Japan startup unveils 15-foot robot suit for space exploration

Maybe...
Maybe...
Maybe I will live to see the legendary Mecha Duck Space Battles
STEP OFF

"Japan, we don't need to design a mecha for everything."
"But Gundam P1ANT will make crop harvesting 10% more efficient!"
"We need to get you into a war just so you have an outlet."

The demands of space exploration weight reduction, weight reduction, compactness and weight reduction. The demands of disaster relief are probably all terrain mobility, strength and stability. Those attributes are polar opposites.
- But the demand for mech suits is always very high.
  
  Every time someone gets all self righteous and posts stuff about how this isn’t “practical” or “cost-effective” or “actually useful in a real world scenario, where efficacy is needed”.
  They always forget the critical important factor: Mech Suits are Awesome!

No, it's not for space exploration, and no, it wasn't unveiled by the nation of Japan. Hyperbole to the extreme, shame on you, Independent.
Some Japanese bloke built it after learning how to weld, and said he thinks it'd be cool if something like it could be used for space exploration one day.
There's no story here, just a guy doing simple DIY metalwork robotics.

hopes the robot could one day be used for disaster relief or in the space industry
Imagine I'd just fiddle around and build a few neat things and then hope they are going to be useful in outer space 😄
- These guys 100% have no use case whatsoever for the thing they're building besides "dude let's MECHA"
  I can respect that tbh, but pretending and dancing around it is a bit lame
- "Disaster relief". One day someone will find this in some abandoned underground research facility on the Moon and realize it's the key to restoring peace on Earth.

boondoggle noun
a wasteful and worthless project undertaken for political, corporate, or personal gain
- I don’t know that I’d call this wasteful or worthless. Does it have a current application? Likely not. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be built upon.
  
  Yeah it is wasteful or worthless. The designer even said "we made it to look like anime". Mechs are incredibly impractical in anything in the real world. There's a reason why they haven't been made (and that reason isn't "lack of technology")
  
  This is a hobby for a man-child with more money and time than sense. I bet you the speed that the arms move in the video is the max they're capable of.
  This will never be useful for any actual work. Someone might eventually buy it for a publicity stunt.