Scientific American Online tells how Red Whittaker launched his career developing robots to help with the cleanup of a meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Station near Harrisburg, Pa. that occurred on March 28, 1979. It was the worst accident in the history of nuclear power in the United States and it took 10 years to remediate.

The Carnegie Mellon University's front door also featured a story on how Red and his students built robots to help clean up TMI.

Background Information

Carnegie Mellon University Professor William L."Red" Whittaker launched his career developing robots to help with the cleanup at TMI. He and his students designed and built three different bots for the job. Two of them -the Remote Reconnaissance Vehicle and the Core Sample, built in 1983 and 1984, respectively, were sent into the flooded basement of the reactor building and operated remotely. They were outfitted with cameras, lights, radiation detectors, vacuums, scoops, scrapers, drills and a high-pressure spray nozzle. They surveyed the site, sent back information, drilled core samples to measure the radiation level of the basement walls. The third robot, called Workhorse, a gorgeous stainless steel monster, was never used. Ultimately, Red bought it back from General Public Utilities Corp. (GPU), owner of TMI at the time of the accident for $1 and it's on display down at the Robotics Institute's National Robotics Engineering Center off campus in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh. You can see bellow pictures of the robots.
Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3.

To commemorate the anniversary of the meltdown, which took 10 years to remediate, the State Museum of Pennsylvania, located in Harrisburg, has unveiled an exhibit that includes a prototype of the Remote Reconnaissance Vehicle (also built by Red, et al, but reserved for testing, spare parts, etc.) along with other artifacts related to the event. Because of his experience with TMI, Red was invited by the (then Soviet government) to visit the site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which suffered a a pair of explosions that destroyed a reactor on April 26, 1986, sending tons of radiation into the atmosphere. It was covered by a sarcophagus, now leaking and the problem is still out there simmering. Red couldn't help them because of various trade restrictions with the Soviet Union in place at that time. However, in 1999, Carnegie Mellon researchers under Red were part of a consortium that included NASA, JPL and several other national labs that delivered a $2.3 million robot called Pioneer to the site at Chernobyl. It was displayed with some fanfare, but was never used. You can see bellow pictures of Pioneer.
Photo 1, Photo 2