Astro Boy lives! Japan to send cute anime-inspired robots into space

Remember the anime called Astro Boy that used to air in the early 1990s? Well, a REAL robot that looks very much like the anime’s protagonist is all set

Ramkumar Iyer|Jun 28, 2013, 19:23:28 IST

Remember that anime called Astro Boy that used to air in the early 1990s? Well, a REAL robot that looks very much like the anime’s protagonist is all set to take his first steps in space. Called Kirobo, the bot will be launched into orbit as part of a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission to the International Space Station on August 4, where it will interact with JAXA astronaut, Koichi Wakata.

The cute robot and its backup Mirata are 13 inches tall and have been jointly developed by Japanese company Dentsu, University of Tokyo, ROBO Garage and Toyota under a research project called Kibo Robot Project. While Kirobo will be out in space talking to astronauts, Mirata will be used to interact and participate in educational activities with children here on Earth. The project’s webpage has a video of the robot talking to people, nodding, shaking hands and being generally cute. The video is accompanied by an instrumental of the Astro Boy theme song too, as if it were meant to give a hint to people who missed the resemblance. Check it out below:

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The two bots were developed as humanoid communication bots and can talk in Japanese. They have been endowed with a host of abilities that let them interact with humans, including voice recognition, natural language processing, speech synthesis, telecommunications functions, communication actions, a facial recognition camera and a recording camera. caption

Even has Astro Boy's red boots

Dentsu says Kirobo’s interactions will be “the world’s first conversation experiment” between robots and humans in space, and the AP reports that the Project’s developers hope robots like Kirobo will eventually be used to assist astronauts in space. However, it’s obvious the Project is only to show the rest of the world that Japan can do it.

And if you’re wondering why they followed the Astro Boy theme for such a project, we have no idea. Just remember that it’s happening in Japan, and they're probably doing it for the lulz. ‘Nuff said.

By Ramkumar Iyer

Behind his cold and drowsy exterior is the still cold but slightly less sleepy Ram. He's essentially paid to be our own personal grammar nazi. He tends to take his job a little too seriously, so you may sometimes see him running around punching his colleagues in the arm for typos and grammar mistakes. Some of his favorite topics to find mistakes in are games and open source stuff like Linux, but he also maintains a fleeting interest in smartphones. He also loves Michael Jackson's Heal the World the same way a little girl loves cockroaches.