7 ms·

JPL's Design for a Clockwork Rover to Explore Venus (2017)

149 points by bartman 5y ago

ArtWomb 5y ago
Great Sunday morning read for the Venus heads out there. I especially dug the radar reflector comms designs that can transmit wind speed data directly sans processing ;) NASA exploration budgets are so constrained now, risk is the limiting factor. The best way to gather Venus data is probably going to be disposable autonomous swarm drones. If they can be fabricated cheaply enough, just let them burn up. Lofted Environmental Venus Sensors (LEAVES) https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2021_Phase_I/Lofted_Environmental_Venus_Sensors/ https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2021_Phase_...
- hashkb 5y ago
  So... hire to SpaceX do it?
  - canadianfella 5y ago
    What?
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > NASA exploration budgets are so constrained now Why are they so constrained and by whom?
NamTaf 5y ago
This reminds me of a 1950s training video from the US Navy that I once watched that explained the function of the mechanical computers used for fire control of the ship's guns. I found it to be a really handy primer on how mechanical computers function and may well be of interest if this concept appeals to you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4
katmannthree 5y ago
Fascinating article, I wish they could publish some design examples. I would love to see some examples of clockwork mechanisms operating in a 500° C oven, a temperature where the blackbody radiation coming off the structure will almost* be visible to the human eye. Even just finding lubricants that can last in that environment without slowly degrading the metals they're there to protect is probably a struggle. *the threshold is 524° C, it's close but not quite there
- wearywanderer 5y ago
  Might graphite do the trick? Or maybe boron nitride.
- jessriedel 5y ago
  Tbc, if the structure is at the same temperature as its surroundings (which is the point of these proposals -- no refrigeration required), then this radiation cannot be used to visually distinguish the structure from its surroundings. The reason is that all blackbody radiation is the same, regardless of the surface it's coming off of. The inside of every closed and equilibrated oven looks identical, regardless of shape and contents: a uniform glow in all directions. In other words, if there was a human down on the surface who could somehow survive and look around from a nuclear-powered refrigerated spacesuit, they would only be able to distinguish the robot structure by the radiation it was reflecting/emitting other than the blackbody radiation associated with the ambient temperature.
  - rainbowzootsuit 5y ago
    The emissivity of different materials is going to differ. For purposes of thermal imaging this will yield some contrast to an image.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  At 500C, you can see a full red.
- jvanderbot 5y ago
  The funding agency with announcement is here https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2017_Phase_I_Phase_II/Automaton_Rover_Extreme_Environments/ https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2017_Phase_... I'm sure if you email them, they can direct you to the reports. The are usually hosted on the NIAC site, but there was some dustup over accessibility concerns, I think.
dcminter 5y ago
Am I naive to imagine that exotic-materials based microelectronics, or even vacuum tube technologies might be more realistic?
- hashkb 5y ago
  The article mentioned the issue with vacuum tubes: they work, but are at high risk of losing vacuum.
  - dcminter 5y ago
    Well, my cheeks are red. I somehow failed to realise that the article continued after the embedded video!
alanbernstein 5y ago
For the obstacle avoidance mechanism, which they say realistically can only have one "subroutine", I was thinking it would benefit from a random perturbation to the turning angle, to avoid getting stuck in a loop. But I wonder how you might implement a pseudorandom or chaotic movement in clockwork? Maybe by summing via multiple weirdly-shaped cams? Or somehow extracting information from the motion of a double-pendulum system? Impractical, perhaps, but I can't help wondering the best way to do such a thing.
- LadyCailin 5y ago
  If you could somehow manage to track and maintain the movement of a triple pendulum, you can have basically true random input. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDU2JsgLpm4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDU2JsgLpm4
- nradov 5y ago
  The atmospheric wind is a pretty good source of randomness so attach a small windmill or windvane to the mechanism.
