Artist's rendering.

Looks like DARPA is still hard at work combing through that office video library for new ideas. Wired reports that the Pentagon's resident mad scientists have just released an update on their Phoenix project, an attempt to make satellites less earth-shatteringly expensive. And what have the brains in the basement (we assume their office is in a basement and also looks like the set of the IT Crowd) dreamed up? 

Basically, it's Wall-E in space.

As Wired explains, the plan is to "have space robots pluck functional antennas off of dead satellites floating above geosynchronous orbit, and combine them with small, modular 'satlets' into new, longer lasting communications satellites." So it's recycling, but via robots and in outer space.

Finally, a use for all that space junk zipping around the heavens! The trick is going to bringing the costs down far enough that it's cheaper than just launching a whole new satellite.

Here's a video illustrating the concept, with an appropriately synth-heavy planetarium-style soundtrack:

Mr. Senna, right, with his Wall-E. (Photo: Sennaswalle)

Mike Senna, the man responsible for creating a life-size R2D2, has again pored himself into the construction of a beloved movie character. And this one's bound to tickle Pixar geeks: he made a working Wall-E!

A programmer by day and a hobbyist by night, the Orange County-based Mr. Senna spent two years painstakingly combing through Wall-E in order to build a life-size, functioning replica of the film's titular character.

According to Blastr:

Until now WALL-E only existed in a computer. There were no schematics, no pre-existing parts, nothing. Senna had to watch the movie over and over again to get all the movements right, develop the robotic elements himself, and then put it all together. He spent at least 25 hours a week working on it (he also has a job), and estimates that it probably took anywhere between 3,200 and 3,800 hours to finish the project. Oh, and he paid for all of it himself.

Damn, that's commitment. If only Mr. Senna could build a functioning Eve, we imagine they'd be a big hit at weddings and birthday parties.