Another Fascinating Exploration Event that PAO Ignores

Robonaut Joins the NASA Desert Rats at Meteor Crater

“Throughout the day, SCOUT tested fully autonomous operations of the thumper payload. This integration between the Planetary Exploration Geophone System (PEGS) H/W, SCOUTs onboard systems and Mobile Agents allows for the autonomous acquisition of seismic data. In the past, a person would have to very precisely manually drive to a certain location, another person would manually operate the thumper, and then another person would have to prepare and coordinate the movement to the next thump location.”

Reader note: “Hi Keith: After reading your post about this year’s Desert RATS, I figured I’d go take a look at Robonaut’s website to see if they had anything about the activities going on. Sure enough, the Robonaut team has been posting a daily log since 9/2, with brief descriptions of tests (and the weather) along with a handful of photos. http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/desert06.htm. No such luck with JPL’s ATHLETE rover project or JSC’s robotics division, though.

As a graduate student in aerospace engineering, I’ve been reading up on Desert RATS reports and papers of previous years. This is certainly the kind of stuff NASA needs to be letting the public know about. As excited as people get over newer, sexier rockets, and as interested as they are in the findings of lunar and Martian science, the whole process of human planetary exploration is just going to be a vague notion in their minds until they can see in pictures and words how explorers (humans and robots alike) will be living and working at their destination. Prominently displaying this type of program to the public can only help NASA in their mission.”