- spiritplumber 5y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/dzrgnk/roomba_with_no_vacuum/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/dzrgnk/r... This one works surprisingly well. I got one at a garage sale for $10 for a lark, and its fully mechanical "navigation" system is surprisingly reliable, in that it rarely ever gets stuck.
- spiritplumber 5y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/crappyoffbrands/comments/dzs7ho/sweep_the_roomba_knockoff_in_action_by_request/ https://www.reddit.com/r/crappyoffbrands/comments/dzs7ho/swe... Something like this then
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
Maybe I didn’t read far enough but how does it communicate with us?
- mfashby 5y ago
  Reflectors!
  - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    But don't those need electronics haha?
    - mfashby 5y ago
      Mirrors on top, operated mechanically I would guess. The article mentions 'transmitting' windspeed measurements to a satellite this way.
socialdemocrat 5y ago
I am not an engineer but I would be curious to know why the proposed Venus Rover I write about here would not be better. https://link.medium.com/6JDHu2Bajgb https://link.medium.com/6JDHu2Bajgb Fluidics based computations should give much better performance, miniaturization and reliability.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- restalis 5y ago
  What I can tell as an engineer, is that the main issue boils down to the level of maturity for the technologies you mention in your writing. It's not enough to have publications demonstrating feasibility, as from labs to field applications it's a long way, where non-trivial work has to be invested in things to make them useful enough for any practical purpose. The weak chain-link is electronics tech, which has been developed to cover energy handling, sensor data acquisition, information processing, and electromagnetic field based communication, to name a few. Things change, and as Robotbeat's comment here¹ says, we may rely on silicon carbide based chips now, for information processing at least. You mention using sound for echolocation and communication on short range scale, but the main communication issue is on long scale. You mention wind power but, due to its mechanical nature, there is wear and tear involved that has to be also addressed as part of an engineering solution to confer it any practical value, and not much thought has been allotted to those kind of conditions. To sum it up, in regard to Venus ground activity, the technical means we still have at our disposal are currently still mediocre, unfortunately. ¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27175751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27175751
  - socialdemocrat 5y ago
    Fluidics has been used for years in industry however. Both in automation and for vector control on Jet engines and other areas with high temperatures. It isn't just speculation on paper and on a lab. Wind technology is a mature technology however. I cannot see why other means of energy generation on Venus would have a head start. All solutions will need to be adapted to the conditions on Venus. As for communication range. You just need to reach something like an airship or balloons higher up. At higher altitudes you temperature and pressure is no longer an issue and you can use whatever technology works on Earth. To clarify, I never meant to suggest that we could just drop a rover on Venus right now. I was simply trying to challenge the idea that a mechanical rover was the better idea. I see you mention Robotbeat which seems perhaps like a better solution. But I still cannot see why a fluidics solution would not be better than the mechanical solution proposed here. Yes, carbide based chips may be even better.
lmilcin 5y ago
I wonder if you could put a small RTG to produce electricity to use for thermoelectric cooling. The RTG would have to run pretty hot but it would be also rather simple to create. You need to be able to use temperature differential to produce rotation -- that could be taken care of by simple Stirling engine. Fortunately, given how thick the atmosphere is, the engine would be very small. Another problem is bearings which would be essential to get and keep it running constantly. But here the thick atmosphere also helps. The thick atmosphere would make it easy to create efficient aerodynamic bearing. The last problem is magnets. To produce electricity you need a magnet. Now, looking at a chart I see that there is a bunch of materials with curie temperature higher than temperature on the surface of Venus. Now... just because we can get electronics to run somewhere deep below multiple layers of insulation doesn't yet mean we can do anything useful. For that you need sensors and I don't know what kind of sensors you can build that can withstand that kind of temperature.
- CoolGuySteve 5y ago
  I was also wondering why not use a heat pump into the thick atmosphere. Turns out there is a NASA design for that: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12905-antique-fridge-could-keep-venus-rover-cool/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12905-antique-fridge-...
jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago
Since cosmic rays are an enemy of electronic equipment, I wonder how well would a fluidics [1] system work, and where are the limits of miniaturization. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidics
- grae_QED 5y ago
  I'm not sure what fluid you'd be able to use on Venus' surface considering it's well over 400°C. Even mercury boils at 357°C.
  - ccleve 5y ago
    Maybe use a gas?
    - nealabq 5y ago
      The CO2 on the Venusian surface is a supercritical fluid. Not sure if that's any help - it's still compressible and so still acts like a gas more than a liquid.
  - NegativeLatency 5y ago
    Is that boiling point at 1 atmosphere?
  - tokai 5y ago
    Molten salts
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    Molten lead, maybe? It doesn't need to be a liquid on Earth.
ezconnect 5y ago
That IMP Globus is amazing.
foreigner 5y ago
What are they going to use for power?
- NegativeLatency 5y ago
  Looks like the robot has a windmill mounted on top, there’s a video about 1/3 of the way down the page.
Sniffnoy 5y ago
Note that this article is from 2017, and that since then, this approach, and the more obvious approach of just using electronics that can withstand such high temperatures, seem to have merged: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/armed-tough-computer-chips-scientists-are-ready-return-hell-venus https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/armed-tough-computer...
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  I wrote a paper as an space research intern about how to do high temperature electronics for a Venus probe and the paper was published before this 2017 clockwork rover idea (& I wouldn’t argue that our paper was massively groundbreaking, just sort of a new synthesis of existing ideas... our mentor already knew this was feasible): https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150002090/downloads/20150002090.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150002090/downloads/20... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272522839_Venus_high_temperature_atmospheric_dropsonde_and_extreme-environment_seismometer_HADES https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272522839_Venus_hig... I like the unique constraints of trying to make the computation mechanical, but... It was IMO clear well before 2017 that the electronics option was more feasible than the mechanical approach. Glenn Research Center has had high temperature electronics for quite a while. EDIT:And now we have full up high temperature SiC integrated circuits and memories. Totally obsoletes the hand wavy SiC circuits in my intern paper, but it is truly an amazing capability compared to anything mechanical: https://hackaday.com/2021/05/03/silicon-carbide-chips-can-go-to-hell/ https://hackaday.com/2021/05/03/silicon-carbide-chips-can-go...
  - Animats 5y ago
    Progress continues. Silicon carbide electronics is coming along nicely outside of NASA. There's now a small system on a chip, from a company in Arkansas, rated for 500°C.[1] There's interest in high-temperature ICs for sensors inside jet engines and down-hole sensors for oil drilling. Silicon carbide power transistors that can run very hot without damage are commercial products. I wonder how you assemble circuits of components that run above solder-melting temperatures. Laser welding, probably. [1] https://www.ozarkic.com/products/ https://www.ozarkic.com/products/
jvanderbot 5y ago
This is another of the NIAC program's awardees. A fun fact about this work is that they crowdsourced a competition to design a fully-mechanical obstacle sensor + avoidance steerage. [1] I strongly recommend anyone who likes reading about crazy ideas that just might work to check out the NIAC awardees [2] 1. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-venus-rover-challenge-winners-announced https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-venus-rover-challenge-wi... 2. https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/NIAC_funded_studies.html https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/NIAC_funded... Disclaimer, my idea was funded this year so I'm on the list. :)
berkeleynerd 5y ago
Nasa's JFET tech is being developed by Ozark IC to create a Silicon Carbide RISC-V chip for just this purpose. https://www.ozarkic.com/2020/05/26/ozark-ic-to-continue-ultra-high-temperature-processor-development-for-nasa/ https://www.ozarkic.com/2020/05/26/ozark-ic-to-continue-ultr...
pupdogg 5y ago
The fact that Soviet Venera 13 landed on Venus approx. 40 years ago is mind blowing!
tagami 5y ago
Looks to be inspired by Theo Jansen's Strandbeest https://www.strandbeest.com/ https://www.strandbeest.com/

