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okay i have the

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satellite positioning box up it's just

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waiting for me to push the enable button

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and release it here you go

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we are ready

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commander kevin ford getting set up for

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the spheres experiment that's about to

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take place on the space station and tell

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us a little bit more about what's going

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to be going on with spears today we have

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terry fong on the phone he's going to uh

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he's at the ames nasa's ames research

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center in california and he is the

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project manager for the human

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exploration telerobotics terry are you

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there yes i am good morning

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so tell us what uh what spheres has to

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do with human exploration telerobotics

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sure the human exploration tele robotics

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project

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is one that nasa is using to look at how

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remotely operated robots can really

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improve the way that we conduct human

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space flight missions

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and this project has a number of robots

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some people may be familiar with the

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robonaut 2 system which we've been

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testing for quite a while now on space

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station

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what we're doing today is is basically

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upgrading these spheres

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these are these mobile satellites these

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volleyball

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size free flyers which have been on

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station since 2006 uh to date they've

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been used primarily as a satellite test

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platform and today we are turning them

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into free flying robots

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so

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these these balls that we see floating

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here um on the screen in front of in

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front of kevin ford that's a robot

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well it's turning into a robot now i

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mean when when the spheres were

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originally built this was uh more than

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10 years ago they were actually created

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by mit

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they were meant to be these free-flying

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uh

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platforms for testing satellite control

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so they could do things like fly around

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in formations they could uh to approach

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and dock with one another

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but they're really you know meant to be

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these uh these moving test platforms for

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for just checking out basic uh flying

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and control maneuvers

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what we've been working on for the past

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year and a half is to turn them into

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what most people would consider to be

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robots that is we needed to add

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sensors like cameras uh we needed to add

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uh more modern computing

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these spheres when they were built more

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than 10 years ago as you can imagine

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it's a long time ago in computing terms

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you know had a pretty slow

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digital signal processor we wanted a a

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more high performance computing

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platform we wanted to also have high

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bandwidth wireless networking

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and all the sorts of things that you

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would find in you know just any robot

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you would find today whether it's you

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know in the home office or in the

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workplace

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wow that's really interesting

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so

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what you know what's the purpose of of

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having these on space station as far as

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you're concerned well i think that there

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are there are a lot of things that go on

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on space station um and it's great we

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can actually see kevin ford working

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setting up the spheres with the

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basically the upgrade and that's an

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interesting story in itself but but

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looking at free flyers the interesting

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thing about them is they can do things

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uh such as conduct

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interior environmental surveys

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part of the routine work that the crew

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has to do on space station is make sure

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that the environment is safe to live and

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work in so they routinely go around and

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they measure different things such as

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light sound levels radiation levels

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you know verify that there isn't build

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up of things like carbon dioxide in

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various places and of course in space

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station you can't just hang sensors

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everywhere because you need to have

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space for people to move around in

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and so what we're trying to do is use

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these free flying robots to do these

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sort of routine mundane but very

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important uh

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tasks such as you know monitoring the

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the environment inside space station

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okay and this is a just an experiment to

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see if it can do that at this point or

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is it actually we gonna use the data it

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gathers today today we're doing an

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experiment to really understand you know

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how this is uh practical uh one of the

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interesting things here is though even

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though kevin is in the middle of setting

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this up once everything is configured we

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are actually going to be operating these

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from mission control in houston uh one

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of my engineers mark missouri is

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actually sitting at mission control and

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once uh kevin gets all the upgrades

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installed then mark will take control

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and actually fly these uh these robots

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from the ground

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wow okay um

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so

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what

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um

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as i mentioned earlier one of the things

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we've done is we've we've taken these

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free flying satellites the spheres and

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and upgraded them and the experiment

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today is actually interesting we're

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calling it smart spheres and the reason

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we're calling it smart spheres is what

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we've added is a an off-the-shelf uh

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commercial smartphone so you take a

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smartphone and a sphere together and you

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have smart spheres

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the the smartphone of course you know

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it's something that that we all carry in

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our pockets these days they're wonderful

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little computing devices um they have a

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you know a one gigahertz processor it's

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got a nice touch screen display

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cameras wi-fi you know everything you

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need to make a robot accept you know

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something to move yourself around so

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that's what spherus gives us today

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um and so kevin has been spending um

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basically past hours so working to

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upgrade the spheres actually looks like

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he's managed to get everything installed

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at this point i think we're going

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through some checkout procedures

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in which mark at mission control is just

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verifying that he can use the smartphone

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to control the sphere

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so

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from mission control mark talks to

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uh you know with some software to the

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phone the phone is then cabled into the

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sphere and uses that to actually fly the

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sphere around inside of space station so

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not only is it controlled from the

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ground but it's controlled by a phone on

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the ground uh by a phone on on the

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sphere so we've actually taken a phone

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and attached it to the sphere itself

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okay i see

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okay and then um they're going to

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i guess

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command it to start taking photos or

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yeah so today we're as i said we're

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really interested in using these free

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flyers to do uh sort of routine

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environmental surveys

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uh our interior surveys so one of the

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things we're doing today is we're going

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to fly uh back and forth in sort of a

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parallel line pattern you know a

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systematic kind of survey pattern and

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we're going to be using the camera on

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the smartphone one of the cameras uh to

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acquire a continuous imagery um as we're

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flying this represents using any sort of

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sensor or instrument to take routine

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measurements inside of an environment

