the following SciFi Writing Topics…
6 Tech-based Writing Prompts
5 Books for Aspiring SciFi Writers

…and general SciFi articles.
SciFi Writers – The Shamans of Modernity
SciFi and the Dangerfield Effect
SciFi Authors and Editors as Agents of Change
What Would Your Robot Say?
What Were the First SciFi Stories You Read?
Earth Day – April 22, 2014

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Musings on NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission

6/22/2014

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As I read the recent NBC News article about NASA’s proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission, I couldn’t help but think about Sam Kepfield’s story, Open for Business, in the Far Orbit Anthology.  Sam’s story about capturing an asteroid and bringing it back to earth is so timely it could have been ripped from today’s headlines. It also shows us that good science fiction doesn’t have to be about some far off future or set in the far reaches of the universe. It can happen around the corner, down the street, or in our back yard.

In addition to NASA’s plans to snag an asteroid, two companies, Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources have announced measured initiatives to begin asteroid prospecting operations using small CubeSats and off-the-shelf technologies. Open for Business floats effortlessly on this sea of current events. The story reads like mid-century science fiction but there is a twist.  Rather than following the steely-eyed lead scientist, the author gives us a more human story by making the point of view character a slightly neurotic attorney. 

Anyway, these are the things that went through my mind while reading the NASA story.


Other Far Orbit posts featured on this blog:

Musings on NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Project  and Sam Kepfield’s “Open for Business”
Bear Essentials by Julie Frost
Composition in Death Minor by K.G. Jewell
Spaceman Barbecue by Peter Wood
Far Orbit Interview on SciFi4Me.com
Great News from Sporadic Reviews!
Guest Blog on Fantasy Café (they wanted to hear about Grand Tradition SciFi
Good Choice Reading Interviews Far Orbit Authors Tracy Canfield, Jacob Drud, and Kat Otis
My intro for the Far Orbit Anthology
Launch Day!!!
Inspiration… perspiration… exhilaration…  

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