Roomba: The new astronaut? Artificial intelligence aiding space robots

The New York Times mentions the Roomba autonomous vacuuming robot in an article about how NASA scientists are having to build more sophisticated robot rovers, satellites and even blimps for far-flung space missions to places such as Titan, Europa, Jupiter and Saturn, where human controllers are hours away, even at the speed of light, in this enlightening article, titled Intelligent Beings in Space! Seems the Roomba's low-level artificial intelligence is the sort scientists are building upon. Enough to get the job done, but nothing remotely approaching the level of cognition and understanding. We're still a long way from Isaac Asimov.
Tags: space, robot, NASA, Roomba, artificial intelligence, outer space