“Lonely astronauts on the International Space Station may soon be getting an android friend from Japan. And for the folks back home, it will tweet. Japan’s space agency is considering putting a talking humanoid robot on the International Space Station to watch the mission while astronauts are asleep, monitor their health and stress levels and communicate to Earth through the microblogging site Twitter. Japan’s space agency JAXA announced this week that it is looking at a plan to send a humanoid robot to the space station in 2013 that could communicate with the ground through Twitter — primarily feeding photos, rather than original ideas — and provide astronauts with “comfort and companionship”… Japan is one of the leading countries in robotics, and has a rapidly aging society with one of the world’s longest life-expectancies. Improving robot communication capabilities could help the elderly on Earth by providing a nonintrusive means of monitoring the robot owner’s health and vital signs and sending information to emergency responders if there is an abnormality, JAXA said. “We are thinking in terms of a very human-like robot that would have facial expressions and be able to converse with the astronauts,” said JAXA’s Satoshi Sano.” w/ photos
