Discovery Channel Star Wars specials

[stillakid]

I just finished watching the first episode which concentrated on robotics and limited AI technology. Sort of interesting.

A couple of things stuck out. The first was the Personal Satellite Assistant http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/projects/psa/overview.html , which was very Star Warsy in it's design. What was disappointing was that the show didn't address the similarities between it and the Torture Droid at all. For a show with the title, The Science of Star Wars, you'd think they'd want to interview the inventor/designer and ask him about the influence. The funny thing was that it actually looked like a special effect because we're not used to seeing a floating ball capable of moving like that...yet it is entirely real. Cool.

The same thing goes for the ROBONAUT http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov whose head design is almost exactly a copy of Boba Fett's helmet. The picture in the link I've provided shows it somewhat, but when you see the helmet in motion, you get to see it from all sides and can really tell that it's Boba Fett in front of you.

I believe that these have limited repeats if you happened to miss them the first night. Check your local listings.

[Mad Slanted Powers]

I saw the one on robots the first week, and part of the space cowboys episode. Tonight I saw the one about war and warriors. The part on the Shaolin monks was interesting. About all I know of them is from the Kung Fu TV series (both the original and The Legend Continues that aired years later). I should read up on them a bit.