NASA's Got a New Team Member for the International Space Station: Robonaut 2

NASA's got a new astronaut aboard their team. Robonaut 2, or R2 for short. Yes, you guessed it, a robot. Luckily, it's not like the robots in the movie iRobot, where they turn evil and try to kill everyone, it's very nice and it even uses a social network to talk with people all around the world.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="266" caption="Robonaut 2, Photo Credit: NASArobonaut*"][/caption]

R2 operates on pre-programmed plans and it looks like half an astronaut. It has a torso, head, arms and hands. It operates much like an astronaut would. It was built for use in helping with the mundane chores and risky missions aboard the International Space Station.

Recently, a Twitter account was launched for R2. As of this writing, it has over 13,000 followers and counting. It is following other astronauts as well as NASA itself.

People on the network send it @replies, Twitter's way of talking to specific people, and it replies and says witty robotic things.

It also tweets updates on himself. For example, what it said two hours ago via Twitter for iPhone, "Going through final adjustment of my struts. These hold me in place during ascent on STS-133. Once finalized I'll get my foam installed."

This is a very intelligent/dextrous new robot by NASA and it is sure to be a great help around the Space Station.

*The image used in this article is used under the Creative Commons license described here.
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R2, according to its Twitter profile, is the most dexterous of any humanoid robots in existence. It loves doing things with his hands, including lifting weights. Its personal best is 20, it says that that might not seem like a lot, but it can hold it "'til the cows come home".

R2 claims that it is a friendly robot and it also claims no gender, it can speak computer code and English, and it can play chess with some help.

You can follow Robonaut 2 on Twitter here, also, you can "like" it on Facebook here.