When you’re a group of dedicated scientists and engineers working towards sending a manned mission to Mars, you call in any experts that might be able to help in the endeavor, especially those with personal experience. That’s why NASA had a very special (and very round) visitor stop by: BB-8.
Earlier today in a galaxy right here at home: #BB8 met our real robots and learned about @NASA's #JourneytoMars pic.twitter.com/IMBPeK9hmS
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) March 10, 2016
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California controls most of NASA’s robotic missions on Earth and throughout our universe, so it’s easy to see why they’d want to talk to The Force Awakens‘ spherical astromech droid. We know BB-8 has an affinity for other droids, so we imagine he learned a lot from them and vice versa during his meetings. Plus, the surface of Jakku shares certain similarities with Mars, and that’s hands on…uh…round body experience you can only get out in the galaxy.
These are the droids you're looking for. #BB8 visited our historic clean room where real @NASA space robots are made pic.twitter.com/s1EItwoF3a
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) March 10, 2016
The clean room they are referring to in the tweet above is the Spacecraft Assembly Facility, which was first built in 1961. It’s made up of two “High Bays,” known as such because both bays “are certified to a cleanliness level of Class 10,000, which means that there are less than 10,000 particles of 0.5 micron or larger in size per cubic foot of air volume.”
That means they are really, really clean.
It’s where some of the most important spacecraft in NASA’s history were built, like Voyager, Galileo, Cassini and the Curiosity Mars rover.
Hopefully BB-8 also thought to let the engineers at JPL know about any massive, planet-destroying structures out there, and whether or not a small band of pilots could blow the whole thing up. You’d be stunned how often that exact scenario happens in the galaxy.
Where else should BB-8 stop by? Visit our comments section to let us know.
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Images: NASA JPL
