This is

David Livingston, Dr. Space himself is here with me and we're looking to the immediate future about the use of robotic exploration in the solar system and beyond.

We welcome Dr. Francis Zoo, Frankie, of the University of Hawaii, the Robotic Space

Exploration Lab.

Dr. A very good evening to you. Thank you. We need some definitions first because in my reporting of the successes of NASA and other big space operations like the European Space Agency.

I refer to the probes that are now famous.

That would be, for example, the James Webb Space Telescope.

I refer to them as a robot. I also think of the satellites in low-Earth

orbit as robots. Is that a definition that suits your work in robotic space

exploration? Good evening to you. Good evening.

Hi John, thank you so much for having me and good to see you David.

I would agree with your definition.

I think a robot is a mixture of software of electronics and of some physical form.

Now that may differ from the general perception of some humanoid which is popularized in science fiction,

but I think we can think about robots as any

kind of machine, whatever form they take.

And one more turn of the screw here. A robot is a James Webb Space Telescope.

Introducing artificial intelligence into robotics.

Does that change the assumptions you make

about robots and their limitations?

Or is it just an enhanced machinery?

Yeah, I think that we can extrapolate the idea of intelligence to robotics.

...