Lunokhod the Russian Moon Rover

Recently I became aware of some fascinating pictures of the Russian robot rover on the moon. It was launched as the answer to the Apollo 11 moon landing. It was discovered by a Canadian astronomer with data from a recent Lunar Orbiter. He found that it holds the distance record of over thirty-five kilometers traversing on the moon and now is seen beside a crater. The pictures are literally out of this world and it takes your breath away to see the tracks it made in the lunar dust all those decades ago.

Now as I look at these pictures  I wonder about the lagging space programs in the world. All going in their own directions. I think in this twenty-first century we should put our differences aside and work together. In this way we could share the high initial cost of going into space. To set things up is going to be very expensive. However as a species we can certainly afford it. We should back to the moon with the plan of setting up a permanent moon base and from there explore the planets. The moon has less gravity and we could launch ship after ship with less energy use.

Now the crews of these ships should be robotic at first, second and of course third. Robots are perfect for space. They do not need life support  and can be built for specific missions to specific planets. Also they can be built to last for decades. What wonders will we see??  What secrets will we learn ?? As we learn  these secrets the whole world can share equally. World wide interest will cause the governments to keep up the expense. We cannot afford not to do this. Hopefully we could set up a World Space Administration.  We should go into space with specific timetables and goals. We should also have a vision of the future. The great potential of space can be realized if we work as one species. What happens to one affects us all since we share the same biosphere, at least for the near term.

Sleep well loyal, hard working robot !!

I just found a new, well old video in Russian about these robots. They are filmed on Earth with some lively music. To a robot builder the movements of the robot are like a well orchestrated ballet . I hope you enjoy it as much as I love to watch this type of robot in action !