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Russia

A Strange Tweet From Russian Space Droid Fedor

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
December 9, 2019
Filed under , , ,

Keith’s note: This creepy tweet shows Fedor, the Russian space droid who recently spent some time on the ISS, looking out the window at a nuclear explosion. The weird picture is accompanied with this text (Google translation):
“You can call me anything you like – a “dumb piece of iron” or something else, but when I find out about the VADA solution, I’ll still tell you this:
1) those who invented it have big problems with the processor in their heads,
2) and those who are willing to tolerate this do not have not only a rod, but also a spine. And it’s even worse”

It is often hard to tell what Russian social media accounts are official or quasi-official – or something else. The account’s Twitter profile says “Fedor @ FEDOR37516789 The first anthropomorphic robot to work in space, the call sign Skybot F-850, an assistant crew of the International Space Station. Here are just facts about space.” It was rather active during Fedor’s flight. It only follows 8 other Twitter accounts, @NASA, @SpaceX and then the major Russian space agency accounts – including the head of Roscosmos @Rogozin.
I think maybe “VADA” is “WADA” (World Anti-Doping Agency) who just banned Russia from participating in sports due to doping. Some commenters are arguing whether VADA is referring to a “piece of iron” or “an Indian bagel”. Why a space droid is tweeting about doping (or Indian bagels) is weird. Looking at a nuclear explosion while doing so is even weirder.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

11 responses to “A Strange Tweet From Russian Space Droid Fedor”

  1. fcrary says:
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    Definitely weird. FEDOR seems to be getting more into social media. I’m not sure if it’s the same account, but… Yesterday I read a story about this android sending a tweet which made fun of Boeing and the CST-100 Starliner. It made the point that it won’t really be launching Americans on an American rocket, since the Atlas V uses Russian RD-180 engines. Of course, it wasn’t the robot sending the tweets (at least I hope not), but someone’s got their hands on the account and is getting active and a bit odd.

  2. Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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    at least we have nothing to fear from NASA’s Robonaut and Valkyrie robots. though I do welcome our new Boston Dynamics Atlas overlords.

  3. Chris Owen says:
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    Incidentally those Indian donuts are amazing!

  4. DJE51 says:
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    Now that is just downright creepy. Cyberdine and Skynet stuff. Thank goodness it is a human actually tweeting this stuff in a parody account – at least we hope! Of course there are suspicions that Alien intelligences are behind some of the social media stuff we are seeing.

  5. rb1957 says:
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    1) won’t the electronics be fried by the EMP ?

    2) is this much weirder than another famous (human) tweeter ? Just saying …

    • fcrary says:
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      Now that you mention it, many sorts of machine learning software work by being given examples of human decisions and actions. They are “trained” to behave similarly. The advantage is that they end up making the same decisions as the humans who they were trained to act like. Of course, the disadvantage is that they act like those humans.

  6. paul mccarthy says:
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    Wouldn’t a scathing criticism (by a hidden, idealistic Russian) of a mysterious (machine-mistranslated?) Russian acronym (VADA) being a “solution”, while staring at a nuclear explosion from off-planet, be more likely to be about the Russian acronym version of the MAD “solution” — Mutually Assured Destruction??

  7. Todd Austin says:
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    VADA is, indeed, WADA and this is about the decision barring Russia from international athletic competition due to systematic state-sponsored doping. I touched up the translation a bit:

    “You can call me anything you like – a “dumb piece of iron” or something else, but having found out about the WADA decision, I’ll still tell you this:

    1) those who created it have big problems with the processor in their heads,

    2) and those who are willing to tolerate this do not have not only a rod, but also a spine. And that’s even worse”

    Oh, and I’d read the nuclear explosion image not as a threat, but as a representation of the ‘nuclear option’ used against Russia in response to its repeated violations.

    Edit: on further reflection here, I’m pretty sure that the use of the word стержнень (rod) here is a crude reference to the male reproductive organ. This post is weird. It makes me wonder who is controlling this account – the scientists or the state security apparatus.

    • Bill Housley says:
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      So… disturbing metaphor instead of Skynet aspirations. Got it.

    • Bill Housley says:
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      Of course…in a world that includes youth hormone therapy, CRIPR, and transgender men competing against women, doping starts to look like yesterday’s cheating.

  8. Bill Housley says:
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    Linguistics can be uncertain. Be that as it may, an Android watching a nuke detonate is dystopian scifi stuff, not (we hope) the dreams and aspirations of a major player on the world stage or anyone with influence over the same.