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NASA Fashions Mountain-Climbing Robot
coondoggie writes "NASA researchers today said they had built and tested a robot that can rappel off cliffs, travel over steep and rocky terrain, and explore deep craters. The prototype rover, called Axel, might help future robotic spacecraft better explore and investigate foreign worlds such as Mars. On Earth, Axel might assist in search-and-rescue operations in locations where people might not be able to reach.
Axel can operate upside down and right side up and uses only three motors: one to control each of its two wheels and a third to control a lever. The lever contains a scoop to gather lunar or planetary material for scientists to study, and it also adjusts the robot's two stereo cameras, which can tilt 360 degrees, NASA said."
So what kind of power source is this robot likely to use? NASA's fav solar power isn't really well suited for climbing mountains. So are we going to have a bunch of nuclear powered mountain climbing robots wandering about? If you ask me maybe our best test bed would be Mars.
NASA's write-up with pics.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
NASA was originally working on a standard walking robot for use delivering coffee and snacks to NASA employees. However, when it took a bad spill down five flights of stairs and was discovered to be still largely operational it was re-purposed as a 'mountain climbing robot'.
I have nothing compelling to say
When I read
"NASA researchers today said they had built and tested a robot that can rappel off cliffs, travel over steep and rocky terrain, and explore deep craters."
I immediately thought "How does this robot know what a good anchor is?" and after watching the video I have the second question "How does the robot get it's tether detached from the anchor?" I had to read the article and watch the video, that's not a "mountain climbing robot", it's a winch with a motor.
sexconker: Have you ever seen that movie "UHF" by Wierd Al Yankovic? Remember the scene where he walks in and says "Hi, I'm the new boss!" and the secretary screams at him? "OOOOOOOoh, It's kind of HARD to be PROMOTED when EVERY WEEK you have a new boss!".
It feels a bit like being that secretary, to be working at NASA. Everyone thinks you can just "get people on mars already you assholes". Your budget is less than half of what's provided even to the federal highway administration who doesn't even have to leave our comfortable atmosphere to do their jobs. Hell, our budget this year is 0.009 percent of the cost of the two "stimulus packages" for banks and mortgage companies. That budget also must be split among your multiple "missions" - Science, Exploration, Aeronautics, etc. (By the way, robots play an important part in all of the missions, and researching them is critical).
Finally, you have not one boss but 500 or so, each of whom has different priorities for you and concerns that you spend your limited budget in THEIR district (not where it might be most appropriate) and EVERY 4 (or 8) years you have a new boss with a radically different direction for the 20-year program you're supposed to be completing. By the way, they can issue a memo and, poof, it's federal law now.
Sorry for going on a tangent but it really irritates me, comments like yours. There's plenty of valid criticisms for NASA that you could be throwing together in this topic and you chose a simplistic, uninformed and insulting tantrum.
It's named after Axl Rose. After you hear the noise the winch makes you'll understand why.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you're interested in Axel, you should check out the Axel Homepage at Caltech. It has more information about the hardware, more movies, etc.
Slashdot might also be interested to know that Axel currently runs a stripped down version of Debian.
We are using lithium polymer batteries to power it right now. One of our current batteries will power Axel for about 20 minutes. With the current design we could easily fit two of these batteries inside, giving a running time of ~40 minutes.
It's important to note that Axel wraps the tether around it's own body. There's no winch at the top, just an anchor point. That anchor point could be a larger rover/lander or just a rock.