Slashdot Mirror
Droids on the ISS
SpaceAdmiral writes "Inspired by Luke Skywalker, M.I.T. students have built five droids for the ISS. The orb-shaped devices will float around the International Space Station, maneuvered by compressed CO2 thrusters. The SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold Engage Re-orient Experimental Satellite) will eventually be deployed as tiny satellites, but they first require testing aboard the ISS to learn to fly in formation. One has already been sent to the ISS and two more will join it soon."
...welcome our new rotund orbiting overlords!
:-)
(someone had to say it
I remember the Yoko Tsuno books had those on the Viniean ships, cool stuff. I would not have imagined that these kinds of machines would be feasible during my lifetime.
Freedom is strength, Ignorance is peace, War is slavery.
The first SPHERE arrived on the ISS in April tucked inside a Progress supply rocket. (Remember, tiny satellites make good hitchhikers.)
I prefer the young blondes myself
do they have a "party mode" emergency button blaring "Feel the Energy" ?
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
I guess that Jedi training will have to be added to the astronauts' checklist. They're going to need lightsabers now.
*are batteries included?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
This isn't really comparing two similar things. The human example is a 2D case on the ground with friction and easy maneuvering, the satellite one a 3D case in space where inertia rules the day. Ask a crowd of people to navigate little orbs into a line in open space and see how long it takes them.
Ultrasonic sensors tend not to work well in space
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Reminds me less of Star Wars and more of the SeaQuest submarine, since they plan on releasing them outside the station at some point.
What?
Nitrogen is flammable when combined with air. In an oxygen rich environment, I'd imagine it's even more dangerous.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
whoops i'm a total farking tard. disregard completely, utterly and totally.
Is it any wonder I failed chem?
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
I may be the only one, but the in reading the small "mini posting," I thought it said Druids on the ISS.
Now, I'm not knocking Druids, but I'm certainly not convinced about their effectiveness on the ISS. Sure, certain of their kind can heal and shapeshift but they are hardly useful skills in this situation.
Successfully condensing fact from the vapor of nuance since 1998.
whoops i'm a total farking tard. disregard completely, utterly and totally.
:D.
No way pal, that one's coming back to haunt you. You shall henceforth be known as "the flammable nitrogen guy"
Oh no... it's the future.
I don't remember Luke building any droid's.
Annie did, of course. Pity really, if he'd built a PDA instead it would have saved a lot of trouble, as perhaps then he'd have remembered when he got to Corsucant to politely ask one of his friends - the one who rules a planet would be a good place to start - to go back to Tatooine and buy his frickin' mother.
Funny chap, Annie.
"Ah, hello Mr Vader. Welcome to Jedi Heaven. Oh, wait a minute, there's a note on your file here - killed women and children, embraced Dark Side, killed your wife, hunted down and destroyed the Jedi order, killed billions of people with a Death Star, tortured your daughter, killed your master, cut your son's hand off, devised a workplace incentive scheme that involved you killing anyone who failed, or even stood next to someone who failed. Hmm, not sure if we can let you in. Unless, of course, there's something you'd like to say in your favour?"
"Er... well, there was this one time where I decided that I wasn't going to let someone kill my son."
"Oh, that's all right then! Come on in! Consider the whole thing forgotten about!"
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
"Who knew flammable and inflammable meant the same thing?"
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
THEN it would be bitch'n
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Maybe I didn't RTFA very well, but what happens when it runs out of CO2? Is it disposable in that sense, too? Or does it have an air compressor or something?
Synchronized Position Hold Engage Re-orient Experimental Satellite.... What a coincidence that this unwieldy name would turn into such a perfect acronym!
When it first happened, it was news to me!
Here I was happily thinking invincible, indestructible, and inflammable, and we standardize with the rest of the world and made it inflammable. Caused me no end of consternation. I suppose, it's good to standardize on something so important, but for some of us, the transition hurt our wee heads and took some time to get used to.
You wanna really see something funny -- find someone old enough to remember when inflammable meant, NON flammable, then show them something which says non-inflammable. You can hear the ticking as they try to process what the heck that means.
In my head it goes something like "un-not-burnable" with a short pause to decode it to the modern meaning of "won't burn". It's like non-indestructible instead of fragile or something.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Is it just me, or is releasing even more CO2 into the station atmosphere not very helpful? They should use plain compressed air, so as not to alter the gas balance when they're active.
I understand CO2 is more compressible, but refining it from plain air in order to recharge the little suckers is just extra work. Give 'em big batteries and onboard compressors, and the problem goes away.
This is just Weebo from the remake of 'Flubber'.
Except the one in the movie wouldn't have worked (weightlessness* helps).
*Yeah, microgravity, I know. Bite me.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
maneuvered by compressed CO2 thrusters.
;p
hmm, so thats how they move...
just fart their way around.
I could probably do that at zero g
OTOH, seriously speaking, wont the co2 add
up to the ISS environment hazard?
GUI == Graphical User Interference