NASA switches on its Robot Astronaut for the first time. THE BEAST AWAKENS

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NASA switches on its Robot Astronaut for the first time. THE BEAST AWAKENS

“Bow down, mortal meatbags”

Until this morning, NASA’s Robonaut 2 space station robot has been safely packed away in his crate. This morning, they awoke the machine for initial bootup and testing before they put him to sleep again.

The “state of the art highly dexterous anthropomorphic robot” was designed by General Motors and NASA to help ISS astronauts perform “simple, repetitive or dangerous” tasts in space, such as changing air filters in the station. It was ferried aboard the station almost a year ago, on February 24, 2011.

But for all those who fear that R2 heralds the coming of a robot apocalypse, don’t fret — the robot only consists of a head, torso and two arms, and is currently affixed to the inside of the space station, although future versions may allow for greater mobility.

Late Update: Robonaut 2 has just tweeted about its peaceful intentions in response to a follower’s prediction that the robot would attack.

As novelist Sean Ferrell tweeted: “This Live feed of the activation of @AstroRobonaut is gonna be nuts when it grabs the astronaut and rips his arms off.”

Robonaut 2 responded: “I wouldn’t do that! I’m a friendly robot!”

You can follow Robonaut 2 here on Twitter and I think they’re going to hook him up to the USTREAM again tomorrow morning at 9am CST if you want to see someone’s arms getting ripped off.

Via