WHAT IS YOUR favorite space robot? How about stalwart Opportunity, still doing Martian science 11 years after its mission was supposed to end? Canadarm2 is another strong candidate: The 58-foot-long, seven-jointed robot put the International Space Station together, grappling from module to module like a slo-mo ninja warrior. Or maybe you’re more of a humanoid C-3PO fan. In that case, there’s the R5, a bipedal droid from NASA that can do all the repetitive and dangerous things that humans are too busy, bored, or susceptible to radiation to perform. Well, in theory.
Fact is, humanoid robots aren’t quite there yet. Not on Earth (witness the follies from the last DARPA Robotics Challenge), not in space. The world’s best bipedal robots have trouble doing things like opening doors, climbing out of jeeps, and walking in straight lines. That’s something NASA would like to fix, so it’s given a pair of R5s—along with $500,000 each—to two US universities with awesome robotics teams.
Dispatches From The Front 