Government funded research – in this case by way of NASA – can birth or give rise to the fundamental building blocks of industrial innovation. Wired covers an out of this world application for biomimicry…
Adhesion-wise, space presents a couple problems. First, robots typically struggle with uneven surfaces, let alone the kind of cliffs and crags you see on Mars. Second, space is kind of gravity challenged. “Out in zero gravity, even pushing tape against surfaces is difficult,†say Jaakko Karras, a robotics electrical engineer at JPL. Without gravity to anchor your feet to the ground, it’s easy to run afoul of Newton’s third law…
More gecko feet coverage in Zygote Quarterly #17.