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Alan Boyle / msnbc.com
Robonaut 2 strikes a karate pose inside Building 220, a center for advanced technology development at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. A robo-twin is about to begin testing on the International Space Station.
With the space shuttle program ending, what does NASA have to look forward to? The future of deep-space exploration is already taking shape, inside the walls of Johnson Space Center's Building 220, the space agency's "Skunk Works" lab for human spaceflight.
This is where NASA once worked on the X-38, a snub-nosed space plane that might have carried astronauts down to Earth from the International Space Station. The project was canceled in 2002, and today the 12,000-square-foot building houses hardware for a succession of projects that are not quite ready for prime time. But some of them may be ready sooner than you think.
Take Robonaut 2, for example. The humanoid upper-body robot was shipped up to the space station in February, and taken out of its box at President Barack Obama's urging. ("Unpack the guy," he told Discovery's astronauts jokingly, but NASA took the request seriously.)
A Robonaut twin is set up in Building 220, and the team behind the project is putting the guy through its paces in preparation for the start of tests in orbit later this month. One of the first tasks is to figure out how the Robonaut and flesh-and-blood astronauts can work safely together in microgravity.
NASA
Mockups of habitats are lined up within Building 220 at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
Nicolaus Radford, deputy project manager for the Robonaut team, demonstrated how the earthly Robonaut was programmed to ease up if a human got in the way. When one of the android's arms knocks into you during a maneuver, it will push against you gently — as if it were a brother trying to elbow his way past you quietly. If you continue to block the arm movement, the robot will go passive in place.
Having robots programmed not to harm humans is important, not only because it will head off the robot apocalypse but also because it will lead to safer industrial robots. That's one of the reasons why GM executives are partnering with NASA on Robonaut 2. "They spend more money on the safety for robots than they spend on the robots themselves," Radford said.
However, the physics of hazard avoidance is different on the space station, where even a little bit of force could send an astronaut floating away. So Radford said Robonaut 2's software will be fine-tuned to reflect that physics. "That's specifically what we're going to be looking at," he said.
Looking further ahead, the team is already hard at work developing a pair of legs for Robonaut, so that it can carry objects from one space station location to another. "In the next 18 months or so, you're going to see legs on a robot walking around the space station," Radford said.
Project Morpheus
That will come as music to the ears of engineers working on another "Skunk Works" project on display in Building 220. Project Morpheus started out as "Project M," a concept that called for landing a humanoid robot on the moon in 1,000 days. Then reality set in, and the project was redefined. "We narrowed it down to focus on lander technology," said Jenny Mitchell, Project Morpheus' systems engineering and integration lead.
The Morpheus team turned to Texas-based Armadillo Aerospace for help in getting a prototype lunar lander off the ground — in fact, a scaled-up version of the rocket-propelled craft that won some of NASA's money in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. The methane-fueled Morpheus lander is designed to bring a 1,100-pound payload, such as a humanoid robot or a small rover, down to the surface of the moon from lunar orbit. What's more, the lander would fly autonomously, without the need for human intervention.
Alan Boyle / msnbc.com
Building 220 houses a series of Morpheus-related test items. In the far background is Armadillo Aerospace's rocket-powered Pixel lander prototype. The larger Morpheus lander sits nearby. In the foreground is a small model lander that was built from hardware-store lighting globes to study how propellant sloshes around the lander's four tanks. And a clear plastic tank at right shows how buffers were built into the full-size Morpheus tanks to minimize the slosh.
Morpheus project manager Jon Olansen said the team is well into the testing stage after spending just $5 million. He said the lander should be ready to demonstrate autonomous flights on high-energy trajectories in the next year.
The project made headlines last month when a tethered flight test went slightly off, sparking a grass fire at Johnson Space Center. Now the team is setting up additional safeguards to reduce the fire risk. YouTube videos provide multiple perspectives on the Morpheus tests.
Morpheus' team members are also widening their perspective on the eventual application of their technology. It isn't just for the moon anymore. "At this point in time, we don't need a specific destination to do this kind of work," Olansen said, "because this work will be needed for any destination."
Desert RATS
That philosophy carries over to next month's Desert RATS exercise, which is due to be conducted in Arizona after months of preparation in Building 220. "RATS" stands for Research and Technology Studies, and past studies have focused on simulating surface operations on the moon or Mars using next-generation space exploration technologies. But now NASA's vision for space exploration is focusing on sending humans to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025. That means the Desert RATS' Habitat Demonstration Unit is being remodeled for a new role.
"This year we're reconfiguring it for the deep-space habitat for an asteroid mission," said Terry Tri, demonstration unit integration manager for Desert RATS.
