Let’s get ready to rumble! 🦾⁣ ⁣ Lights are out, as a prototype Moon mining robot – or formally – the ISRU Pilot Excavator tests out its digging skills inside Swamp Works at NASAKennedy, in Florida. ISRU stands for "in-situ resource utilization," a technical way of saying that you're using things that are already available someplace, rather than something you brought with you. It's like filtering water while backpacking rather than relying on water you brought in a canteen. ⁣ On the surface of the Moon, mining robots like this one will excavate the lunar soil, or regolith, and take the material to a processing plant where usable elements such as hydrogen, oxygen and water can be extracted for life support systems. ⁣ Image Description: In a dramatically lit, dark, sandy pit filled with fine-grain dust, a robot sits in the center of the image. The robot is made of four wheels with deep treads, they have a red rims on the outside of their black spokes. Elevated above the four wheels are t...