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Elon Musk boasts he will launch a squad of Optimus humanoid robots to Mars aboard his Starship super-capsules, but a leading U.S. robotics scholar predicts their quick demise (Photo credit should read CFOTO\/Future Publishing via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
CFOTO\/Future Publishing via Getty Images<\/p>\n
While SpaceX founder Elon Musk has pledged to despatch a crew of Optimus robots aboard the first titanic Starships to be launched to Mars, their interplanetary odyssey is likely to be short-lived, says a leading robotics scholar.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s richest techno-aristocrat told his 200 million followers on the messaging platform X that the Tesla-conceived droid could be lofted as soon as 2026: \u201cSlight chance of Starship flight to Mars crewed by Optimus<\/a> in Nov\/Dec next year. A lot needs to go right for that.\u201d <\/p>\n “More likely,\u201d he added, \u201cfirst flight without humans in ~3.5 years, next flight ~5.5 years with humans.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet unless Tesla\u2019s leadership pulls off a series of sensational technological advances in improving the robustness of the cloned Optimus bots before they blast off for Mars, they are likely to enter the same downward spiral that is a hallmark of all humanoid robots, across the planet, at this early stage in their evolution, says Christian Hubicki, an acclaimed scholar who heads the Optimal Robotics Laboratory at Florida State University.<\/p>\n While researchers are racing to strengthen and perfect these replicated humans, Professor Hubicki tells me, humanoid robots worldwide still collectively share an array of Achilles heels. <\/p>\n \u201cHumanoids fall down. They break. Their code crashes.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThe robotics field has made enormous strides with humanoids, widening their skillsets and driving down costs, but reliability remains a major hurdle,\u201d adds Hubicki<\/a>, who conducted his postdoctoral research in engineering and robotics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, one of the top American science universities. <\/p>\n \u201cRight now, humanoids aren\u2019t reliable enough to be autonomous on Earth, let alone Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n With the planned launch of the Optimus squad of identical robots<\/a>, SpaceX\u2019s chief designer would be following the lead of NASA, which sent its cutting-edge Robonaut 2, a space android created in the image of astronauts, to the International Space Station more than a dozen years ago. <\/p>\n The Robonaut was packed with next-generation processors and cameras, a LIDAR scanner and an AI-powered image recognition system to navigate its surroundings.<\/p>\n NASA’s hyper-tech Robonaut 2 set to launch to the International Space Station, marking a new stage in the alliance between human and robotic explorers. (Photo by: NASA\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Universal History Archive\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n R2 was trained to interact with oxygen-breathing spacefarers on the ISS and with ground-control scientists on the spinning Earth below.<\/p>\n \u201cHumanoid robots are not entirely new to space, but only on space stations where humans are already there to fix them,\u201d Professor Hubicki tells me across a series of interviews. <\/p>\n \u201cMars is a different ballgame.\u201d<\/p>\n When NASA launched Robonaut 2 to the International Space Station in 2011, after more than a decade of developing this first robot-aeronaut, \u201cit was built to assist human astronauts who were already on the space station, a first step toward freeing their precious attention for other work.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cIt was a test platform that performed some proof-of-concept tests with constant supervision from the ground,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n While Robonaut 2 underwent a series of demos with simple autonomous tasks, mostly it was teleoperated by mission controllers, becoming their celestial avatar while speeding through orbit at 28,000 kilometers per hour.<\/p>\n NASA mission controllers operated Robonaut 2 as a celestial avatar speeding around the planet inside the ISS ( Michael Paulsen \/ Houston Chronicle ) (Photo by Michael Paulsen\/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Houston Chronicle via Getty Imag<\/p>\n With Robonaut\u2019s vulnerabilities, Hubicki says, \u201ccritically on the ISS, humans are there to help and fix the robot when it inevitably falters.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cOn Mars, there are no humans to rescue it, and replacement parts are a nightmare to ship in.\u201d<\/p>\n The globe-spanning quest to develop androids that approach humans in intelligence and have a high degree of reliability is now speeding up. <\/p>\n \u201cIn space, reliability is king,\u201d Hubicki<\/a> says. <\/p>\n \u201cOn Mars, it is life or death.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWithout a major technological leap in humanoid reliability,\u201d he predicts, \u201can unaccompanied humanoid on Mars wouldn\u2019t be functional for long.\u201d <\/p>\n Although the Robonaut tested out on the International Space Station is now ensconced at the Smithsonian\u2019s National Air and Space Museum, researchers at NASA say they aim to develop a next-generation droid that can accompany astronauts on high-risk spacewalks outside the ISS, all as part of a lead-up to Mars missions of the future.<\/p>\n Robonaut 2 was rocketed to the International Space Station aboard the American Space Shuttle (Photo by NASA via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n Astronauts aboard a Mars orbiter could one day teleoperate a squadron of robots<\/a> – avatars deployed to map out potential landing sites along the Martian dunes and beam back their 3D imagery, say researchers at the NASA Ames Research Center and at the Jet Propulsion Lab attached to CalTech.<\/p>\n