NASA Tricorder

It’s shaped like a basketball. It was inspired by Spock’s tricorder. And, if NASA researchers have their way, it could be helping out astronauts aboard the International Space Station in as little as three years. The Personal Satellite Assistant is a robot prototype designed to buzz around the space station, performing a variety of jobs for astronauts and mission controllers: monitoring life-support systems, keeping tabs on the day’s tasks and reminding space scientists how to do their experiments right — via boingboing