6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
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Welcome back to NASA NOW!
Last week we flew with Global Hawk, this week we'll meet R2.
Hi, I'm Chris!
Here's what's happening at NASA NOW.
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From October 4 through the 10th,
55 nations of the earth will join in the celebration
of World Space Week, the largest annual space-oriented event
in history.
Begun in 1999 by the United Nations General Assembly,
World Space Week is an international celebration
of science and technology.
This Year's theme is "Mysteries of the Cosmos," which is all
about the nature of the galaxies and stars,
as well as with the nature of life itself.
That's NASA NOW!
Now, let's flash forward to the past!
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Back in the Spring of 1961,
the world's first working robot joined the automobile assembly
line at General Motors.
Well now just 49 years
in the future General Motors has partnered with NASA
to develop a robotic assistant that is scheduled
to join the human team on the international space station.
How's that for a success story?
Now let's see and hear some more.
We can build a machine that's capable
of doing a lot of things on its own.
Tactile sensors on its fingers that allow it
to have a sense of touch.
It can use autonomous vision capabilities.
I'm Josh Mehling, the lead Mechanical Engineer
for the Robonaut Project here
at Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas.
Robonaut 2 is loaded inside the payload bay
of the Space Shuttle Discovery right now,
and it will be the first humanoid robot
to be sent into space.
And, in fact, it will be the first United States robot
that will be sent to the space station.
The thing that sets Robonaut 2 apart from most other robots
in the world is a real fine dexterity and a sense
of the world around it.
So, not only does it have cameras
to see what it's working on,
but it also has a very refined sense of touch.
The joints have wider ranges of motion than people do,
and the vision system has multiple cameras
in multiple places rather than just two eyes.
And, so, we can augment capability
to make the robot useful in multiple ways.
Robonaut 2 is designed to be an Astronaut assistant.
If you look at the world around us, it's designed for humans,
and Robonaut 2 is designed to interact with that environment.
If you extend that vision to what NASA Astronauts are going
to be doing, you start to see robots taking over the tasks
that the Astronauts don't want to do,
or where Astronauts could use an extra set of hands.
So, it's not replacing Astronauts so much
as it's giving them another tool in their toolbox.
Robonaut 2 can be controlled in a variety of different ways.
You can control the robot sitting right next to it
by punching commands into a laptop.
You can be down here at Mission Control
and have the robot on-orbit sending commands
in much the same way.
The robot also has the capability to be controlled
through virtual reality.
The original Robonaut was started in the late 90's
and it served as a development platform for a lot
of the advanced dexterous ability we see
in Robonaut 2 now.
In 2007, we had a group of engineers
from General Motors come down and embed themselves
with our team here at NASA, and together, we started work
on the design of the robot.
My background in robotics really starts
with my playing with Legos as a kid.
I was always interested
in the way things moved and how they worked.
I got interested in robots
through the FIRST Robotics program as a high-schooler, and,
once I did that, I was pretty much hooked.
As we think about future space travel,
and all of the fanciful science fiction ideas out there
of robots working with people - that's not really as far off
as we think when we watch those movies.
The best piece of advice I could give anyone who's interested
in robots and wants to work in robotics is to not lose
that fascination with the way things work
and how you can invent and come
up with new ways of doing things.
Take a note, that on October 15 and 22,
Robonaut will answer your questions on-line
in a live twitterview.
Stay tuned to NASA Now for more information.
Now, from robotic astronauts to Laser light shows
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Look, up in the sky!
Laser beams!
Attack from outer space?
No! These lasers are being used
to track the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO,
a minivan-sized satellite circling the moon,
250,000 miles away from Earth, and traveling
at a velocity of 3,600 miles/hour.
The laser technology allows researchers to determine,
within four inches,
the satellite's exact distance from Earth.
LRO is carefully mapping the surface of the moon,
looking for new landing sites amidst its many bumps
and craters, so it is critically important for it
to know its position as accurately as possible
so that it can create the most detailed and reliable maps.
This beam is being emitted from Laser Ranging Facility
at Goddard's Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory
in Greenbelt Maryland -
These folks are seeing quite a light show.
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Did you know that we'll be celebrating Earth Science Week
together from October 11th through the 16th ?
This year's theme is "Exploring Energy" and if you tune
into NASA Now during that time, we'll have a special program
about the electromagnetic spectrum - and how we can use
and misuse the many forms of energy produced by our sun.
Hope to see you then.
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Now it's your turn...
Test out your robotics skills
with NASA Robotics Alliance Project.
Go to Robotics.nasa.gov for more information
about events and registration.
And don't forget, there's still time
to enter the contest I told you about last week.
Deadline for the Earth Science Week Photography Contest is
October 15, and the last day
for the weightless challenge is November 1.
Well that's it for NASA Now Be sure to tune in next time
when we celebrate Earth Science Week.
See you THEN on NASA NOW.
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