MIT Helping NASA Build Valkyrie Robots For Space Missions (roboticstrends.com)

An anonymous reader writes: NASA announced that MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is one of just two institutions that will receive "R5," a six-foot, 290-pound humanoid robot also known as "Valkyrie" that will serve on future space missions to Mars and beyond. A group led by CSAIL principal investigator Russ Tedrake will develop algorithms for the robot as part of NASA's upcoming Space Robotics Challenge, which aims to create more dexterous autonomous robots that can help or even take the place of humans "extreme space" missions. While R5 was initially designed to complete disaster-relief maneuvers, its main goal is now to prove itself worthy of even trickier terrain — deep space exploration.

Comments

VF-1

[Drey]

I went to that link expecting to see mecha capable of transforming into fighter, battroid, and GERWALK modes; I was sadly disappointed.

Re:VF-1

[Kevin Fishburne]

Slashdot is dead when the only post connecting TFA to Macross sits idle at a score of 1. What the fuck, people?

"six-foot, 290-pound" ?

[rwyoder]

So the height/weight is designed to match the typical American proportions?

Why is it "humanoid"?

[duckintheface]

What a coincidence! It just happens that the best physical form for a space robot is exactly the same as the evolutionary end product of millions of years of swinging in trees followed by millions of years of roaming around on grassy savannahs. Are legs really that useful in zero G? Only two arms when you could have three?

Sadly, this seems to indicate that NASA is more interested in pandering to pop culture than in optimizing a space-based physical effector.