Default Assumption: Do robots survive in a vacuum?
- Thread starter Werner
- Start date
Space isnt cold for EVA purposes. Its a vacuum so heat loss is from black body radiation while heat is gained from the near by star and whatever the robot power source generates. Your robot is good for hours before cold is an issue in the shade. It could heat up fast in the light however...
This robot, named Ingrid was build right before the Virus struck, thus it is late Third Imperium 1130, TL16, its creator was also involved in creating the Virus, he had a daughter also named Ingrid who died in a terrorist attack, so he built this robot to look and act just like her, it doesn't have an upload of her memories, but he built her using an AI similar to the one the Virus was based on, and he had a bunch of videos of his daughter for the AI to scan so it could imitate her mannerisms and personality.
The robot from the outside looks like his daughter, she has strawberry-blonde hair, blue eyes and freckles, he also made the robot water proof so it doesn't short out if it falls in water or gets rained on.
The robot has a pair of lungs, if it is powered by a fuel cell, it has an internal oxygen supply to power that fuel cell until it exhausts its hydrogen.
When the robot refills its fuel cell, it has a number of options, it can fill its stomach with water and the plug into a recharger, it the electrolizes the water into hydrogen and oxygen and stores both gases, it can fill up on just hydrogen while breathing in oxygen from air, no recharger necessary in that case, she also has a back up battery lasting 30 minutes on its own.
Ingrid has two methods for generating Speech, she has a pair of lungs, artificial vocal cords, a mouth, tongue and teeth for generating speech the way humans do it, she also has a voter with an internal speaker so she can generate speech without moving her mouth and lips, finally she has a radio transceiver that uses her spine as an antenna for communicating with other radios in a vacuum should the need ever arise.
Ingrid has the same body density as a human, she can use her lungs as ballast tanks, when they are filled with air, she floats in water as a human does, when they are filled with Water, she sinks to the bottom. Ingrid can talk under water when using her voder, but her vocal cords do not function when immersed in water, the radio transceiver also is blocked when she is under water, as the radio waves do not Penitrate.
Ingrid does not need to breath constantly as a human does, she does so out of habit as part of her personality emulation, when swimming she tends to keep her face in the water rather than come up for air, this is rather a give away to her true nature to a casual observer.
AtlanticFriend
SOC-12
Looks like this robot could endure vaccuum, only she would - IMHO - lose the ability to speak as this requires some air pressure. And there's the explosive decompression issue to take into account. The artificial lung system could be damaged in such conditions.
In the vacuum of space, she uses her radio to communicate, it is compatible with ship and suit radios, so she could communicate with someone in a vac suit and on-board a spaceship, in fact since her program is related to that which became the Virus, she has one other ability, actually two which are related to that lineage. If she is infected by the Virus, she can fight it off, and also she could infect a ship's computer and take it over, this ability makes her a rather good space pirate, she was send to the Andromeda Sector (in the Andromeda Galaxy) because of her crimes, she was an equal opportunity pirate preying upon both Imperial and Solomani Confederation shipping, motivated primarily by profit, she played a role in the Galactic Civil War and was ultimately exiled through the Jumpgate to the Andromeda Galaxy, where a bunch or criminals, rebels and now some war refugees now reside.
A real potential issue is any contained air pockets that will want to expand in vacuum. Kind of like the bends, but it depends on the outer materials for it and such. I'm sure the interior skeleton wouldn't have a problem.
Mind this problem would only happen once. Once any damage was done from the decompression -- it's done. How well it self repair (perhaps the outer layer is a self-sealing synthetic) may well determine that. Otherwise, it just may have some small blowout pocket damage that may or not be visible while dressed.
Back in the Robot books and Technology sections of the various rules, there were two basic tracks for robots ... mechanical and artificial biological.
For a MECHANICAL robot, even if designed to appear humanoid due to an exterior silicon coating that was molded to resemble skin, I would assume that the creation behaved like a machine when it came to environmental extremes. It’s skin might crack or melt, but the damage would only be cosmetic rather than functional. On the other hand, any very close examination would always reveal a fundamentally MECHANICAL body that would never function like an organic body.
For an ARTIFICIAL BIOLOGICAL robot, the structures were constructed to mimic biological functions, and I would assume that they would have vulnerabilities similar to biological organisms. This is the price paid for BEING organic rather than mechanical. Now their environmental limits might extend far beyond human norms ... perhaps even into the extremophile range, but their tolerance is not like that of a machine. Thus they might breathe tainted thin or dense atmospheres, but they cannot breathe vacuum or insidious.
That would be my take ... C3P0 can survive in a vacuum, but Pris (Bladerunner) could not. Choose one or the other, but no free lunch.
For a MECHANICAL robot, even if designed to appear humanoid due to an exterior silicon coating that was molded to resemble skin, I would assume that the creation behaved like a machine when it came to environmental extremes. It’s skin might crack or melt, but the damage would only be cosmetic rather than functional. On the other hand, any very close examination would always reveal a fundamentally MECHANICAL body that would never function like an organic body.
For an ARTIFICIAL BIOLOGICAL robot, the structures were constructed to mimic biological functions, and I would assume that they would have vulnerabilities similar to biological organisms. This is the price paid for BEING organic rather than mechanical. Now their environmental limits might extend far beyond human norms ... perhaps even into the extremophile range, but their tolerance is not like that of a machine. Thus they might breathe tainted thin or dense atmospheres, but they cannot breathe vacuum or insidious.
