"Squishy Robots" -- Another Marvel Of NASA Research, And The Space Age... Spinning Off, Into Home-Grown High-Risk Situ Helpers.

The commercial version of this tech may be flown overhead, by drone, and dropped in on a burning, or already collapsed, building -- or into an unstable mountain's ice crevasse, to look for suspected survivors. It was originally designed to aid in searching for landing spots on Mars, or exploring inside steep craters on Mars (inaccessible by chopper -- or rover). But clearly, they will be useful here on Earth, as well.

They fold essentially flat -- for storage, making them easily deliverable to almost any emergency site. Here's that story -- and a bit:

. . .Dr. Alice Agogino was researching spherical, skeletal robots that might one day be dropped onto Mars or the Moon to collect information and conduct science experiments, when she realized her NASA-funded technology could have terrestrial benefits as well.

Reading a report on the dangers and high death toll of disaster response, Agogino recognized that her robots, fitted with the right sensors, could gather data at the scenes of fires, crashes, explosions, and other disasters to help first responders assess situational dangers like toxic gas leaks and plan their approach.

“We thought, wow, if we can do this on the Moon, we should be able to do it on planet Earth and save some lives,” said Agogino, director of the Berkeley Emergent Space Tensegrities Lab at the University of California at Berkeley.

She went on to cofound Berkeley, California-based Squishy Robotics Inc. The company makes impact-resistant, customizable robots for public safety, military, and industrial uses. . . .

NASA also researched Earth science applications for tensegrity robots, which might be used to monitor, for instance, a glacier that’s about to break off into the ocean.

“That’s the kind of place you just would not want to, or could not, send a person to because it’s very risky,” Fong said. “The whole surface could collapse. With a structure that could survive a drop but still be mobile afterwards, you would have basically a super instrument positioning system. . . .”

It is an. . . amazing time -- in the history of science. How fortunate we all are, to have federal government programs that deliver real, practical and tangible benefits -- for all of humanity. Now you know. Onward, into the cool sunshine.

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