By Science News Staff

Web edition: July 2, 2010
Print edition: July 17, 2010; Vol.178 #2 (p. 4)

From the issue of July 16, 1960
One-eyed robot hunts objects lost in the sea — A one-eyed, swimming robot with powerful claw-like pincers is being developed for hunting and retrieving objects lost in the ocean at depths up to 2,000 feet. Solaris, as the robot is called, has propellers for motion. When its TV eye spots some object on the ocean floor, an image of the object is flashed to a monitoring screen aboard a surface ship, from which operators, by remote control, guide the 500-pound robot to its prey and make it clamp the find in its claw. At a depth of 1,600 feet, Solaris can patrol an area equivalent to 270 football fields…. It is believed the robot could … be used to recover spent solid-fuel rocket boosters.