NASAs tennis ball Sized Robot Assistants

Rob sent us linkage to a wired article that talks about Tennis ball sized robots that will zip around working as assistants for astronauts. They are described as being like the training bots in Star Wars. They'd be cool as pets if we lived in zero-g...

Comments

Bad Balls

[Chemical Serenity]

Yah yah, everyone wants a HAPPY FUN BALL(tm) (warning: do not taunt Happy Fun Ball!) to be thier spacebourne companion, kinda like a zero-g Aibo to zip about, make cute 'beep-beep' noises and occasionally give you a shot in the ass with a taser to wake you up out of a daydream or when you get 'spaced out'.

But am I the only person to recall what happens when these balls go BAD? Nasty, nasty results... I refer you to the Hellraiser series of movies as graphic and tragic examples of what the future might hold with Problem Balls.

I wholely denounce this ball exploration! If God wanted us to have balls in space, (s)he would have put them there!

--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)

Re:NASA costs and benefits

[jetson123]

I don't think that these robots demonstrate the importance of the space station. Quite to the contrary: if NASA concentrated even more on robotics and eliminated most manned space exploration (for now), they could be doing a lot more in the areas of robotics, new propulsion systems, sample return missions, and exploration.

I think manned exploration should happen eventually. But manned exploration will be a lot more cost effective once we have further optimized many of the necessary technologies with more unmanned missions.

The Real Deal (w/pictures)

[ashpool7]

Hmm, can't we just cut to the real article that Wired conveniently doesn't link explicitly to? Maybe Jon Katz was right about Wired . . .

http://www.newscientist.c o.uk/ns/19990717/newsstory7.html
Sorry I cut out the frames it was in :p