8/16/2019 The NASA Robot That Failed to Do Its Job

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The NASA Robot That Failed to Do Its Job

 A cautionary tale about the android who just wasn't suited for the task at hand

It looks so much like an intelligent robot that it hardly seems fair to call it a dummy. For decades itlanguished in a warehouse at the National Air and Space Museum’s Paul . !arber storage facilityin Suitland" Maryland" and no one knew what it was. #It used to sit" co$ered with dust and filthy" ina sort of homemade chair" for years and years"% says NASM curator Paul &eru''i. #$erybody"e$ery day would walk past it and sort of chuckle at it. And it’s like" ()hat are we doing with thisthing*’%

+he mystery was sol$ed when Mike Slowik" a businessman in suburban &hicago" contacted&eru''i. In the early ,-/s" Slowik’s late father" 0oe" an engineer at the Illinois Institute of+echnology in &hicago" created an articulated dummy for NASA" to test astronaut spacesuits.#From that moment on"% &eru''i recalls" #I said" well" gee" this is actually pretty important.%

In the early years of the Apollo program" NASA needed an ob1ecti$e way of e$aluating differentspacesuit designs. +he problem was a human sub1ect could offer only sub1ecti$e impressions" says0oe 2osmo" a retired NASA suit engineer. #I can get in a spacesuit and say" (3eah" it’s a little hard tomo$e...to fle4 the elbow takes a little more force than that other suit that had the different elbow.’5ut I couldn’t gi$e you numbers. I couldn’t tell you the range of the motion and the degrees.%

0oe Slowik’s creation was a hydraulically powered figure weighing 67/ pounds" its heightad1ustable from 8 feet inches to feet 6 inches. 9nder its aluminum skin a network of nylon tubescirculated oil at a pressure of ,"/// pounds per s:uare inch. +he high fluid pressure powered thedummy’s hydraulic acti$ators to mo$e the 1oints. ;uring testing at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft

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8/16/2019 The NASA Robot That Failed to Do Its Job

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wanted to use it to create a true android. +hey planned to replace the dummy’s hydraulic actuatorswith electronic ones. Most intriguing" they wanted to hook it up to a computer to create what theycalled a #learning machine.% )e’ll ne$er know whether they would ha$e succeeded the bionicsbranch was disbanded in late ,-E. +he dummy was later purchased at auction and donated toNASM in ,-E.

If 0oe Slowik was frustrated by the fate of his creation" he didn’t let on. #