Maybe we’re a little gun-shy – perhaps from too much post-apocalyptic science fiction – but if we were in charge of building interplanetary robots we wouldn’t equip them with nuclear power and freakin’ lasers beams:
NASA isn’t screwing around with their next Mars mission. They’re sending a new rover, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), and it’s a big one. Weighing nearly 1,800 pounds and nearly the size of a small car, it packs so much scientific gadgetry that it needs nuclear power to run, as solar arrays won’t be enough to give it the juice it needs… it’ll have a laser on board capable of evaporating rock samples from over 40 feet away… It should head to Mars in 2009.
Unless it decides that it wants to stay here on Earth. Because we get a feeling that this thing isn’t going anywhere that it doesn’t want to go.
References:
* NASA’s next Mars rover is a laser-equipped monster [Sci-Fi Tech]
Previously:
* Good Job Guys!
* Video: Giant Sword Armed Wii Controlled Robot. What Could Go Wrong?
* Thursday Military Tech – DARPA Packmule Perfect Example Of the Hubris That Will Be the Death Of Us All
