On Wednesday night Elon Musk posted a rather cryptic tweet, declaring that “Tomorrow brings a lemur,” which has fueled a huge amount of speculation as to what the SpaceX CEO was referring to. Hopefully the engineering magnate makes good on his word, and the meaning of the mysterious post is revealed soon!
While it is indeed true that Musk’s comment could have something to do with Tesla, most of the speculation on the coy and cute lemur that Elon posted to Twitter has to do with space projects, as Inverse reports.
For instance, many posters on both Twitter and Reddit almost instantly began throwing out the suggestion that Elon Musk’s coded lemur tweet may have something to do with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. After all, LEMUR (Limbed Excursion Mechanical Utility Robot) units are being worked on there.
These LEMUR units could certainly come in handy in the future, perhaps being vitally useful for SpaceX’s first unmanned mission to Mars — which is tentatively scheduled for 2022. During the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, which was held back in 2012, NASA were able to successfully show that the LEMUR IIB robot would be the perfect tool for investigating asteroid-like landscapes. The LEMUR model on hand was hailed as “the world’s first rock climbing robot.”
Tomorrow brings a lemur pic.twitter.com/rm6S17h35q
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2018
NASA’s LEMUR robots also have 750 hand-made claws, which would make them ideal for scouting out Mars. If one imagines what sort of work an entire army of such advanced robots could conduct, the possibilities seem endless from a research perspective. It is certainly plausible that Elon Musk could have been referring to these nimble machines when he posted his tweet.
However, these robots aren’t the only idea that has been suggested as the impetus behind Musk’s tweet. On reddit , one user noted that Elon could be referring to the 1969 Apollo Lunar Module — which is also called the LEM.
“Remember folks, the moon missions had the LEM. So I’m guessing SpaceX related to moon mission. LEMUR. Lunar Excursion ModUle Reusable. Lunar Excursion Module Ultra Reusable. Lunar Excursion ModUle Robot.”
Another user described the excellent vision that lemurs possess, pondering the idea that when Musk posted a second tweet which read, “You’ll see,” he may have been referring to the creation of something revolving around night vision. Such an invention or innovation could be related to Tesla’s autopilot driving system.
While the world will have to wait for the answer to Elon Musk’s lemur riddle, judging by the amount of discussion on the subject, the answer can’t come soon enough.
