According to reports, in the future it may become possible for NASA robots to climb the walls of space station. They could make use of grippers that are inspired by feet of geckoes, which are super-adhesive.

As per reports, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, are making a "gecko gripper" system, which could assist robots in inspection and repair exterior of the space station, and possibly carry out different activities in Earth orbit. A video explaining the gecko space robot concept was released by NASA on Wednesday.

JPL engineer Aaron Parness said, "We might eventually grab satellites to repair them, service them, and we also could grab space garbage and try to clear it out of the way".

Feet of gecko aren't sticky in the way a tape is. The lizards are dependent on millions of small hairlike protrusions, which become strongly adhesive when bent as a result of a phenomenon known as van der Waals forces.

Even an uncharged molecule consists of a positive side and a negative side for the reason that the electrons orbiting nucleus of a molecule aren't spaced evenly. As per experts, the positive side of a molecule draws the negative side of nearby molecules, and vice versa. It leads to generation of the "stickiness" with help of which geckoes climb walls.

Parness said the lizards are able to activate this adhesive force by putting their feet down and bending the small "hairs". According to him, "This is how the gecko does it, by weighting its feet".