Danger, Will Robinson - Robot Saves New Mexico Lab

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

If you don’t know where the reference to “Danger, Will Robinson” comes from, it’s an homage to the robot from the old “Lost in Space” TV series. The series began as a Swiss Family Robinson-type adventure, but eventually degraded into a series centering mostly on Will Robinson, the Robot (arguably my favorite character on the show), and Dr. Smith.

At any rate, the Robot was always rescuing Will and Dr. Smith. And, though it sounds like science fiction, Nature is reporting that a robot saved a lab at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in October.

Records released this week describe how the base’s Gamma Irradiation Facility was paralysed when a cylinder containing cobalt-60 became lodged in one of the lab’s air-pressure tubes, similar to the document-delivery systems once used in offices.

After trying to dislodge the canister by upping the pressure in the tube, the team called in a 270-kilogram bomb-disposal robot from the nearby Sandia National Laboratories. The remote-controlled machine, bristling with drills and robotic arms, seemed perfect for the job. But the radiation would disable its circuits within 50 minutes, its handlers calculated. Source: Nature

Despite the 50 minute limit, the robot actually spent 90 minutes the first day, and additional time on two successive days before finally dislodging the canister. For it’s efforts, the lab nicknamed the robot Mighty Mouse, or M2 for short.

We Say: Not quite as dramatic as the Robot on “Lost in Space” charging in with electric bolts flowing from his … claws? But at least Dr. Smith wasn’t there to screw up the rescue, either.