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"The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction. You look at the world around you, and take it apart into its components. Then you take some of those components, throw them away, and plug in different ones, start it up and see what happens."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Asteroid Mining Robot | ||
| An autonomous robot able to effectively mine asteroids. |
The DV-5 mining robot is of an unusual variety; it is a multiple robot. It has six robots working for it.
It is also able to work autonomously: "... these robots are equipped for asteroid mining without supervision."
| It was not overmassive by any means, in spite of its construction as thinking-unit of an integrated seven-member robot team. It was seven feet tall, and a half-ton of metal and electricity. A lot? Not when that half-ton has to be a mass of condensers, circuits, relays, and vacuum cells that can handle practically any psychological reaction known to humans...
"Dave," [Powell] said. "You're a stable, rock-bottom mining robot, except that you're equiped to handle six subsidiaries in direct coordination..." |
| From Catch That Rabbit,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1944 Additional resources -
|
The company that produced these robots was rather uncompromising; their unwritten motto was "No employee makes the same mistake twice. He is fired the first time."
Compare to asteroid mining from Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898) by Garrett P. Serviss,
asteroid mining (blasting) from Asteroid of Gold (1932) by Clifford Simak, the
meteor miner from Salvage in Space (1933) by Jack Williamson,
asteroid claim law from Jurisdiction (1941) by Nat Schachner,
space placers from The Day We Celebrate (1941) by Nelson S. Bond, the
asteroid mine from Love Among the Robots (1946) by Emmett McDowell, the coal mole from The Web Between the Worlds (1979) by Charles Sheffield, and
asteroid metal from The Mechanical Monarch (1958) by E.C. Tubb.
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Asteroid Mining Robot-related
news articles:
- Robots In The Mines
- NASA's Robotic Mining Competition
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| Cute Teddy Bear Robot Favorite Of Hospitalized Children |
| Robot Dog Learns To Be Doggy From Real Dogs |
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