See the spider-like lunar lander developed by AI

Artificial intelligence could help in our hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence. The moons of Jupiter and Saturn are two of our most promising leads in the hunt for alien life, but they're hundreds of millions of miles from Earth. Given the high cost of transporting payloads in space, NASA is currently in search of anything that could help decrease the weight of exploratory landers -- and AI is proving it might be up to the task. On Tuesday, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and software company Autodesk unveiled a lander designed to explore environments like those of Jupiter and Saturn's moons. The team developed the lander, which looks a bit like a spider that's missing half its legs, using a technique known as generative design.