The wheeled vehicle that was being tested as the prototype for an electric-powered lunar rover is now being looked upon as a make-believe "multimission space exploration vehicle," or MMSEV. In an actual mission, the MMSEVs would not be rovers wheeling around the lunar or Martian surface, but would instead be thruster-powered pods designed to travel through space to make contact with an asteroid under low-gravity conditions.
Alan Boyle / msnbc.com
A rover driver gets ready to climb down from a wheeled vehicle that has been used as the prototype for a lunar rover in past Desert RATS simulation. During this year's simulation, the vehicle will play the role of a "multimission space exploration vehicle," or MMSEV. An actual MMSEV would be propelled by thrusters rather than wheels.
During this year's exercise, the rover drivers will be "pretending they don't have wheels," Tri said.
He said the 19-foot-wide habitat would serve as "the 'mothership,' if you will, that [astronauts] would return to." The habitat's lower floor has a glovebox for handling space samples, a mini-medical station, a telerobotics work station and a repair bench. The inflatable upper floor would provide living space for four astronauts.
This year, NASA held a college-level competition for the design of the inflatable part of the habitat, and the winning entry was submitted by students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The Badger X-Loft can be expanded from a 30-inch-high base into a 13-foot-high dome in about 15 to 20 minutes. Each astronaut gets a desk and a chair as well as private sleeping quarters.
Nicole Roth / UW-Madison
The fully inflated Badger X-Loft is perched atop the Habitat Demonstration Unit inside Building 220 at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
"Basically, everything's modular," team member Jordan Wachs, an engineering mechanics and astronautics and physics major, said in a university news release. "The whole design was intended that any eighth can be swapped entirely with any other eighth."
As a reward for their efforts, the students will share an $10,000 prize and travel to Arizona to see their Badger X-Loft tested during the Desert RATS exercise. Who knows? In a few years, maybe they'll be plotting NASA's next giant leap, right here at Building 220.
More from Johnson Space Center:
- Last shuttle crew faces a heavy load
- After shuttle lands, layoffs loom
- How Atlantis' top tweeter got that way
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Sorry but these projects are done in the wrong place, under the wrong people and for too much money.
These type of projects are best done by post graduates in university campuses and instead of millions of dollars budget, they should limit the cost into the thousands of dollars. Of course NASA and industry should assist the students but only as mentors.
NASA should focus on solving the real hard problems facing our planet. And space exploration should continue with better and bigger particle colliders, telescopes and sensors aboard unmanned spacecrafts.
You'd be surprised how many 'here on Earth' solutions we can find whilst prepping for manned interplanetary flight...
ROFLMAO! Your joking right? Seriously?!?! You cant even pay for a team of 10 members for 1 year providing R&D let alone a university team... ha ha ha... And its not about the status que. R&D cost a lot of money, it take a lot of time, the best scientist, equipment, staff, facilities, etc and its all adds up quick. Its not a 5grade boil and egg science experiment. And you can thank Skunkworks, Raytheon, miliary in general for about 90% of the advancements today that we enjoy. The Microwave, Cellular Phones and most Telicoms used to day, the internet, medications galore, GPS technology, Radar system used in cars to back up, composites, wireless tech, computers, airplanes as we know them today, many car system safety features, etc.... the list is huge and can go on for a long, long time.
If you really want to get your kicks then look up DARPA. They really are on the leading edge of R&D.... Granted they keep a tight lip, but what does come out of them makes the Stealth look childish.
http://www.darpa.mil/
Hey guys, Don't let Oaktree get your goat, he's been beating that same old drum for as long as I've seen his comments. Somehow He never equates N.A.S.A.' budget with real jobs, real paychecks.
I am kind of curious as to what oaktree would have to say regarding the list of "real world" technology that has resulted from NASA. Medical, food, transportation, technology. Personally I say $1 worth of investment gets you the same amount of return as what $10 worth of investment in the DoD, and in less time too. I would love, absolutely love, to see what would come out of NASA if they had the DoD's budget. We would probably be to Mars in 5 years.
I'll second that budget swap.
I love NASA-truly the best of the best. Your feats of engineering are truly astonishing-the Mars landing was beyond belief, and on a shoestring. This is where the money should be going instead of the Department of "Defense". Happy Fourth to our most passionate and dedicated patriots.
It seems to me if people are going to 'beat the same old drum' about NASA spending, then the community should consistently remind those people how tiny NASA's budget actually is.
As in, the entire NASA budget per year is 0.005 of the federal budget.
That's everything. All of it. From current missions like Hubble, SoHo (which is basically an insurance policy for the worlds electrical grid), Cassini, Messenger, the space shuttle, climate observation satellites Etc, to research and development, education, upkeep of archives of past experiments the list goes on. Much of which is devoted to solving 'those real hard problems facing earth'.
