The last SpaceX mailing to the ISS included a "Death Wish" coffee and a CIMON named AI

Photo Credit: SpaceX / Public Domain

Astronauts brought strange things into space, including $ 2 Chip sized notes with art by Andy Warhol , and (most sadly) a corned beef sandwich. All this sounds odd compared to the recent expedition made to the ISS by SpaceX's latest Dragon capsule, which included Texas blueberries, ice cream bars, the world's strongest coffee (branded Death Wish) and a spherical white robot called CIMON. Crew Interactive Mobile Companion).

The total shipment weighed about 5,900 lbs, the majority (about 3,874 lbs) consisting of equipment and samples for ongoing experiments and scientific projects. A good part of it, however, was devoted to enlivening the carefully regulated regimes of the astronaut. According to Kirk Shireman, director of the NASA Space Station program: "Food is a huge psychological benefit: when you live in a closed environment, you eat the same menu every 8 or 9 days, and then you repeat.

More interesting than exotic food, however, is CIMON, the so-called "flying brain" created by Airbus. According to a statement from the company: "CIMON is a personal assistant capable of recognizing voice and face, we want to study the psychological effects of long space missions on crew members and try appropriate countermeasures, especially those that reduce stress. We will put a special focus on data mining and interactions between humans and AI. "

Reading between the lines, it seems that one of CIMON's main tasks is to prevent astronauts from crashing. Tense in space – the HI-SEAS simulation the more recent, intended to study how humans will react when they are confined in a small Martian habitat for long periods, ended in a crisis among the subjects tested when one of the participants was accidentally electrocuted, and normal failures-safe to get medical help failed.

Hopefully, ice cream bars and ISS coffee keep them reasonable, so CIMON should not become a bit the wer-tech version of HAL from 2001.

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