Meet the Contenders in the Android Space Race

An android cosmonaut is in training in Russia right now. Last week Oleg Gordiyenko, science directorate deputy head at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre Research Institute, announced that a robot called SAR-400 would help both inside and out on the ISS—someday doing tasks that are too dangerous for human crewmembers, like checking the exterior of the space station without danger of a Gravity-type situation, or getting exposed to radiation, or the myriad other reasons people prefer to do things on Earth and not in the vacuum of space.

Although it sort of looks like Alpha from Power Rangers, SAR-400 seems pretty cool—with big hands and fingers that can give tactile feedback that will allow it to do as we humans do, albeit not with anything heavier than about 22 pounds. Presumably this won’t be a huge issue in the low gravity of orbit.

Yet in spite of training in a center named for the first person in space, SAR-400 won’t be the first android in space. After coming in second for putting a man, a woman, and a satellite in orbit, America won the anthropomorphic robot leg of the space race.

The (likely) hero to future robots everywhere was named Robonaut 2. After being designed in NASA’s Dexterous Robotic Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center, Robonaut was launched on board the shuttle Discovery’s last mission in 2011, as good of a symbol of how robotics are increasingly prioritized over manned spaceflight as any.

Robonaut didn’t take any small steps for anyone, however, due to arriving on the ISS without legs. It was on board for a few months before slowly moving its rather burly arms for the first time in space. So far it has a sort of low-level autonomy; it can be told to perform a task and then do it while only occasionally checking in. The plan was to send up at first a leg to help it get around the space station later this year, and eventually mount something similar to the Robonaut torso on top of wheels to explore the Moon or Mars. This has lead to some incredible pictures:

Robonaut also has one of my favorite/most unnerving Tweets from the end of the government shutdown:

I'm baaaaaaaack

— Robonaut (@AstroRobonaut) October 17, 2013

Don't you ever change, Robonaut.

But if aesthetics and Twitter are what you’re going for in your space robots, Japan is unsurprisingly the place to go.

Japan actually was the second nation to send an android into orbit, earlier this year. To accompany the new and first Japanese commander of the International Space Station, Koichi Wakata, Japan designed and launched Kirobo.

Kirobo is far more adorable than both Robonaut and SAR-400, and apparently much more charming, as this video shows the robot on a rampage of bringing delight, leaving scores of the smiling and pleased in its wake.

In addition to having four limbs, Kirobo also speaks, as organizers of the mission said one of the robots objectives was to “help solve social problems through communication.” To this end Kirobo also has a Twitter account. Despite being a lot more likeable than Robonaut 2, Kirobo is modeled for just communication and company, and won't be sent out to scrub the solar arrays any time soon. In way, though, this justifies the humanoid shape, which is supposed to help people relate to the robot, as opposed to the humanoid shape of Robonaut 2, which has a smack of vanity.

There are also earlier competitors for the mantle of third android in space—Germany is working on a robot approachably named Justin, whose face isn't much to look at, but his sculpted chest puts the lot of these bots to shame. The ESA wants Justin on the ISS next year.

Yeah, you don't have a flying car, but there are androids in space, and so chill out. SAR-400 has some real world forebears to live up to, which will actually be quite nice.  Although it's a bit of a tired reference at this point, you’d hate to send a robot to space who has no one to look up to but Hal 9000.