1/5 of the federal budget is already spent on heathcare. Even more so for defense. and i haven't even mentioned the 75x NASA budget spending on wall street. We gave one wall street bank MORE MONEY THAN ALL OF NASA. What did we get for our money?
Trip, According to Michael (astronomy fm) the actual amount of nasa's budget is.6% of total. I once added a 0 after thedecimal and was corrected. F.Y.I. --S--
He got it right as he didn't put in the percent sign and left it as a fraction instead .005 = .5% :-)
Mitchell
Why does a robot in space need legs? Wouldn't a second set of hands be more useful?
Good thought ... Maybe they'll make the toes prehensile. But the reason why they're modeling the robot after humans is because a lot of the human-made structures and working environments in space turn out to be suited for human height and locomotion. On one level, it really doesn't matter whether a robot has six arms or two arms and two legs ... but on another level, it's works out better if the robot can work alongside humans instead of crawling below them. At least I believe that's the design philosophy behind making Robonaut as humanlike as possible, at least at first.
My reactions are torn between 'COOL!' and 'ho-hum- show us the really good stuff'. Years ago Kelly Johnson, the then head of the Skunk Works, said publicly that we have the ability to bring ET home. That is basically a claim that we have the capability of interstellar flight- and a lot more. So I see these gizmos and I can't help but feel that there is a lot more that we should be told, see and know- especially if we have interstellar capabilities already! As for believing it, Kelly Johnson said we had done it already, and his word is good enough for me. I wish he was still alive so we could ask him more direct questions since he was so 'in the know'. In fact, if anyone knew our true capabilities then it was him. People also ought to check out approved patents from our Patent Office- flying discs, human chip implants, mind control technology- all kinds of interesting and helpful items that could change the world we exist in. And it is ALL REAL- not a matter of mere 'belief' or 'conspiracy nut rumors'. It will blow your mind. I'm pretty sure a thorough search of approved patents would be of a huge benefit to us in these days of economic depression.
The ultimate skunk works project would be the development of an antigravity spacecraft. I believe it can be done too.
It is possible to work out gravitation in terms of what I call "motional dimensions" which consist only of space/time ratios. The space/time dimensions of mass turn out to be t^3/s^3. It is possible to work out the dimensions of other quantities too. An electric field has the dimensions of t/s^3 . It follows that the second time derivative of an E field is therefore t^3/s^3, which is the same as the dimensions of mass. This means that a very rapidly changing electric field may have a "motional effect" just like mass. For the effect to be detectable, the change would have to be asymmetric, say with a fast rise time, followed by a slower decay time. A spark pulse would be an example. Are there any examples of such an effect? There seem to be at least two.
One is the Podkletnov Gravity Impulse Generator:
"Podkletnov maintains that a laboratory installation in Russia has already demonstrated the 4in (10cm) wide beam's ability to repel objects a kilometre away and that it exhibits negligible power loss at distances of up to 200km. Such a device, observers say, could be adapted for use as an anti-satellite weapon or a ballistic missile shield." ( Jane's Defence Weekly 29 July 2002, Anti-gravity propulsion comes 'out of the closet', By Nick Cook, JDW Aerospace Consultant, London) See www.gravity-society.org/
For a technical description see "Investigation of high voltage discharges in low pressure gases through large ceramic superconducting electrodes" ( Evgeny Podkletnov, Giovanni Modanese, 26 Apr 2003 (final version), www.arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0209051 )
Physicist Paul A. LaViolette states that "at a higher discharge voltage, of around 10 million volts, the gravity wave pulse became so strong that it was able to substantially dent a 1-inch thick steel plate and punch a 4-inch diameter hole through a concrete block!"
For a discussion and list of references, please see my article at:
scripturalphysics.org/4v4a/ADVPROP.html#MotionCancellers
The other effect is the Biefeld-Brown effect. It uses a different technology, but still involves pulsed high voltage electric fields or electric fields with an asymmetric geometry. See:
scripturalphysics.org/4v4a/ADVPROP.html#Biefeld-BrownEffect
I hope people with "the right stuff" will investigate these ideas.
Hello Brian,
Again thank you for your papers, I find the details and subjects very intriguing.
"antigravity spacecraft" using electric field? Unlike the huge firecrackers (conservation of momentum) NASA is using now to propel the mass into orbit, to use an electric field I cannot even imagine the size of the capacitors to propel the same mass. First they have to be in orbit, since they must be outside the Earth's inertial frame of reference, don't forget the Earth's gravity well, the spacetime distortions, is produced by the coalesced mass of the Earth, so since the spacecraft is part of that mass the plates to create the electric field must be in orbit, outside the gravity well. And this plates must be huge.
