Canadian Robot Could Rescue Hubble

NETHED writes "We have all seen Stories about The Hubble Space Telescope and its current problems. Since then, NASA has okayed the fix of the HST. It seems that America's neighbor to the North has some answers. Dextre to the rescue. The mission would not be decided upon until next summer says Sean O'Keefe. It seems that NASA saw this as a good way to listen to the public for about 1.6 billion dollars." Update: 08/11 15:45 GMT by T : Reader Michael Mol dug up a link with a more technical explanation of Dextre, noting "It looks like Dextre's normally supposed to be attached to something before it performs work."

Comments

Canadian Manufacturing

[isa-kuruption]

Dextre looks like a Lego bot. Is this how NASA plans to save money?

Got the arms down,

[Aerog]

Okay, we've proven that we're good at building huge robotic arms. Canada == Huge arms in space. Now what about some legs, eh? Then, once we have the legs, if we put some funding into it we could put the two together and build some giant Canada-space-mechs. It's cool even without the "giant robot" factor.

1. Build huge space-mechs
2. ???
3. Profit!

It practically sells itself!

Re:Popular opinion wins out?

[amightywind]

Does that make Mexico our ass?

Re:NASA has become bloated, fat, and lazy

[kahei]

The whole organization should be nuked

from orbit -- it's the only way to be sure.

Sinister secret society

[revery]

We have the mod points everyday, Dexter...

--

You can't even do our secret handshake

If they try and things go wrong,,,

[Microlith]

HOSERS HOBBLE HUBBLE!

Would be an appropriate headline for the newspapers, I think :)

Re:Repairs

[Tackhead]

> That's $824.8 million in NASA budgetary estimate dollars, which are not the same as real dollars.

And it's scheduled to launch in 7 years, which any astronomer knows, doesn't imply that NASA is measuring time in Earth years.

As a rule of thumb, NASA schedules appear to use Martian years, occasionally using bodies in the Asteroid belt when Mars is feeling uncooperative. For instance, ISS will take 5 years to complete, the Galileo probe will arrive at Jupiter in 1986, and so on.

The Space Shuttle has an interesting history: initially projected to achieve 50 launches per year (using Martian years), revised down to 10 launches per year (using Ceres or Vespa in the asteroid belt for year measurement), and now targeted at 6 launches per Jovian year.

The Avro Arrow

[theonomist]

Let's not forget another Canadian technological triumph, the Avro Arrow.

According to the most reliable sources I've been able to find, the Avro Arrow...

1. Was the first fly-by-wire aircraft.
2. Was the first MACH2+ production aircraft.
3. Invented baseball.
4. Painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
5. Made the Kessel Run in under twelventeen parsecs, provided that it got a good night's sleep and a running start.
6. Actually did know that a parsec is a unit of distance rather than time, but, being Canadian, was too polite to point out the error.
7. Ran Linux.
8. Was assembled entirely using those Robertson things.

Where's the outrage?

[Sloppy]

This robot (and a foreign outsourced one that that!) threatens to take jobs away from American workers!

Those of you who defend technology and globalism, I hope you can look an unemployed American astronaut in the eye while you explain your position. And be sure to explain who is going to put food on his family.