Robots in Space, Part II

A NASA space robot got its first taste of freedom in months today (March 15), when astronauts aboard the International Space Station finally pried open its packing crate.

Astronauts Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli set free Robonaut 2 — a prototype robotic assistant designed to help astronaut crews with chores and repairs — at around 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) today. The robot butler, which arrived at the station aboard NASA's space shuttle Discovery on Feb. 26, had been packed away in a closet-size crate since August 2010.

"We want to introduce you to the newest member of our crew," Coleman said in a NASA video as she stood next to a floating Robonaut 2. "Now he's up here with us, and we're going to see what Robonaut can do." [Photos: Robonaut 2 – NASA's Space Droid]

"Totally awesome," a voice answered from NASA mission control in Houston. "Thanks for that, guys."

Hello, Mr. Roboto

Coleman and Nespoli played a bit of a joke on the viewers watching NASA's video feed. The spaceflyers announced that they had a shock when they opened the space robot's crate.

"It looks like Robonaut is not here," Nespoli said.

"We just have an empty box where Robonaut is supposed to be," Coleman added.

But eventually the camera found Robonaut 2 floating by himself in the station, and Coleman swooped in to greet and grab ahold of the robotic helper.

"Robonaut is aboard, and he couldn't wait for us to get him out of the box," Coleman joked.

A quick inspection

Robonaut 2 will eventually be put to work doing some chores aboard the station. But that will come later. The first order of business is giving the robot a quick going-over, to make sure it survived the trip from Earth in good shape.

"They'll do an inspection to make sure it all looks good, that there was no damage during launch," said NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Robonaut 2 is also making appearances in the U.S. Capitol this week. Today, a ground-based version of the robot will meet members of Congress as part of a NASA technology exhibit for lawmakers at the Capitol Visitor Center.

On Wednesday (March 16), the ground twin of Robonaut 2 will make another appearance, this time at the "Moving Beyond Earth" gallery in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. Museum officials and NASA will give live demonstrations of Robonaut 2 throughout the day tomorrow.

Getting to know Robonaut 2

The $2.5 million Robonaut 2 — also known as R2 — consists of a head and torso, along with a pair of limber arms that sport hands with articulating fingers and thumbs. It is the first humanoid robot ever to fly in space and stands 3 feet, 4 inches (1.01 meter) tall and weighs about 330 pounds (150 kilograms). [Infographic: Meet Robonaut 2]

R2 is a joint project of NASA and carmaker General Motors. It's the product of a cooperative agreement to develop a robotic helper that can work alongside humans, whether they're astronauts in space or Earthbound workers at GM plants, NASA officials have said.

The real-life R2 unit (whose name bears a resemblance to the R2D2 droid of "Star Wars" fame) will live and work at a post inside the space station's Destiny module. With its dexterity, the robot should be able to use many of the same tools astronauts do.

Researchers will study how R2 works side-by-side with astronauts to make station operations run more smoothly. The overall goal is to use lessons learned from R2 to develop more advanced robotic helpers in the future, according to NASA officials.

No chore schedule for R2 yet

R2's working life won't be starting in the next few days.

After inspecting the bot, astronauts will stow it temporarily, Dean said. The robot's packing foam and crate will be packed away inside the station's unmanned Japanese HTV-2 cargo vehicle, which will take garbage away from the station later this month, ultimately burning up in Earth's atmosphere.

At some point in the not-too-distant future, R2 will get to flex its arms and fingers in space for the first time. Astronauts will slide a so-called "task board" in front of the bot, letting it practice pushing buttons and flipping switches. But when that will happen remains up in the air.

"As far as I know, there's no schedule for that yet," Dean told SPACE.com.

R2's first moments of freedom in space may be a frustratingly brief tease, for the robot will be shelved for a while shortly after the astronauts finish looking it over.

"They'll put Robonaut 2 in a bag to protect it, once they've taken it out and inspected it," Dean said.

Atlantis Found? Satellite Technology Points To Marshlands In Spain.

Could the fabled lost city of Atlantis have been located? Using satellite photography, ground-penetrating radar and underwater technology, a team of experts (led by University of Hartford professor and archaeologist Richard Freund) has been surveying marshlands in Spain to look for proof of the ancient city. If the team can match geological formations to Plato's descriptions and date artifacts back to the time of Atlantis, we may be closer to solving one of the world's greatest mysteries.

