Reminds me of Kobold, the asteroid in Larry Niven's novel Protector.

Looks like it would be just as difficult to play golf on.

They are interchangable with tires, not permanent.

Oh yes, exploring new lands is a waste of money. We should pull everyone out of America, knock down the skyscrapers and erase it from the maps.

So how much is this in comparison to what the American government spends improving America? 1%? 0.1%? 0.01%?

Though as I live in England I'd be quite happy if NASA dropped this and ESA headed the project.

I'd have to agree that American politics is neither near nor interesting.

I think the power cable theory is a good one, although the arms would be there to stop the cable coming off entirely. If you attempted to wrap it around just the arms it would slip down to the middle bit. The slot would be for the plug that you unwrap too rather than the one at the end that you'd wrap/unwrap.

It could also be some sort of heavy duty nail remover, the slot being slipped under the head of the nail with the front two handles being grasped and the back two acting as the fulcrum.

The top spikes on the second item seem to be too short for impaling anything. It's also a very different construction from the sword catchers linked. Is the surface of the top right spike worn?

No guess from me as to that though, I don't have anything likely enough to try and find supporting evidence for.

I believe the wheel (the 'teeth' are buckets) rotates while being moved side to side against the mound of stuff to be excavated.

As the buckets go round the material gets dumped on the conveyer belt inside the arm.

Tasteless? Compared to what? The blood that's typical in other displays?