1960s:
Spacesuit Android
"Add a brain and you’ve got the first real robot!"
In science fiction, space travel and robots go hand in hand. A robot—whether as a companion, butler, or evil agent — has been a character in most science fiction movies featuring the human exploration of space. If one defines a "robot" as any machine that is capable of complex, automatic operation, then the science fiction writers are correct. Such devices have been necessary for the operation, guidance, and control of spacecraft from the beginnings of space exploration. But if one adds to that definition the requirement that such a machine also have the physical characteristics of the human body, the use of robots to aid the actual, as opposed to fictional, exploration of space is reduced to a very few examples. This is one of them.
A more precise, if prosaic, name for this device is "articulated dummy" — for it did not possess any independent intelligence. Nonetheless, it played a critical role in the space program. Engineers at the Illinois Institute of Technology built it in the 1960s to support the development of spacesuits for NASA (the Institute donated it to the Museum in 1980). Hydraulic and electrical actuators enabled the android to replicate the action of many of the joint motions of the human body. Sensors placed throughout the dummy measured forces that a suit might exert on a human being. The dummy enabled designers to measure how much force a human needed to move an arm or leg, or turn his head, when wearing a suit in space. By using this dummy, instead of a human being, NASA was able to conduct tests that might otherwise be painful, tedious, or even dangerous for a human being.
But in the excitement of the race to the Moon, a machine that looked and moved like a human was not just a machine. It caused a stir — even if hydraulic fluid (which tended to leak all over the floor during tests) and actuators animated its motions rather than blood and a beating heart. Newspaper reporters and other observers gave it fanciful, if inaccurate, names, like “Art the Android,” while its proud builders showed off their creation by having it do dance steps popular with teenagers of the day. It may therefore have been the first mechanical man to do an imitation of Elvis Presley.
Although a long way from the robots of science fiction, this "articulated dummy" leads us to think about real, computer-controlled robots, and how they may be used in the space program. Given the difficulties of keeping humans alive and healthy over long missions, it may be inevitable that robots will precede humans to the outer planets. Perhaps only robots, and not human beings, will experience the exploration of other solar systems. Given advances in materials and computer technologies, these devices might display intelligence and dexterity that would astonish the engineers who built this dummy. But regardless of the intelligence of these deep-space probes, unless they look like a human being (an unlikely but not impossible requirement), they will not evoke the emotions that this spacesuit test dummy evokes when the casual Museum visitor encounters "him."
After Sputnik is a testament to the unique story-telling power of the "real stuff." New, richly detailed photography of each artifact and "behind-the-scenes" essays reveal the many ways in which space became part of the fabric of our lives.
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