PSFK Talks to NASA

One advantage of Robonaut is safety. The robot can do most things a
person can do. This means in dangerous situations the robot can leave
the vehicle instead of an astronaut. Another interesting fact that came
up in our discussion was rapid deployment issues. The astronaut I spoke
to said there is a two hour breathing exercise that has to be performed
prior to suiting up for work outside the spacecraft. The breathing
exercise must be done to avoid problems with nitrogen in the astronauts
blood stream. In an emergency, two hours is a very long time. The
Robonaut obviously doesn’t need this preparation and can be set to work
immediately.

This leads to yet another advantage where the Robonaut can be sent
out first to set up a project and then the astronauts can come out and
handle the trickier aspects of a job. This is a simple issue of
maximizing the work time of humans since they have limited time to work
where the Robonaut wouldn’t.

The Robonaut is also designed to carry equipment that might encumber
an astronaut. Things like having tools attached to the robot instead of
the human are big advantages in an environment where a small mistake
can be fatal. The Robonaut can carry and hold tools until they are
needed and then hand them to the astronaut.

For an in depth look at Robonaut with photos, videos and full explanation of the project check out http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/