149 points by bartman 5y ago

Great Sunday morning read for the Venus heads out there. I especially dug the radar reflector comms designs that can transmit wind speed data directly sans processing ;) NASA exploration budgets are so constrained now, risk is the limiting factor. The best way to gather Venus data is probably going to be disposable autonomous swarm drones. If they can be fabricated cheaply enough, just let them burn up. Lofted Environmental Venus Sensors (LEAVES) https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2021_Phase_I/Lofted_Environmental_Venus_Sensors/ https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2021_Phase_...

hashkb 5y ago
So... hire to SpaceX do it?
- canadianfella 5y ago
  What?
wolverine876 5y ago
> NASA exploration budgets are so constrained now Why are they so constrained and by whom?

NamTaf 5y ago

This reminds me of a 1950s training video from the US Navy that I once watched that explained the function of the mechanical computers used for fire control of the ship's guns. I found it to be a really handy primer on how mechanical computers function and may well be of interest if this concept appeals to you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4

katmannthree 5y ago

Fascinating article, I wish they could publish some design examples. I would love to see some examples of clockwork mechanisms operating in a 500° C oven, a temperature where the blackbody radiation coming off the structure will almost* be visible to the human eye. Even just finding lubricants that can last in that environment without slowly degrading the metals they're there to protect is probably a struggle. *the threshold is 524° C, it's close but not quite there

wearywanderer 5y ago
Might graphite do the trick? Or maybe boron nitride.
jessriedel 5y ago
Tbc, if the structure is at the same temperature as its surroundings (which is the point of these proposals -- no refrigeration required), then this radiation cannot be used to visually distinguish the structure from its surroundings. The reason is that all blackbody radiation is the same, regardless of the surface it's coming off of. The inside of every closed and equilibrated oven looks identical, regardless of shape and contents: a uniform glow in all directions. In other words, if there was a human down on the surface who could somehow survive and look around from a nuclear-powered refrigerated spacesuit, they would only be able to distinguish the robot structure by the radiation it was reflecting/emitting other than the blackbody radiation associated with the ambient temperature.
- rainbowzootsuit 5y ago
  The emissivity of different materials is going to differ. For purposes of thermal imaging this will yield some contrast to an image.
Robotbeat 5y ago
At 500C, you can see a full red.
jvanderbot 5y ago
The funding agency with announcement is here https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2017_Phase_I_Phase_II/Automaton_Rover_Extreme_Environments/ https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2017_Phase_... I'm sure if you email them, they can direct you to the reports. The are usually hosted on the NIAC site, but there was some dustup over accessibility concerns, I think.

dcminter 5y ago

Am I naive to imagine that exotic-materials based microelectronics, or even vacuum tube technologies might be more realistic?

hashkb 5y ago
The article mentioned the issue with vacuum tubes: they work, but are at high risk of losing vacuum.
- dcminter 5y ago
  Well, my cheeks are red. I somehow failed to realise that the article continued after the embedded video!

alanbernstein 5y ago

For the obstacle avoidance mechanism, which they say realistically can only have one "subroutine", I was thinking it would benefit from a random perturbation to the turning angle, to avoid getting stuck in a loop. But I wonder how you might implement a pseudorandom or chaotic movement in clockwork? Maybe by summing via multiple weirdly-shaped cams? Or somehow extracting information from the motion of a double-pendulum system? Impractical, perhaps, but I can't help wondering the best way to do such a thing.

