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Google Takes Over NASA’s Space Field – Plans To Build Terminators?



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Nov 11 2014
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Forget about Google’s search engine or driverless car projects. The company might have bigger secretive projects that could leapfrog mankind from the World Wide Web to the next quantum leap – space exploration and robotics. If “Terminator” robots take over the world soon, blame it on Google. Of course, after watching how Skynet became self-aware and initiated the mission of destroying the world, all Google’s projects would have a simple instruction – do not kill founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

 

In “Terminator 2,” the T-1000 robotic assassin could transform its body into a silvery flowing liquid. After 23 years, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, and Stony Brook University have developed just that – a new robot-building material that can transform itself from hard and rigid to soft and squishy.

Google Takes Over NASA Moffett Space Field - Building Terminator

This bunch of scientists – working on the project with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – had revealed the new shape-shifting material, made of a combination of wax and foam, laced with electric heating elements. When heated, the material turns soft, so it can squeeze through narrow openings, such as the underside of a door. When the material cools, it becomes rigid again. The news about the self-healing material was released in July this year.

 

Google-owned firm – Boston Dynamics – have also built Atlas robot “who” was taught to stand on one leg, recreating a key scene from the “Karate Kid” film. The humanoid robot can walk, carry, climb using hands and feet, to pick its way through challenging terrain and congested spaces. It’s not hard to imagine how Google, together with U.S. military, could build and populate this planet with “Terminators” very soon.

Google-Atlas-Robot

Hence, when NASA announced that Planetary Ventures LLC, a shell organization operated by Google for real estate deals, has taken a 60-year lease on a Nasa airfield next to its Silicon Valley headquarters, it raises millions of eyebrows. The giant Internet company will pay US$1.16 billion in rent over the period for the property – former Moffett Field Naval Air Station.

 

As part of the lease, Google will take over operations of the airfield while the U.S. government retains ownership of the 1,000 acres of land, which includes Hangars One, Two, and Three, an airfield flight operations building, two runways, and a private golf course. The lease includes a commitment to spend US$200 million on the facilities at the Moffett airfield, including renovating a gigantic, historic airship hangar.

Google Takes Over NASA Moffett Space Field - 1

Google Takes Over NASA Moffett Space Field - Air Field

Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, along with chairman Eric Schmidt, have had an agreement with Nasa for some time to use the airfield as a base for their private jets, before the latest leasing agreement. NASA claims the lease will bring in US$1.16 billion in rents over its 60-year life and save US$6.3 million a year in operating costs. Of course, the real objective was to enable Google further its ambitious projects.

 

NASA also said the Moffett facilities would be used for “research, development, assembly and testing in the areas of space exploration, aviation, rover/robotics and other emerging technologies”. That’s a clearest statement where Google is heading to – building a first generation of humanoids that could give birth to more nasty “Terminators” that could think on its own, and wipe human from this planet (*tongue-in-cheek*).

Google Takes Over NASA Moffett Space Field - 3

As secretive as it may sound, previously Google has offered a US$20 million prize for any private mission before the end of next year that can land a robot on the moon, travel 500 meters and send back images. The company has also recently acquired several smaller firms that are working on satellite technology and robotics. But here’s the fishy part, Moffet Field is located on some of the most expensive real estate in California. So could there be something else cooking, beside the Terminator-killers story?

 

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