Automaker General Motors and NASA share a long history; it goes back to GM supplying the lunar rover used during the later Apollo missions in the early 1970s [MSNBC]. In their latest partnership, GM and NASA have created the Robonaut 2–a humanoid robot that can be used both on Earth and in space. The collaboration comes a time when the Obama administration has called for NASA to focus more on commercial spaceflight and on collaboration with private industry [CNET].
Robonaut 2, which looks a bit like a sleeker version of R2-D2, is a step up from the first iteration made 10 years ago by NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA). That robonaut was intended to be used mostly for space purposes. But the new version, R2, would be equally at home on the International Space Station or on a car assembly line in Detroit.
