NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs - Gizmodo Comments

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

1roll20s — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:13:37 EDT

That's pretty cool. Space robots are slow. They need to run off solar cells, or very limited low output power supplies. They also have to be built to handle extremely long input lag.

1roll20s

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

cabowah — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 20:22:55 EDT

That's just stop-motion. Robots don't really exist.

cabowah

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

bbfreak — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:16:35 EDT

@Bokusatsu_Tenshi: Again, your average space robot, rover, isn't that fast. This one isn't much slower than your average one. Indeed, as I mentioned before its comparable in speed to the original lunar rover used during Apollo. By the way, your absolutely wrong about it being the slowest.

Spirit and Opportunity have a top speed of 5 cm/second (180 meters/hour), whoo-hoo!

bbfreak

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

Bokusatsu_Tenshi — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:19:10 EDT

Ok... they just won the Guiness Award for slowest robots ever!

Now, bring in the MIT team to fix that sh*t, pronto!

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

-Core- — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:12:58 EDT

Combine there Intelligence with that of MITs new.. little white faced robo companion.. And we might have something that moves a little faster?

Anyways, its very cool. But from my understanding, unless NASA gets more funding, this will be all for naught. At least for awhile.(Awhile being 10 or 50 years) The only way I see us getting more involved in our space program right now is (either a. when we get another president that is interested in space programs. Or b. Another country starts the space race again, and we worry that there space cock is bigger than ours, and start getting into our space program again./end cynical sarcasm)

Anyways, cools vid none the less.

-Core-

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

StoopidCow — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:08:21 EDT

obviously it's stop-motion video..

StoopidCow

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

KathyProcrustes — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:39:40 EDT

Comment on NASA's I wonder if the sensors on the legs could tell if the robot got "hooked" on something. It's one thing to sense an object and retract, but what about undoing an "entanglement". That seems like a pretty complex algorithm.

KathyProcrustes

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

Arsenal6 — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:02:56 EDT

metal gear? =O

Arsenal6

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

karmaghost — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:31:42 EDT

Really everyone? I was actually pretty impressed with that video. The amount of communication, mobility, and precision required for two machines to work together like that is pretty substantial.

karmaghost

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

stre — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:08:24 EDT

you haters suck. have you ever built a pair of robots that could work together at all, much less to carry a heavy-ass object, without human guidance and without a script (unlike factory robots that just know how to do one thing over and over and over again the exact same way). seriously. why do you even read gizmodo if you don't appreciate things like this. go pitch a tent in the woods and live there, sans technology. i'll be happy to use the resources you won't need and you can continue to be ignorant about what it takes to accomplish what was accomplished in this video.

stre

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

tamoko — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:01:51 EDT

?@bbfreak: Exactly. If these things are operated on the Moon, the telepresence in mere seconds. If you dropped a pair of Hexapods on to a Martian plain, they would have to behave just like Spirit and Opportunity because of the time lag and very conservative, but sophisticated autonomy software. I like your Space Nomad idea, or maybe Space Gypsies!!

@killthebabysitter: What are you smoking. This isn't Robotech. And a waste? ... The cost of an hour of battalion scaled operations in Iraq could buy dozens of these things, and probably pay for most of the cost to get them to the Moon... Get some imagination.

Build one that's better, then you can rant.

tamoko

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

killthebabysitter — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:46:45 EDT

here's proof that NASA has become a joke...enough! send me my rebate check NOW! this is the weakest attempt at robot tech. actually it looks like a proof of performance video created to justify next years R&D budget...and the time lapse? sad- ive seen better robots at the Valley High School science fair.

killthebabysitter

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

microe — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:19:30 EDT

it looks like the little hexapod machines have been getting more sophisticated.

There is nothing little about these robots. And these are not even the final size. The final size will be able to carry a full lunar pod for a lunar astronaut to live in.

microe

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

bbfreak — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:14:29 EDT

Geeze, don't you guys know anything about space robots? They've always been comparably slow, and why should they be faster? Faster means more energy being used up, and why do that if you can get the job done safely and completely with less energy? Besides, they aren't much slower than any other robotic rovers, they're top speed is 6.2 mph, and considering the original lunar rover had a top speed of 8 mph that isn't too bad.

Geeze, you people expect too much, when the obvious is staring right at you. Two freaking robots could work together to carry and put a 15-tonne living quarter on another ATHLETE and essentially they could explore the whole freaking moon a few miles at a time. Space Nomads!

bbfreak

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

weatherman — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:58:41 EDT

Lawdy please stop with the skynet references every time there's a post about robots.

weatherman

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

tomaartist — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:26:54 EDT

machines have all the time in the world,
they have no appointments to go to, no one to see.
Until Skynet, then were all dead meat.

tomaartist

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

MrBlahBlah — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:23:12 EDT

time lapse alert.

MrBlahBlah

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

aseriesoftubes — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:22:58 EDT

NASA should give these robots to Grant from Mythbusters. He'd speed them up and make them into killer fighting machines... just in case some shit goes down on Mars.

aseriesoftubes

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

Angus — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:22:39 EDT

this is as fake as the moon landing themselves. the shadows are off. and see how the red flags wave in the wind on the left side, but on the right side not so much as a single leaf blows on a tree?

Angus

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

kadaj_sama — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:18:49 EDT

even if it is an ungodly lapse time it still brings us closer to remote assembly of planetary bases.
moon base here we come!

kadaj_sama

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

newgalactic — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:18:05 EDT

Why is it time-lapsed? Shit, I saw a mini plastic Darth Vader and some burger flipper have a conversation in some cantina a couple of days ago. I guess that must be a NASA project to.

newgalactic

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

Scorpeus — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:16:34 EDT

The shadow from the sun moved as fast as they did.

Scorpeus

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

nightsky — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:13:27 EDT

I don't know. They move about as fast as my 15 year old.

nightsky

NASA's ATHLETE Hex-Legged Lunar Robots Now Work in Pairs

Darrone — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:08:40 EDT

What was that? 8 years worth of lapse time?

Darrone