Grok Robots

Astronauts will be assembling Dextre, a massive robot designed to help with repairs in space. As this is real life, there is little chance the robot will go rogue and attempt to take over the station. However, the astronauts seem compelled to tempt fate and invoke just about every evil-robot movie cliche in an attempt to jinx things:

“Now I wouldn’t go as far to say that we’re worried it’s going to go run amok and take over the space station or turn evil or anything because we all know how it’s operated and it doesn’t have a lot of its own intelligence … But I’ll tell you something … He’s enormous and to see him with his giant arms, it is a little scary. It’s a little monstrous, it is.”

Foreshadowing - a valuable literary device. But, of course nothing could go wrong once properly assembled.

“I feel kind of like dad on Christmas Eve, you know, opening up this present and trying to put it together for the son or daughter and going, ‘Whoa, what have I gotten myself into here with this ’some assembly required’ part of the space station,” Foreman said.

Well, the important thing is that he has no subconscious imagry in his head that might influence him while assembling the robot.

Reisman, who will be moving into the space station, can’t wait to see Dextre rise from its shuttle transport pallet, rotating up “almost like it’s Frankenstein’s monster coming alive.”

Ok, the really important thing is that there is no hint whatsoever that whoever designed it had ulterior motives.

That said, Linnehan acknowledges it’s “a cool project” that reminds him of Japanese animation shows from decades past, namely Gigantor the space-age robot.

Really. It will be fine. No one is nervous.