A new National Geographic Channel documentary, Finding Atlantis, broadcasted nationally last night, Sunday, March 13, at 9 p.m. ET/PT, followed a team of American, Canadian, and Spanish scientists as they employ satellite space photography, ground penetrating radar, underwater archaeology, and historical sleuthing in an effort to find a lost civilization.

When a space satellite photograph identified what looked like a submerged city in the midst of one of the largest swamps in Europe, the Doña Ana Park in southern Spain, Freund was contacted to see if he could assemble his team to apply their cutting-edge technology (electrical resistivity tomography, which is a virtual MRI for the ground, ground penetrating radar, and digital mapping that quickly and efficiently maps the subsurface of a site and provides instantaneous results for excavators to follow) to this project. In 2009 and 2010, they worked with Spanish archaeologists and geologists to explore the remains of an ancient city that goes back some 4,000 years.

However, the ultimate solution to what happened to Atlantis was not resolved in the south of Spain but in Freund's discovery of a series of mysterious memorial cities built in the image of Atlantis in central Spain. Following Freund and his team, headed by geophysicist Paul Bauman from WorleyParsons in Calgary, Canada and geographer Philip Reeder from the University of South Florida, the documentary tracks the search for one of the great cultural icons of all time: Atlantis.

The lost city of Atlantis is one of the world's most famous mysteries. According to Plato who wrote about it almost 2,600 years ago, Atlantis was "an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Hercules" (The Straits of Gibraltar were known as the Pillars of Hercules in antiquity.), Using Plato's detailed account of the mysterious city as a map, Finding Atlantis searches the Mediterranean and Atlantic for the best possible location for Atlantis.

The film journeys to Turkey and the Greek islands of Crete and Santorini before heading to southern Spain, beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Plato says that Atlantis once faced a city called "Gadara," which is the ancient name for modern Cadiz. Here, catamarans and dive boats take the viewer deep into the ocean off the coast of Spain, as a crack team of marine archaeologists and geologists employ sonar and scuba in search of sub-surface human-made structures dating back to the Bronze Age.

And in the vast mudflats of the Guadalquivir river delta, scientists examine strange geometric shadows of what look to be the remains of a ringed city. Here, geophysicists and archaeologists employ the most advanced imaging technologies in the world to determine whether or not an ancient cataclysm suddenly buried a thriving civilization under meters and meters of ocean and mud.

Finally, Finding Atlantis presents the viewer with what is quite possibly the most intriguing piece of archaeology ever associated with Atlantis. Recently discovered 2,800-year-old ruins display an image carved in stone of what looks to be an Atlantean warrior -- guarding the entrance to the lost, multi-ringed city.

The Space Shuttle DISCOVERY: One Of The Most Amazing Birds To Travel To Space

The Space Shuttle Discovery has touched down at the Kennedy Space Center after a picture-perfect 13-day mission to the International Space Station. The Discovery, however, will fly no more, her career passing into history.

And I have to admit, the team here at Goddard is cheering her accomplishments, while also cautiously ushering in a new age in space exploriation.

The end of Discovery's last mission would have been bittersweet under the best of circumstances. However, NASA is clouded with uncertainty, due largely to the Obama administration's cancellation of what its next great mission will be.

After the space shuttle program concludes this summer, American astronauts will still fly to the ISS, first on board Russian Soyuz space craft then, if all goes well, on American built and operated commercial space craft. But when and where NASA's next great voyage will occur is unknown at this time.

In the meantime, according to MSNBC's Alan Boyle, the Discovery is going to be prepped for its afterlife, as a museum exhibit to be regarded and admired by generations of people. They will look upon the Discovery, along with her sister ships, Atlantis and Endeavour, and recall the second great space age (Apollo being the first) when American astronauts rocketed from a launch pad for missions in low Earth orbit and then landed the shuttles much like an airplane.

Those parts of Discovery that make her a spacecraft, such as the engines, will be removed and replaced with mockups. The exterior and the interior of the Discovery will look pristine, as if she were ready to be mated to an external tank and a pair of SRBs and sent on yet another flight. But she will be an unflyable vehicle at this point.

Still, Discovery will be placed atop the specially outfitted 747 and transported to wherever has been chosen for her final resting place. The exhibiter will place her with cranes on some sort of flat bed ground transport and take her to the place.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden will announce where the final resting places for the space shuttle orbiters, including Discovery will be, on April 12, the 13th anniversary of the first flight of the space shuttle, the now destroyed Columbia, and the sixtieth anniversary of the first human space flight of all, that of Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

Then the Discovery will be like the other great ships of the past, such as the Constitution or the battleship Texas, still and silent, and heavy with history, a career well finished.