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NASA's Personal Satellite Assistants
colonist writes "Wired News reports on the Personal Satellite Assistant (PSA), a spherical robot about the size of a softball that uses air jets to move in the microgravity environment of space vehicles and habitats. Described as a cross between Star Trek's tricorder and Star Wars' lightsaber training droid, the PSA has 'sensors for measuring gases, temperature, and air pressure' and performs 'video conferencing and can communicate with electronic support devices such as computer servers, avionics systems, and wireless LAN bridges'." We mentioned these a few years ago - looks like they've come a long way since then.
More information is available here and here.
Kind of weird that they don't play up the fact it runs linux more.
It sounds to me like the Bit from tron =:-) *YES* *NO*
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Play Six Pack Man. I
All that money wasted on this project, could have gotten this guy some plastic surgery. Poor man...
There's a bunch more on how the Trek-inspired 'bot was built and tested here.
It's a cross between the tricorder and the lightsaber training droid... so... it shoots at me until I'm hit, and then uses that little detachable wand to scan my wound?
That's awesome. Put me down for two.
If they played it up, congress would accuse them of being Commies, and make them make it run Windows, and frankly, I think we'd all rather have a rogue lightsaber training droid in our shuttle, than one of these guys running Windows.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Wrong SW droid man! The IT-0 droid in that link is a torture droid. You will find the correct Training Remote Here. May the Force be with YOU!
strap a helium baloon to it! why should space-men have all the fun toys!
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
If droids can replace mundane human tasks on space missions, then Nasa is doing very well to spend their money on these things. Just think of it as a droid automating the stupid tasks of checking environmental controls, or outside activity. pretty cool.
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artlu.net
Oh, was that a bad movie. And I paid to see it too.
also being covered at some sites.
Why not put a small CO2 cartridge in it so that it could move through a space that has been depressurized? This would probably come in handy for, say, checking the status of a system after an accident.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Of that thing from Flash Gordon the freezes anyone who tries to assasinate Ming.
I saw these things at NASA's AMES research center a few years ago. The article says they could be in serivice within three years too. Very cool.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Imagine Clippy come to life and able to follow you around commenting on everything you do.
Lifespan: 2 hours
Cause of failure: smashed against bulkhead by astronaut
On the coolness meter it only rates slightly higher than sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads.
Read any good sonnets lately?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
*enter Clippy*
"It looks like you are trying to breathe..."
Hmmm.
Because it's a prototype, and they need a way in when they're debugging the wireless hardware/software.
In the cramped quarters of something like a space station, do you really want something else floating loose to run into?
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NSFWDo astronauts on the ISS have normal internet? Or are they just linked in an intranet and with NASA ground intranets....?
Spock: "Atmosphere: breathable oxygen/nitrogen mixture..."
Scotty: "..I should bloody well hope so.....and anyway..Federation Standard Landing Party Procedure states that tricorder readings of atmospheric content should take place BEFORE we set foot on the planet"
Spock: "That's Federation bureaucrats for you....Someone should point out to them that it's only possible to take a tricorder reading once you're actually there..."
Scotty: "but...but...but what happens if the atmosphere wasn't breathable?"
Spock: "It always is...."
Jim: "Anything else on the tricorder Spock?"
Spock: "Yes I'm picking up some primitive radio frequency signals... ...here listen..."
[...it's a brand new dance now...come on baby..do the locomotion...]
Jim: "..primitive indeed..."
Spock: "I bet she's got nice legs though.."
Jim: "Spock!..what's wrong with you...that was Scotty's line..."
WHAT happened next?)
Next Week: Episode 4.
Shamelessly reproduced from: Vax Trek V, the movie, The Crunchy Bits 2.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
But if this thing has a laser pointer attached to it, and it has the accuracy to point at the right button to press, why couldn't it just press the button itself and skip the astronauts?
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
In order for this sort of thing to actually do the things it's described as being able to do, it's going to have to work and play well with the other systems onboard.
One of the tools indicated on this device is an inventory scanner. Whomever is working on this project has yet to contact anyone in the inventory department about interfacing with the inventory software IMS (Inventory Management System) which uses its own barcode readers.
This still has a long way to go before anyone sees them floating around any of the orbiting vehicles.