LadyCailin 5y ago
If you could somehow manage to track and maintain the movement of a triple pendulum, you can have basically true random input. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDU2JsgLpm4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDU2JsgLpm4
nradov 5y ago
The atmospheric wind is a pretty good source of randomness so attach a small windmill or windvane to the mechanism.
spiritplumber 5y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/dzrgnk/roomba_with_no_vacuum/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/dzrgnk/r... This one works surprisingly well. I got one at a garage sale for $10 for a lark, and its fully mechanical "navigation" system is surprisingly reliable, in that it rarely ever gets stuck.
spiritplumber 5y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/crappyoffbrands/comments/dzs7ho/sweep_the_roomba_knockoff_in_action_by_request/ https://www.reddit.com/r/crappyoffbrands/comments/dzs7ho/swe... Something like this then

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago

Maybe I didn’t read far enough but how does it communicate with us?

mfashby 5y ago
Reflectors!
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  But don't those need electronics haha?
  - mfashby 5y ago
    Mirrors on top, operated mechanically I would guess. The article mentions 'transmitting' windspeed measurements to a satellite this way.

socialdemocrat 5y ago

I am not an engineer but I would be curious to know why the proposed Venus Rover I write about here would not be better. https://link.medium.com/6JDHu2Bajgb https://link.medium.com/6JDHu2Bajgb Fluidics based computations should give much better performance, miniaturization and reliability.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
restalis 5y ago
What I can tell as an engineer, is that the main issue boils down to the level of maturity for the technologies you mention in your writing. It's not enough to have publications demonstrating feasibility, as from labs to field applications it's a long way, where non-trivial work has to be invested in things to make them useful enough for any practical purpose. The weak chain-link is electronics tech, which has been developed to cover energy handling, sensor data acquisition, information processing, and electromagnetic field based communication, to name a few. Things change, and as Robotbeat's comment here¹ says, we may rely on silicon carbide based chips now, for information processing at least. You mention using sound for echolocation and communication on short range scale, but the main communication issue is on long scale. You mention wind power but, due to its mechanical nature, there is wear and tear involved that has to be also addressed as part of an engineering solution to confer it any practical value, and not much thought has been allotted to those kind of conditions. To sum it up, in regard to Venus ground activity, the technical means we still have at our disposal are currently still mediocre, unfortunately. ¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27175751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27175751
- socialdemocrat 5y ago
  Fluidics has been used for years in industry however. Both in automation and for vector control on Jet engines and other areas with high temperatures. It isn't just speculation on paper and on a lab. Wind technology is a mature technology however. I cannot see why other means of energy generation on Venus would have a head start. All solutions will need to be adapted to the conditions on Venus. As for communication range. You just need to reach something like an airship or balloons higher up. At higher altitudes you temperature and pressure is no longer an issue and you can use whatever technology works on Earth. To clarify, I never meant to suggest that we could just drop a rover on Venus right now. I was simply trying to challenge the idea that a mechanical rover was the better idea. I see you mention Robotbeat which seems perhaps like a better solution. But I still cannot see why a fluidics solution would not be better than the mechanical solution proposed here. Yes, carbide based chips may be even better.

lmilcin 5y ago

I wonder if you could put a small RTG to produce electricity to use for thermoelectric cooling. The RTG would have to run pretty hot but it would be also rather simple to create. You need to be able to use temperature differential to produce rotation -- that could be taken care of by simple Stirling engine. Fortunately, given how thick the atmosphere is, the engine would be very small. Another problem is bearings which would be essential to get and keep it running constantly. But here the thick atmosphere also helps. The thick atmosphere would make it easy to create efficient aerodynamic bearing. The last problem is magnets. To produce electricity you need a magnet. Now, looking at a chart I see that there is a bunch of materials with curie temperature higher than temperature on the surface of Venus. Now... just because we can get electronics to run somewhere deep below multiple layers of insulation doesn't yet mean we can do anything useful. For that you need sensors and I don't know what kind of sensors you can build that can withstand that kind of temperature.

