Japan Prepares Tweeting Humanoid Astronaut

Japan continues to be the world’s number 1 robot nation: the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the University of Tokyo and advertising agency Dentsu are ready to develop a humanoid that’s able to support astronauts at the International Space Station and post new information on Twitter.

Why not, Japan has a tweeting satellite already.

The plan is to have the robot in charge when the human crew is asleep. During that time, it will receive instructions from ground control and relay them to the human astronauts when they awake. It’s also expected to monitor the health of the astronauts, for example by checking the color of their skin and measuring emotional stress in their everyday language.

The robot’s makers expect the humanoid to make its debut in outer space in 2013. Not bad – but this time, it seems, the Americans were a bit faster.