I for one
wish to salute our kawaii moonwalking overlords!
As North Korea preps a ballistic missile launch over Japan, the Japanese are grandstanding back with promises of robots walking on the moon by 2020. A government task force charged with plotting Japans future space development said it wants a two-legged robot strolling on luna firma by the end of the next decade. The drafted …
People have spent many years and vast sums of money on developing bipedal robots, and they *still* such. They have absolutely no benefit, aside from looking vaguely human shaped, and thats hardly a worthy design goal for a robot which is actually intended to get out there and do something useful.
"A government task force charged with plotting Japan's future space development said it wants a two-legged robot strolling on luna firma by the end of the next decade."
"The drafted five-year plan ..."
Ahem. A five year plan would take them to 2014, not 2020. I think now we see why they've completely stuffed up their economy and never did take over the world - basic maths problems!
I mean, sure they look fabulous in anime, but lunar exploration?
<Kawasaki RV-1 has landed! Japan is on the moon! We are getting first pictures now!>
- image of lunar horizon, rapid disappearing up out of frame, then extreme close-up of dust -
<Kawasaki RV-1 has, ah... fallen over.>
- rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb* -
<Now lanunching Kawasaki RV-2 to help RV-1 up...>
* or Japanese equivalent for muttering noises.
In answer to your question, it's because people like things to look human - not to mention it is technically challenging (balance etc).
Of course, when our cybernetic overlord, Skynet, takes over, it'll be controlling the designs for future robots, so more varied designs would follow. With phased plasma rifles in the 40MW range.