/sig
sphere: Sensors indicate that the oxygen level in the cabin have decreased dramatically.
astro-tauko-cosmo-naut: gasp!
sphere: You appear to be suffocating. Would you like some training on the use of the backup oxygen supply?
astro-tauko-cosmo-naut: cough... gasp!
sphere: I did not understand your answer.
sphere moves in front of 'naut to hear the response, obstructing the backup mask.
astro-tauko-cosmo-naut passes out.
sphere: You appear to have suffocated. I'm sorry, but I don't have instructions for you to follow on what to do next.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Ultimate dodgeball.
Ernest Borgnine in space. Are there scarier thoughts?
Leaving aside the Beowulf cluster jokes... I wonder if these could work cooperatively? It seems like six or eight of them could move light stuff around.
Or for projects were more than one view would be helpful (aligning parts by remote, for instance) because of the lack of image depth, you could send two or three to capture an image from different viewpoints to help with the alignment.
Cool!
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In Robert Forward's Rocheworld series, his characters have a fractally organized device called "The Christmas Tree." The limbs of the tree could break off, and the branches of those limbs could do likewise, and so on until you have little tiny clusters. Each cluster had some small amount of processing power, and sensor capability, and motile capability. A small branch was always with/following around after/worn by every crewmember, and could be used for pretty much everything these "PSAs" are intended for.
Lots of good science in the Rocheworld books, but as prose and characters go...well, the science is really neat...
The Humblest Mollusk on the Net
When I saw the picture of it, I also immediately thought of that torture droid thingy that Darth Vader was using during interrogations, rather this one is red and missing the big needle.
Maybe they will use it to interrogate any aliens they come across.
NASA astronaut: "Tell me the coordinates to your home planet!"
Alien: "Nooo! I'll never tell!"
NASA astronaut: "Have it your way. Bring me the personal satellite assistant! It will relieve me of the humdrum task of "convincing" you otherwise."
" Described as a cross between Star Trek's tricorder and Star Wars' lightsaber training droid, the PSA has 'sensors for measuring gases, temperature, and air pressure' "
So.. it can shoot at you, then detect that you soiled yourself. I want one of these for my cat!
"Derp de derp."
Most hardware in space vehicles is old.
RS232 is there probably so its compatible with the computers running on the space shuttle or ISS.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Darth Vader already had such an assistant. (Episode IV) "And now, your highness, we will discuss the location of your hidden rebel base..."
Given Vader was Leia's father, right after he asked about the base, he probably continued with:
"Now lets talk about your cell phone bill. How the HELL do you spend 50,000 credits text messaging han_solo@falcon.net?! You think I'm made of money? I have a freaking goverment job, and I'm still paying on the loans I had to take out to pay for your mother's dresses! Back when I was your age I got my damn arm chopped off in the war, trying to keep those droid nazi's from taking over...."
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
"Looks like you're trying to avoid a small annoying talking ball. Would you like help with that?"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ha! Loved that flick... Anybody got any Plutonium Nyborg?
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While it may be "Old School", it is still a very useful communications option, particularly when other hardware is failing. Serial data communication is very solid, and usually easy to add or even built-in to most CPU modules that you would be use for a project like this. Bluetooth and WiFi is definitely not "built-in" like this. Essentially, for about $0.20 worth of hardware you can throw on a DB-9 port and have an excellent diagnostics access port when almost nothing else is working. I've seen RS-232 serial communication happen when almost no other communication can be taking place, due to RF interference or even fluctuating voltage levels from power supplies.
That said, I don't think this would be used for routine communication, but rather for firmware upgrades and other long-term setup. The DB-9 port can also be used as the power connector, to help recharge the batteries inside the unit (also a part of the RS-232 specification).
Can these things be programmed to duke it out with each other for the entertainment of the space station's crew? 0 grav battle bots they just need to attach drill bits, chain saws, etc. hrm, probably not too safe though
I was looking at the conceptual model, and I noticed that the thruster arrangement only applies force in the x, y and z axes. There are no nozzles that allow pitch, yaw and roll. Then I looked at the testbed. It has thrusters in the x and y axes that would also allow yaw changes, but no z translation, and no pitch or roll. Now, maybe they were planning to use gyros in the final version, but that would seem to be an unnecessary complication. It might be easier to have thruster nozzles with small electrically controlled baffles to open and close the nozzles, and 1 or 2 internal fans to intake and exhaust air (in a pressurized environment) from/to the appropriate nozzle(s).
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