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

Why bother?

[rabtech]

Are we going to run back to mommy every time we stub our toes in space?

Being on the frontier is dangerous; every single one of the astronauts knows this and signed up for it.

If any of them don't want to fly Space Shuttle missions anymore, then don't make them. But I'm sure enough would volunteer for a manned Hubble repair mission that it wouldn't be a problem.

Besides, we need to keep Hubble going; The Webb telescope is NOT a replacement for Hubble - it looks at different wavelengths; if we could ever get both of them operating at the same time they could be used in a complimentary fashion.

What does it get us?

[Engineer-Poet]

Hubble sees very well in the visible and the near UV, so if we want full-spectrum coverage of unknown objects we are not going to be able to get it with just the Webb telescope.