The Next Byte

20. NASA’s New Moon Buggy, Rock Picking Robot, Super-Strong Concrete

Episode Summary

In this episode, we talk about the next-gen lunar rover built by Lockheed and GM for NASA’s Artemis mission, how a frustrated tech CEO made a rock-picking robot, and an initiative from University of Manchester to reduce global CO2 emissions by 2% using graphene-enhanced concrete. As always, you can find these and other interesting & impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.

Episode Notes

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(0:41) - NASA's New Moon Buggy

Lockheed Martin and GM have been chosen to develop the next iteration of lunar rovers for NASA’s Artemis missions. GM was a key partner in the development of the first Lunar Rovers and this time around, they hope to incorporate some autonomous driving features from their Cruise self-driving platform.

 

(8:50) - Rock Picking Robot

Brent Frei is a tech CEO with a proven record who recently raised a large round of funding for his robotic rock picking startup, TerraClear. As someone who grew up working on a farm, Frei knows the frustration of removing rocks from farmland. Naturally, he built a robot to address the problem.

 

(19:10) - Super Strong Graphene Concrete

The University of Manchester has been at the forefront of graphene research since they won the Nobel prize for graphene synthesis in 2010. Their collaboration with Nationwide Engineering aims to reduce CO2 emissions associated with concrete by making a stronger graphene-enhanced alternative.