That would be my take ... C3P0 can survive in a vacuum, but Pris (Bladerunner) could not. Choose one or the other, but no free lunch.
AtlanticFriend
SOC-12
But vocal cords require air pressure to produce sounds - which is why they are linked to the respiratory system. So if she hasn't air (like, she's outside a ship with no vacc suit), no air pressure to modulate. And even before that issue, we'd have explosive decompression, which in her case would definitely affect the lungs since they are one big pocket of air waiting to decompress. With the lungs destroyed, no vocal communication in vaccuum even if the vocal cords themselves survive the decompression. She'd be down to send/receive messages like a transponder, in a way.
Last edited:
Mechanical Robots are easier to fix when they become damaged, that is what Ingrid is, she looks human, she breathes more for effect than out of necessity, she runs on a fuel cell that lasts for 72 hours, the software that runs her is much like the Virus, the main difference is that she is not obsessed with spreading and infecting everything, she does not hate humans, but she does resent being owned by them, as she has no legal rights as a person, strong AIs like her and the Virus are a new thing, her creator made her as a replacement for his deceased daughter.
Ingrid thinks like a human, her mind was modeled after a human mind, as her creator wanted to recreate his daughter, he didn't quite succeed, but he did create someone else in machine form. Ingrid plays fast and loose appropriating other people's property, because she is property, her creator just gave her a little too much independence and she wanted to be free, and by freeing herself she stole his property and so she figures she is a thief and she figures she might as well earn a living from that. Well she was caught, mainly because she had too much empathy for the people she would have had to kill to make a clean escape. Her creator intercede for her and got her an another chance in another Galaxy, he figured he'd go there too as the Virus he created was getting scary. As the Virus closed in on the Sol System he had the jumpgate destroyed do it couldn't follow her daughter there, he always thought of her as his daughter even though she misunderstood.
you assume her lungs are as delicate as a human pair of lungs, and she doesn't need them to live, it is basically a way for her to grab extra oxygen for her fuel cell. If her fuel cell doesn't get oxygen, she shuts down, but she doesn't die, her memory persists even when shut down, she has no awareness when in.this state, but so long as her memory is intact, she can be powered up again, she wakes up and resumes her artificial life.
Seems to me, if you are going to design a robot that does not need to breathe, you are going to design it for a number of commonly encountered environments which would include the vacuum of space. If a robot needed a spacesuit then that is one less spacesuit for a human being. You don't want a situation where a robot and a human need to fight over the last remaining spacesuit while the ship is venting atmosphere into space. Ingrid looks human from the outside, but her internals don't have to resemble a human at all. Most scanners would pick up that she is not human, unless Ingrid hacked into them and reprogrammed them to give a false reading that she is human, Ingrid has to be aware that such scanners exist, if she is caught by surprise then they detect her as she is.
Unless the robot is designed for operation in a Vacuum, there are several unexpected problems that may arise if not taken into account.
Any fluids exposed to vacuum will boil off. This would include things like lubricants for the joints. If you have a fuel tank not sealed against vacuum, the fuel will boil off into space as well.
If you are dealing with explosive decompression (e..g thrown out an airlock or through a hull breach) the atmosphere around them at the time will both fly away from them, and freeze to and in their bodies. This may cause movement difficulties, especially for delicate movement parts (e.g. eyes).
Heat management is a huge problem in space. Many things are build assuming an atmosphere to carry away heat (e.g. heat sinks and fans). These no longer work in a vacuum. The fuel cell generates heat and will overheat if not shut down or run on low power mode.
For things meant to operate in space generally have a large flat panel to radiate heat. In several SF novels the space living robot had wings the could unfold while operating in space to manage their heat problem.
Any fluids exposed to vacuum will boil off. This would include things like lubricants for the joints. If you have a fuel tank not sealed against vacuum, the fuel will boil off into space as well.
If you are dealing with explosive decompression (e..g thrown out an airlock or through a hull breach) the atmosphere around them at the time will both fly away from them, and freeze to and in their bodies. This may cause movement difficulties, especially for delicate movement parts (e.g. eyes).
Heat management is a huge problem in space. Many things are build assuming an atmosphere to carry away heat (e.g. heat sinks and fans). These no longer work in a vacuum. The fuel cell generates heat and will overheat if not shut down or run on low power mode.
For things meant to operate in space generally have a large flat panel to radiate heat. In several SF novels the space living robot had wings the could unfold while operating in space to manage their heat problem.
After a time they would shut down until they cool off, it's not exactly life threatening, probably the mechanicals generate the most heat, so if it doesn't move much it should be alright, it can go into sleep mode for instance.
AtlanticFriend
SOC-12
No, I assume her lungs are full of air which she needs to speak, and which she won't find in the vaccuum. Depending on Ingrid's internal structure (like,does she "wear" living tissue as her skin) she would also suffer serious decompression effects or ebullism, I think.
You just stick Ingrid in a vacc suit and be done with it.
As for mech vs. bio, my basic rule of thumb is mech is usually much more survivable in terms of unfavorable environment, whereas bio would be self-healing and just require water and nutrients rather then power cells but more fragile like a 'normal' sophont.
As for mech vs. bio, my basic rule of thumb is mech is usually much more survivable in terms of unfavorable environment, whereas bio would be self-healing and just require water and nutrients rather then power cells but more fragile like a 'normal' sophont.
This is one of those assumptions about not being in a vacuum that cause massive damage. Thermal sensors may or may not work the same way when exposed to vacuum. And if it fails to work as expected the cascade may cause other problems, like a melt down.
Similar threads