CoolGuySteve 5y ago
I was also wondering why not use a heat pump into the thick atmosphere. Turns out there is a NASA design for that: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12905-antique-fridge-could-keep-venus-rover-cool/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12905-antique-fridge-...

jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago

Since cosmic rays are an enemy of electronic equipment, I wonder how well would a fluidics [1] system work, and where are the limits of miniaturization. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidics

grae_QED 5y ago
I'm not sure what fluid you'd be able to use on Venus' surface considering it's well over 400°C. Even mercury boils at 357°C.
- ccleve 5y ago
  Maybe use a gas?
  - nealabq 5y ago
    The CO2 on the Venusian surface is a supercritical fluid. Not sure if that's any help - it's still compressible and so still acts like a gas more than a liquid.
- NegativeLatency 5y ago
  Is that boiling point at 1 atmosphere?
- tokai 5y ago
  Molten salts
- a1369209993 5y ago
  Molten lead, maybe? It doesn't need to be a liquid on Earth.

ezconnect 5y ago

That IMP Globus is amazing.

foreigner 5y ago

What are they going to use for power?

NegativeLatency 5y ago
Looks like the robot has a windmill mounted on top, there’s a video about 1/3 of the way down the page.

Sniffnoy 5y ago

Note that this article is from 2017, and that since then, this approach, and the more obvious approach of just using electronics that can withstand such high temperatures, seem to have merged: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/armed-tough-computer-chips-scientists-are-ready-return-hell-venus https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/armed-tough-computer...

Robotbeat 5y ago
I wrote a paper as an space research intern about how to do high temperature electronics for a Venus probe and the paper was published before this 2017 clockwork rover idea (& I wouldn’t argue that our paper was massively groundbreaking, just sort of a new synthesis of existing ideas... our mentor already knew this was feasible): https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150002090/downloads/20150002090.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150002090/downloads/20... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272522839_Venus_high_temperature_atmospheric_dropsonde_and_extreme-environment_seismometer_HADES https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272522839_Venus_hig... I like the unique constraints of trying to make the computation mechanical, but... It was IMO clear well before 2017 that the electronics option was more feasible than the mechanical approach. Glenn Research Center has had high temperature electronics for quite a while. EDIT:And now we have full up high temperature SiC integrated circuits and memories. Totally obsoletes the hand wavy SiC circuits in my intern paper, but it is truly an amazing capability compared to anything mechanical: https://hackaday.com/2021/05/03/silicon-carbide-chips-can-go-to-hell/ https://hackaday.com/2021/05/03/silicon-carbide-chips-can-go...
- Animats 5y ago
  Progress continues. Silicon carbide electronics is coming along nicely outside of NASA. There's now a small system on a chip, from a company in Arkansas, rated for 500°C.[1] There's interest in high-temperature ICs for sensors inside jet engines and down-hole sensors for oil drilling. Silicon carbide power transistors that can run very hot without damage are commercial products. I wonder how you assemble circuits of components that run above solder-melting temperatures. Laser welding, probably. [1] https://www.ozarkic.com/products/ https://www.ozarkic.com/products/

jvanderbot 5y ago

This is another of the NIAC program's awardees. A fun fact about this work is that they crowdsourced a competition to design a fully-mechanical obstacle sensor + avoidance steerage. [1] I strongly recommend anyone who likes reading about crazy ideas that just might work to check out the NIAC awardees [2] 1. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-venus-rover-challenge-winners-announced https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-venus-rover-challenge-wi... 2. https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/NIAC_funded_studies.html https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/NIAC_funded... Disclaimer, my idea was funded this year so I'm on the list. :)

berkeleynerd 5y ago

Nasa's JFET tech is being developed by Ozark IC to create a Silicon Carbide RISC-V chip for just this purpose. https://www.ozarkic.com/2020/05/26/ozark-ic-to-continue-ultra-high-temperature-processor-development-for-nasa/ https://www.ozarkic.com/2020/05/26/ozark-ic-to-continue-ultr...

pupdogg 5y ago

The fact that Soviet Venera 13 landed on Venus approx. 40 years ago is mind blowing!

tagami 5y ago

Looks to be inspired by Theo Jansen's Strandbeest https://www.strandbeest.com/ https://www.strandbeest.com/