[extropy-chat] hero robot

Damien Broderick thespike at satx.rr.com
Mon Dec 19 20:15:24 UTC 2005


http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051219/full/051219-2.html


'Mighty Mouse' machine stages rescue at US government facility.

Michael Hopkin


It sounds like something you might pitch to a Hollywood studio. A
high-security US radiation lab is thrown into turmoil when a cylinder
spewing out deadly radiation gets trapped in its network of delivery tubes.
A robot is sent to try and free the canister before the radiation eats away
at its circuits. After a string of failures, the intrepid machine saves the
day.

The drama happened in October, at the US defence department's White Sands
Missile Range in New Mexico. 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.

The cobalt, powerful enough to kill a person in half a minute, got jammed
between its storage area and the site where it was to be used to test the
effects of radiation on vehicles and circuit boards. Once stuck, there was
no way that lab staff could go near the tube, even wearing radiation suits.
They watched from their control room as the lab's radiation alarms began to
blare.

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.

The canister, about the size of a salt cellar, was jammed against a
seesaw-shaped switch inside the tube that was stuck in the wrong
orientation. So the robot drilled a hole in the tube to try and wiggle the
switch back into position.

Two attempts failed. The robot then tried drilling straight into the
switch's hinge, to allow the whole thing to be pushed aside. But the high
pressure used to try and blow the canister out had buckled the switch out of
shape.

By now, the robot had been in the radiation zone for 90 minutes. The team
decided to regroup, but the robot's electronics had failed and it was rooted
to the spot. Thankfully, the team had tied a rope around the machine, and it
was hauled in, almost knocking over a radiation shield in the process.

The team sent the robot back the next day, determined to unscrew a section
of the tube's metal panelling and remove the switch. They fitted a plastic
part to the robot that would allow its screwdriver to engage with the
screws. But the radiation melted the plastic.

On the third day, and after three weeks of continuous warning sirens, the
team sent in the robot with a metal screwdriver. It unscrewed the plate,
dislodged the switch, and sent the tube safely to its storage bay.

"The team effort produced a marvellous job," says White Sands staff member
Richard Williams. It is unclear whether, once their headaches have gone and
their well-chewed fingernails have grown back, the team will sell the movie
rights to their escapade. The robot, nicknamed Mighty Mouse or M2 for its
heroics, is taking a well-earned rest.

[completely wrecked its positronic brain, though...]




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