NASA will use it to explore other worlds, or just steep and scarred terrain starting in 2005
It coils like a cobra and strikes like a rattlesnake but it is not a snake. This is Snakebot - a long robot,
Narrow and made of sections that will help the space agency NASA in space exploration.
The American space agency stated that the robotic snake will be ready for flight into space within five years. "The snake will provide us with flexibility and resilience in space," says Gary Haith, the project engineer. "Snake-bot will be able to navigate steep and difficult terrain, where a wheeled robot might get stuck or stumble."
Until now, engineers have worked with an undeveloped robot-snake with a main brain computer connected to parts of its dismembered body by wires, guiding the actions of its various organs. Scientists hope to build a model with a synthetic "skin" that will preserve the electronic chips and with a brain computer smart enough to allow the robot to operate in space.
Scientists say that one of the main advantages of the snake-bot is its modular structure (being composed of units that can be combined in different ways), which make it easier to repair it in the field, even if the field is on another planet.
