The Robonauts 118 - 2015 Video

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Keegbot

Look who (what) is in the background

My jaw literally dropped when I saw the trash bin spin around!

An astronaut dummy? I don't get it.

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by asid61

An astronaut dummy? I don't get it.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/st...l#.VObjUfnF85Q

[LeelandS]

Originally Posted by asid61

An astronaut dummy? I don't get it.

I believe that is a "Robonaut", which is the technical term for a robotic astronaut. A fitting pun for a 118 video!

Excellence in execution, as always. Giving us a lot to think about with our 30 pound allowance and time prior to first regional.

[Kris Verdeyen]

The humanoid robot in the background is Robonaut 2, or R2. An upper body very similar to the one you see in the video was launched to the International Space Station in February of 2011. The climbing legs you see in the video are a more recent addition, having launched on SpaceX-3 in April of last year. Since then, a lot of work has gone into attaching the legs to the upper body, and implementing the software and hardware upgrades required to enable R2 to work as one robot. Much of the future work will be into finding ways that R2 can offload boring or repetitive maintenance tasks that astronauts are now required to do, allowing them to spend more time doing the science that they're there for.

You can find out more here:
http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/st.../robonaut.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robonaut

Robonaut also tweets from space @Astrorobonaut.

[philso]

^
|
|

Our tax dollars being spent on something worthwhile, for a change.

[Lightfoot26]

Solid clothing choices are being made at 00:57.