NASA trains robotic dog to explore alien caves

In the subsoil of the Moon and Mars there are underground caves and tunnels, some of which are the product of volcanic activity. These caves and tunnels can, according to experts, be safe shelters and places of residence for people.

Of course, an exploration will have to be made in these underground geological structures beforehand to see what is there and whether they really meet the conditions for the astronauts to stay there first and later some settlers. If exploring an unknown cave on Earth is dangerous, exploring an alien cave is literally a journey into the unknown. 

Nasa’s officials have come up with the option of using a robot to carry out such explorations; they have decided that the best solution is to use a four-legged robot, and they have “recruited” the most advanced one that exists at the moment, the “Spot” of the company “Boston Dynamics”.  

The “Spot” made its appearance a few years ago and since then the manufacturing company has been constantly upgrading its capabilities and as a result it has acquired many possibilities. It is already used as an assistant in industries, while it naturally has capabilities to support military-police missions, but also search and rescue missions. 

NASA has integrated into the “Spot” the artificial intelligence system “NeBula”, developed by technicians of the American space agency. According to NASA technicians, the robot will be able —in addition to tracing, mapping and recording images and data of a cave— to detect the presence of life at the microbial level. There are many experts and with a recent study of the American University “Brown” who report that it is possible that some simple forms of life under the surface of Mars have survived.

The training of “Spot” is part of the “BRAILLE (Biologic and Resource Analog Investigations in Low Light Environments) program, and the program’s executives argue that —in addition to the caves of the Moon and Mars— the four-legged robot will be able to perform explorations on the icy moons of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, in which underground oceans have been identified and the chances of some forms of life developing there are increased.

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