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like space station

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okay and i guess that's um kind of a

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theme we've heard before with

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robonaut 2 as you mentioned you know

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we're hoping that we can get it working

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so that it can do

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some of the the more mundane tests and

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it's not really a good use of astronauts

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time to do and this sounds like the same

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idea yeah that's exactly right i mean

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uh there are certainly a lot of things

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to do in space and i think the routine

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stuff is not something we should be

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having humans do

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we have humans in space because we want

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to make use of their brains and the fact

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that there are some things that only

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humans can do but you know the very

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routine the repetitive the mundane

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things you know robots should take over

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those chores they should do all this

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kind of work so that humans don't have

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to

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absolutely yeah that's i think a lot of

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people on ground would like that to

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so i guess i know you're seeing a bit of

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a delay but at the moment the the

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satellite the sphere satellite is kind

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of floating toward the ground and now up

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a little bit and all that is being

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controlled remotely yeah that's being

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controlled actually it looks like it's

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it's being controlled by

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by marked admission control in houston

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um the sphere it's a little hard to see

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in in the video that that you're seeing

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streaming because it's not quite high

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enough resolution but

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right now on the right side there's a

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little boxy uh shiny thing you see on

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the on the right side of the sphere

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that's actually the smartphone this is a

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this is a like i said it's an off the

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shelf um this is a a nexus s

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android powered smartphone it was uh i

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guess jointly developed by by google and

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samsung and this one was was off the

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shelf i mean we actually bought it at a

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store um

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and uh you can go out obviously you

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could have gone out this phone is now a

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couple years old i actually don't know

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if it's still sold commercially but it

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literally is a consumer device okay

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so and it's great that we're able to to

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make use of those sort of everyday

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things and turn them into something

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that's useful on the space station yeah

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and i think in particular things like

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smartphones um

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you know when we first started looking

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at what it would take to turn spheres

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from a satellite into a robot you know

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we sat down we looked at all of the

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requirements and we said well we need to

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have you know computing and a display

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and cameras and maybe other sensors like

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gyros and accelerometers and you add it

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all up and what you come up with is well

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um we need a smartphone for that and you

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know rather than go out and try to build

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our own custom uh engineered small

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little computing device let's go buy

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something off the shelf and just modify

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it for use in space

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you know there have been billions of

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dollars of engineering time and here's a

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good picture you can actually see the

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smartphone attached to the sphere now

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you know billions of dollars of

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engineering spent on creating these

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wonderfully

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high performance low power compact uh

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rugged devices called smartphones so you

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know we want to take advantage of that

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and not try to reinvent the wheel

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and this is going to be the first test

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of that right yeah

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this was these smartphones were actually

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the first uh

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smartphones to be certified for use in

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space

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they're

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in the space station they've been there

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since actually the last shuttle flight

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they were carried up on sts-135

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um you know back in july 2011. um last

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year actually just about a year ago we

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did our first checkout with the phones

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to verify that they would work well in

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space and we logged lots of information

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from the phone just attached to a sphere

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but today is really our first

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opportunity to use the phone to control

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the the sphere itself so here like i

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said really now the combination of

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smartphone connected to spheres makes

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this this really this nice smartphone uh

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smart sphere is free flyer where'd this

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idea come from

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uh which idea the idea of using the

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smartphone on the satellite well

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honestly so i i distinctly recall a

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couple of years ago we were sitting in a

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conference room

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here at ames nasa ames uh trying to

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figure out what was going to be required

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to

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free-flying robot and you know we were

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working on a whiteboard writing up all

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the requirements and you know like i

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said okay we want a processor we want it

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just made sense all these things here

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and of course sitting around the room

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everybody's sitting there with their

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with their their phones checking their

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email right and somebody said oh we

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really need a small little device that

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you can know as well and everybody's

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like like oh let's use a phone

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well what about the idea to to use fears

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in this way to begin with to try and

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take some of the work off the astronauts

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well um you know ever since this project

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the human expression telerobotics

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project started

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that's been almost three years now you

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know we've been really looking at this

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common theme of you know how can we

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make astronauts lives uh more productive

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how can we really offload tasks that

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fundamentally is

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you know unproductive or things that

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they just you know really should not be

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spending their time doing and so we've

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been looking at a variety of different

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robots i mentioned robonaut 2 and and

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the smart spheres obviously and it's

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clear to us that that robots come in all

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kinds of different sizes and shapes and

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they carry different sort of tools and

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instruments

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robonaut 2 is a really great robot that

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we've been using for manipulation so it

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has arms and hands can reach out uh you

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know touch and grab things

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but there are other situations where you

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might want to move quickly or you want

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to just be in free space

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and for that we've been looking at the

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need for a free flyer

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there have been some free fire

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experiments you know as many years ago

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there was the the air cam sprint flight

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experiment that nasa johnson did

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outside in space and

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because we've seen that inside of space

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station the spheres have been a really

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wonderful you know test platform for

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many years now

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it really just made sense to us to see

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could we turn these into robots and use

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them to do useful work inside a space

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station okay well thanks terry one last

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question before you go um what where do

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you how do you see this project going

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forward what's the next step

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so the next step i think for us

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with all of our systems and robonaut 2

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and smart spheres are only a couple of

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them is really as we're doing these

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experiments really learning you know how

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they work um what things we need to

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improve that's going to allow us to go

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to the next part which is really

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actually making functional robots that