NEW YORK: NASA astronaut Terry Virts has been living on the International Space Station since last November, so it would be reasonable for him to be missing his buddies back on Earth. On June 3, a “historic” handshake between Virts and an earthbound member of the European Space Agency proved that physical contact with people back home is a matter of grabbing a joystick.
With a screen streaming live video of ESA telerobotics specialist André Schiele mounted to his left, Virts reached out his right hand and gave the joystick in front of him a firm “handshake.” Back on Earth in the Netherlands, Schiele had his hand wrapped around an identical joystick.
“The system worked even though the Space Station was flying over 5,000 km away,” Schiele said in a post by the ESA. “It felt as though Terry was extending his arm down from space to shake my hand.”
The real purpose of the new technology is not simply to make lonely astronauts feel a little more connected to home, however. Ultimately, the hope is that this will help researchers better explore the surface of Mars and perhaps even other planets. Since humans do not yet have the means to land on Mars and return to Earth, the ESA plans to use the system to allow astronauts orbiting a planet to vicariously explore its surface through robots.
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