A Mini Moon Rover from the Toy Company That Created Transformers

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Takara Tomy, the toy company that created Transformers, has designed a rolling lunar robot called SORA-Q. It’s now en route to the moon.

missions will each follow a circuitous, months-long trajectory to the moon that consumes less fuel than a direct flight. If all goes according to plan, shortly before their main landers reach the lunar surface, they will eject various smaller probes, including SORA-Q. With its honeycombed aluminum-alloy shell, SORA-Q looks something like a metallic Wiffle ball and takes its name from, which means “sky” in Japanese; the “Q” is a homonym for the Japanese word meaning “sphere.

Takara Tomy usually spends a year developing a new toy, but SORA-Q took six: the team revised its plans again and again, experimenting with rough and non-slip exteriors before settling on one with holes. Drawing on the toymaker’s engineering model,built a final version of the rover out of aerospace-grade aluminum and plastic, incorporating miniaturized electronics and optics from Sony. It chose materials and components that could meet stringent weight, size, and durability requirements.

During the Second World War, Imperial Japanese authorities froze the toy industry and repurposed its factories to make weapons. Then, on March 10, 1945, American B-29s firebombed Tokyo. Downtown factory areas, where former toymakers and their families were clustered, were among the targets. In the most destructive conventional bombing in history, more than a hundred thousand Tokyoites perished, most of them civilians.

 

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