Robonaut:
At first inspection, a Robonaut is a humanoid Robot created in the "Dexterous Robotic Laboratory" at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Since 1996, there have been several different versions of Robonaut, but in 2011, the latest version of Robonaut was created, called R2 (Robonaut 2). Although not much like its Star Wars counterpart, R2 was sent to the ISS (International Space Station) for testing. Of course, R2 had nothing below the waste, so it pretty much just sat in the corner and pushed some buttons. But later, in 2014, NASA delivered robotic legs to the ISS to be installed on the stationary R2, with the intention of creating a walking, breathing, seeing, and sensing humanoid in space. But alas, the install was too complex for the non computer techs on the ISS to complete and poor R2 died during the leg installation. Since then, R2 has returned to earth for repair, and as of January of 2024, there is no update as to it's return to functionality.
But at second glance, from a non tech guy who knows absolutely nothing about robotics and humanoids -- Robonaut is FASCINATING!!
The first cars were clumsy and sat idle more than they ran. The first plane crashed into a field. The first computers were the size of a building yet could only do simple math. So here we are..... our first real humanoid Space Robot. And even though it will be well into the future that a Robonaut system will be perfected, the thought of this handsome compilation of metal and circuits whizzing through the Solar System, landing spaceships on Mars, and propelling itself from spacecraft to spacecraft ..... It's mind boggling...
So, with the song "Robonaut", I hope to pay tribute to the Robonaut, the father of all space droids....