Bach Seat

NASA recently had a coming-out party at the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for one of its newest projects. The party was for a human-like robot called the Robonaut 2 (R2) developed with General Motors (GM). The R2 robot has a human shape, weighs about 300 pounds, runs on a battery. The NASA/GM-robot will join the team of the space shuttle Discovery on  STS-133 mission to the International Space Station. STS-133 is scheduled for takeoff on November 1, 2010. Although it will initially only take part in operational tests, upgrades could eventually allow the robot to realize its true purpose. R2 can help astronauts on spacewalks with tasks outside the space station.

The dexterous humanoid astronaut helper is now tweeting at www.twitter.com/AstroRobonaut.

With the help of its team, R2  sent its first tweet on July 26, 2010.

I liked the big blue GM logo on R2. This is another example of the value of the domestic auto industry for the good of the U.S.  Alan Taub, vice president of GM’s global research and development said in a press release, “Partnerships between organizations such as GM and NASA help ensure space exploration, road travel and manufacturing can become even safer in the future.”

GM’s manufacturing engineering team is already working to find potential applications for R2’s array of vision, motion, and sensor technologies that will aid workers in manufacturing operations. According to GM’s Taub, “The work done by GM and NASA engineers also will help us validate manufacturing technologies that will improve the health and safety of our GM team members at our manufacturing plants throughout the world.”

“For GM, this is about safer cars and safer plants,” says the GM VP for global research and development. “When it comes to future vehicles, the advancements in controls, sensors, and vision technology can be used to develop advanced vehicle safety systems. The partnership’s vision is to explore advanced robots working together in harmony with people, building better, higher quality vehicles in a safer, more competitive manufacturing environment.”

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Maybe it will be a reminder to politicians like Dick Shelby of AL who opposed loans to GM to further the interests of the foreign car assemblers in Alabama.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.