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Personal Satellite Assistant: Servant Of Astronauts And Jedi
NASA has been working on the Personal Satellite Assistant robot for years. With any luck, it should be ready for use soon. It's fully equipped for astronauts; cameras, sensors, speakers, microphones and a fan for pushing on the air to move around in the weightless environment of a space station.
(From NASA)
It could be used to identify problems and stand by astronauts providing them with verbal instructions relayed from ground controllers. Kind of like having a cell phone that floats right next to you.
However, before it fully qualifies as a Star Wars remote, trainer of Jedi, it will need some sort of beam energy weapon. I'm guessing this upgrade will not be looked upon favorably by NASA for the space station ... unless you could sell it as a soldering tool of some kind. That might work.
If you're interested in this little bot, you might want to see the "outdoor" version: see SPHERES - Mini Satellites Fly In Formation about volleyball-sized swarming robots that fly together.
More information may be found at Space.com and NASA. Story from NASA's Personal Satellite Assistant.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/11/2004)
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