Mars drill in action ;)

Another benefit of automated drilling, albeit shallow in this case:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7010&feedId=online-news_rss20 .

Honeybee also makes the rock abrasion tool, or RAT hardware.

gooooooaal!

Over lunch today, I scored another drilling automation client -- in this case, SH and his Mars Technology Program at JPL want us to develop control software for their planetary prototype drill, built by Swales... this means that my group is now the automation provider of choice for all of the US space drill companies' hardware. Bringing a modest amount of funding (maybe $250K over the next 18 months) but making it more likely that our stuff will eventually fly, sometime after 2010. Woot!

Otherwise... I'm off to a colleague's home for pizza, beer and editing our paper in an upcoming Cambridge University Press book on analog missions.