I believe localized antigravity is a myth. We are simply confined to the spacetime dimensions, (a predicate of Nature) whether getting out of gravity wells (large coalesced masses) or in interstellar travel, maneuvering between these masses. I also believe due to the same or similar predicate we will one day workout that gravitation is the fundamental force in our universe, whether it is relativistic or quantum confinement.
Talking about the people with "the right stuff" I hope some of them would focus on working out the physics (and mathematics) of unifying these two phenomena of relativistic and quantum confinement.
@Oaktree:
The Podkletnov device does not use capacitors except in the Marx generator used to create the high voltage pulses. And there are other ways of generating high voltage, and doing pulse shaping.
As for capacitors, their size is dependent on the k of the dielectric. A vacuum has a k value of 1.0. Water has a k of almost 80 and is used in high voltage pulse generators. But k values that are much higher are possible:
"We report the observation of extremely high dielectric permittivity exceeding 10^9 and magnetocapacitance of the order of 104% in La0.875Sr0.125MnO3 single crystal." ("Giant dielectric permittivity and magnetocapacitance in La0.875Sr0.125MnO3 single crystals", R. F. Mamin, T. Egami, Z. Marton, and S. A. Migachev,29 March 2007)
That is a k exceeding 1,000,000,000 (one billion). It could therefore shrink capacitor size by a factor of a billion.
Anyway, research in this area is relatively new. Don't give up hope yet.
Oh yeah, this is the Space Center that DIDN'T get a shuttle due to politics. Oh My Goodness! It appears that there is more value there that the administration give it credit for. Well here is a BIG "F" and "U" from Texas.
It's very sad whats happened to Americas space program. The shuttle fleet is being retired and we have no replacement as of now. WE are now dependant on the Russians of all people to get us into space. I think NASA is being run by people with no imaginaiton or ambition for the future. America use to lead in space now we simply ask to hitch a ride with the same people we fought the space race with I guess we know who won.
Alan, thanks for the update on some of the up-and-coming space technologies. For a future article (or two), how about giving us an update regarding rocket propulsion technologies? I am particularly interested in VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket), as a potential interplanetary shuttle (e.g., a 200MW version could make the Mars trip in 39 days). In addition, there are several other candidates for replacing chemical rockets for getting us into orbit--what progress has there been developing these technologies? Also, I would like to know NASA's (and other highly-regarded scientists, like Zubrin and MacKay) current thinking on the necessary stepping stones for the first manned Mars mission. I realize our politicians and bureaucrats have failed us in outlining the vision, however, our scientists surely have some set of plans based on THEIR current vision. Do we have anything more advanced than the modified 'Mars Direct' plan outlined by Robert Zubrin many years ago?
Jay been reading many scifi books?
Did Nasa just simply forget the last 48 yrs of Aerospace development? Trying to figure out how to land a payload on the moon? didn't we already do that between 1969-1972. I read what is printed here and i wonder about the common sense and practical mindset of the indivduals running what is left of our treasured space program. It seems that they have totally forgotten the engineering feats that were made with out the use of the INTEGRATED CIRCUIT. Remember that the IC chip didn't come available for use until after most of the achievments in space had already been accomplished. They seem to be acting like we are starting from scratch on going to the moon. Fact is that these KIDS cannot compare to the likes of those who came before them, doing the same basic job they are doing now. The personal computer didn't exist, calculators were unrealiable devices. These guys that started the space program did everything with a pencil, paper and a sliderule. They figured out the imposible and made it happen, some times by trial and error and sometimes at a deadly cost (apollo 1). When i see in the paper that the space budget is slashed or that nasa has cancelled another idea, i wonder. Then i realize that mommy and daddy payed for a degree so that junior can say he's a nasa engineer. This really gets tiring trying to explain to people i work with that everything pertaining to a moon shot and lunar landing was already achieved by the time Intel released the 8086 processor. I don't understand why they have to go back and reinvent the wheel or in this case the lunar lander. Take the latest design from 1972 and update it modern standards and voila-you got a lander. As for the Orion/constellation/aries programs that have been mothballed until further notice, or ever-you can see how the primitive but educated minds at nasa do have a shred of thought. When they realized that the shuttle was coming to and end-years ago, they started work on a plan to ensure our continued presence in space. They took the design for the apollo system and updated it to current design specs and actually began building it in localized sections, then the funding got cut among other things that got it the way and there went that dream of a modern version of apollo.
Just of few of my thoughts on why we are losing every piece of ground and front that was secured at a high enough cost during the dark years of the cold war and that any freedoms that we might have gained by have the safest and best funded space program in the world are being eroded by idiots with degrees that have no practical knowledge.