In: Nørskov, Marco, Seibt, Johanna and Santiago Quick, Oliver (2020), Culturally sustainable robotics. Proceedings of Robophilosophy Conference, August 18–21 2020. Amsterdam: IOS Press. 86 Robot handshake in space: touch and liveness-to-hand in human-technology relations Chris CHESHER a,1 and David SILVERA-TAWIL b a The University of Sydney b CSIRO Abstract. In February 2012 Robonaut R2 and Dan Burbank performed the first human-humanoid handshake in space. The handshake welcomed R2 as a crew member, engaging with the robot as a social agent rather than just a thing to be examined or controlled. In this sense, in Heidegger’s terms, it is experienced neither theoretically as present-at-hand nor practically as ready-to-hand. We argue that it is instead experienced live-to-hand, given respect as an other. As such R2 is capable not only of executing programs, but also playing its part in socially choreographed rituals and everyday performances within a social gestalt. Keywords. Social robotics, human-machine relations, Heidegger, liveness-to-hand, phenomenology, post-phenomenology, touch 1. Introduction On February 15 2012 the humanoid ‘Robonaut R2’ (Diftler et al 2011) floats inside the International Space Station, horizontal to the camera, ready to initiate what Commander Dan Burbank claims is ‘the first human-humanoid handshake in space’ (VideoFromSpace 2012). It reaches its arm towards Burbank who reaches down to grab the outstretched hand. The robot’s fingers wrap around the commander’s fingers and they shake hands. They pause to have this historic event captured on camera. Ground control cheers. The offer of a handshake is related to gift-giving and establishes an obligation to reciprocate that Burbank respects (Mauss 1966). Like other handshakes, this is what Goffman (1971) refers to as an ‘access ceremony’, welcoming the robot to the space station as a fellow crew-member. It marks mutual recognition, establishing solidarity, and coordinating their shared activities from that point forward (Schiffren 1974). It asserts a certain manliness that Burbank reports it was a firm handshake (NASA 2012; Cranny-Francis 2013). This handshake is a socially choreographed action (Coeckelbergh 2019) in which the robot takes the lead. This contact between human and non-human hands embodies and symbolises the emergence of technologies that initiate active social touch and respond to passive touch, going beyond technologies that are controlled or examined by the hand of users. 1 Chris Chesher, Department of Media and Communications, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia; e-mail: chris.chesher@sydney.edu.au.