While the past week has been filled with tragedy, there is thankfully some good news to report. During the last flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery before its retirement, the first humanoid robot in space, Robonaut 2, was delivered to the International Space Station. The Robonaut will mostly be running through tests to determine how well its design works in freefall, but it is hoped that with enough data and fine-tuning Robonaut and other robots like him could be used to perform menial or dangerous tasks, freeing the human astronauts for more involved research duties.

We don’t usually report on real life robotics news but the irony here is perhaps too good to ignore. The progenitor of Real Robot anime series, Mobile Suit Gundam, explained their giant “mobile suits” as being upsized versions of the worker pods used in the construction of space colonies. While the concept of these worker machines was mostly an excuse to explain away giant robots as realistic weapons, NASA’s Robonaut 2 will hopefully be fulfilling exactly that role on the ISS: helping construct humanity’s space outpost.

The helmet also reminds us of some of Gundam’s mobile suits in its design, with the stylin’ gold-blinged head being reminiscent of Zeta Gundam’s Hyaku Shiki or the more recent Alvaaron from Gundam 00. And the shape of the helmet visor makes Robonaut look like the smaller brother to the venerable GM (which has inspired other designs, such as none other than Halo’s Master Chief). Most amusingly, Robonaut was developed by a partnership between NASA and General Motors, meaning that there’s a big ol’ “GM” sticker on the bot itself! The classic Gundam fan debate as to what, exactly, “GM” means might finally be over…