NASA's autonomous space-helper robots

NASA will soon be showing off two autonomous robots that they hope will one day work side-by-side with humans in harsh extraterrestrial environments. The bots, known as "K-9" and "Gromit" (what, no Wallace?), are able to perform certain tasks without detailed human instructions, which would allow them to prepare craft landing sites, build structures and mine for resources, and generally behave as all-around astronaut butlers. As their software and hardware become more robust, spacebots are expected to assist humans in all manner of mission activity, and may eventually take over astronaut health monitoring duties, a la their earthbound counterpart, the
nursebot. K-9 and Gromit will be on display at the Marscape exhibition, at NASA's Ames Research Center, starting October 3.