Science and engineering are full of acronyms, of course. Some are good and some are not. This one is good:
Their idea, SHREWs — Strategic Highly-compliant Roving Explorers of other Worlds — is inspired by the rodents of the same name, which link up mouth to tail in a line to stay together.
SHREWs is the brainchild of a team of Dartmouth engineering students who won the award for best technical paper in NASA’s Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing Idea Challenge, or “BIG Idea Challenge.” Their winning idea proposed lunar space exploration robots that can connect with other robots when stuck on rough terrain. It is the second consecutive year that a Dartmouth team, led by engineering professor Laura Ray, has won a NASA BIG Idea award.
Details from The Dartmouth, the college newspaper, are here. It notes that most of the planning and design was done via Zoom and without lab space due to COVID-19, they set up shop in the garage of faculty advisor Laura Ray.
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I just think you could gang 3D print a ring station exoskeleton and anterior spine around an inflatable buck. use all our trash satellites, recycling plastic and inert carbon waste with waste methane used to fuel delivery of materials from platform in orbit to station site. all remote operated Dartmouth designed robots from the homes of once unemployed New Hampshirites.
Being a native it makes me proud of my state and all the great minds this state and school has educated to enlighten humanity.