NASA could look to Star Wars for building better space-bound robots for repairs


Beyond the general “space” conceit, NASA and Star Wars don’t have a ton of similarities. One is a very real government organization concerned with the complex realities of space exploration; the other is a science-fiction franchise about space wizards and with a very, very tenuous grasp of how physics work. But there are some useful scientific lessons we can still learn from Star Wars, at least according to one NASA robotics engineer.

W. Kris Verdeyen, who spent years working on NASA’s humanoid robot Valkyrie, argues that NASA should strive to create its own Star Wars-inspired droids. In fact, robots like R2-D2 or BB-8 have features and functions that could turn useful in our own space-bound bots, according to an article Verdeyen p...

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via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2It7vuW"

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