NASA, Free That Robot Now!!

Discovery's been at the International Space Station for days now, and still no robot action.

Even President Obama's getting antsy. He told the astronauts yesterday they should let R2 out of his packaging and allow him to "stretch his legs." (We're sure they had to bite their tongues to keep from blurting out, "He doesn't have any legs, sir." Not to mention "Well, he's a robot, we don't think he's uncomfortable or anything.")

At any rate, people want to see the robot, dammit. The question came up in today's press conference, at about the 11-minute mark above.

NASA

Free him!!

​Astronaut Catherine Coleman said they've been thinking of moving the robot out a little earlier than planned. "In fact, we're all pretty sure that we hear scratching from the inside there," she said.

R2 is tweeting, by the way. He said he thought Obama "gave them some great advice about me" in terms of unpacking him now.

It apparently hasn't occurred to the bigwigs at NASA that you can't have robot sex in space until you unpack the robot that's going to have the sex. And get it legs and something in between them.

Even if they do unpack it, R2 won't be performing any time soon. The operating software still has to be sent up, and that's not scheduled to happen until May.