NASA demos RASSOR their "Blue collar" robot that will mine Mars for rocket fuel

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By Matthew Griffin Space 5th October 2016

NASA is prepping robots for Mars so humans can get on with the important stuff

A NASA robot which is programmed to dig for water, oxygen and rocket fuel could be the first step in colonising Mars – whether that’s via a NASA mission, or, as is more probable in a public private partnership with companies such as SpaceX whose founder Elon Musk recently announced he intends to put man on Mars within the next six years.

The Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) is intended to be the first of a wave of worker robots that will be sent to the red planet and once these machines are able to ascertain what resources they can get from Mars, they can stockpile them ready for human visitors.

RASSOR rolls on drums as opposed to wheels to allow it to to excavate surface soil and create traction for mobility and the clip below shows RASSOR digging with MARCO POLO and the Mars Pathfinder to gather soil and place it into an oven for processing.

RASSOR will work 16 hours a day and can move up to 2.8st in weight, travelling five times faster than the Mars Curiosity Rover.

As the NASA STI paper states regarding a Martian colony:

“The crew is there to explore, and to colonize, not maintain and repair. Any time spent on ‘living there’ and ‘housekeeping’ should be minimized to an oversight role of robotic automated tasks.”

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Matthew Griffin, multi-award winning Futurist and named Futurist of the Year 2024, has been described as a "Walking encyclopaedia of the future" by NASA and a futurist polymath. One of the world's most renowned futurists and strategic foresight experts Matthew is the 15 times author of the blockbuster "Codex of the Future" series, and is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working across the next 50 years, XPotential University, the world's first free futures and foresight university, and the World Futures Forum which works with the United Nations to solve the worlds greatest challenges. Matthew is an in demand international keynote, acclaimed university lecturer and mentor, and host of the hit Fanatical Futurist podcast.

A rare talent in his past Matthew helped build and run several multi-billion dollar business units for Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, and his ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77+ governments, and many of the world's most respected brands including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Disney, Dow, EY, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, and many others. He was also the only futurist invited to talk at the UN COP28 held in Dubai alongside world leaders.

Regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, Matthews mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.