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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."
It was poor timing on NASA's part, really, because just when the latest and greatest pics from Hubble were gaining mass popularity, they wanted to pull the plug. Maybe O'Keefe isn't the savviest politician?
The HST is one of the coolest tools we have for exploration. I'm rather glad that it will be serviced, and thanks to our country's hat (Canada) for stepping up.
doesn't show up to throw a wrench in the works.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Dextre looks like a Lego bot. Is this how NASA plans to save money?
Great, but will it be able to service a device that wasn't built to be taken apart?
The Hubble wasn't designed to be entirely serviceable...that led to problems with previous servicing missions, most notably replacing the old defective mirror.
It looks like Dextre is supposed to be mounted to something before operating. Perhaps they're planning on a free controlled platform?
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O'Keefe is going to have to ask Congress for an extra $1.6B, which isn't budgeted. Isn't this about 5 times the amount a manned mission costs to do the same thing?
Is it worth it?
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
Err, wait. I retract my statement. I was thinking of the Canadarm.
I'm surprised someone modded me insightful already.
Dextre is a clever name for a two armed robot. In classical latin Dexter is the right hand and Sinister is the left hand. That is why we call people who have "two right hands" ambi-dexterous. I'm not going to make any jokes about left handed people being sinister in case they ended up with all the mod points today.
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!
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
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.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
I'm just happy that they decided not to ditch the Hubble.
Ditching it may be stupid, but this is crazy. 1.6 billion for what? It's replacement is only slated to cost $824.8 million
Gimmy a freaking break.
Here's a good link from the Canadian Space Agency's web site on Dextre (Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator): http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/csa_sectors/human_p re/iss/mss_spdm.asp
Is the $1.6B cost of this in US or CA funds? 'Cause I got about $1.6B Canadian back in change from my Value Meal yesterday...
--AC
There are some good robotics folks in Canada. Most notably are the Canadarm (robotic arm on the Shuttle) and a few deep diving ocean exploration vehicles that have very advanced robotic arms and such on them (one of which, with some cosmetic changes, was used in "The Abyss").
You need to read up on Canada's history in space. We put up the first commercial communications satellite (no bouncing signals off of a baloon!), have the worlds most powerful communications satellites, built a synthetic aperture radar satellite with such precise imaging capabilities that the US refused to launch it, and the list goes on.
The pride of Nova Scotia serves better purposes.
Its replacement also isn't scheduled to go up for another 7 years. And doesn't factor in the cost to get it up there yet. Or the labour to build the thing. Or the cost of fixing it when the inevitable problems crop up.
I'll give you a freaking break right away.
MD Robotics has played a vital role in NASA space programs. It's the same company that has built the CanadaArm and CanadaArm2 and is now providing with Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator for HST.
I am very proud to see Canada (and MD Robotics, since it has a development lab in my hometown) play a vital role in ISS (with CanadaArm and CA2) and now the HST.
I thought I read somewhere that while the JWST would "replace" Hubble, there was still some things that Hubble could do that JWST couldn't.
Is that true?
>>Ditching it may be stupid, but this is crazy.
I guess the main reason is that the damn thing is still cranking out incredible images and has a huge waiting list. Besides I consider the so called ditching solution by O'Keefe to be extremely lazy. If the replacement is so inexpensive, why not eventually have both devices serving the scientific community?
Does it seem like NASA made the most publically sucsessful project into a false sacrificial lamb in order that they might both increase their budget by special appropriation and appear to be managing their budget by cutting costs on supposedly outdated hardware.
It seems that their gambit is paying off. The public (ok, a bunch of geeks) wailed loud enough that congress is willing to consider special funding.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
Not to mention humour, eh?
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
This would also set a precedent for adding new capability instead of spending huge sums to maintain the old stuff. Why shouldn't we have several Hubble-type scopes instead of just one, anyway?
Sustainability and energy independence essay
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.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
The whole organization should be nuked
from orbit -- it's the only way to be sure.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
We have the mod points everyday, Dexter...
--
You can't even do our secret handshake
HOSERS HOBBLE HUBBLE!
:)
Would be an appropriate headline for the newspapers, I think
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.
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...
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
Like the arm, it's a teleoperator, controlled by somebody with joysticks.
Given how much a shuttle flight costs, it would probably be cheaper to just run off another copy of the Hubble and launch that.
Dextre has a sibling robot named Dee-Dee, which is always messing up his work.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
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.
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That's only one tenth of the total NASA yearly budget. Definitely worthwhile so we can have pretty pictures for the few years between the Hubble and the James Webb.
This should be interesting... let's see how this one is spun. First it was BUSH HATES SCIENCE! I'm guessing we'll be back to BUSH IS PROPPING UP HIS CORPORATE CRONIES WITH CONTRACTS this time. Or do I hear a conspiracy theory dealing with how this was all a underhanded ploy to get more funding than originally provisioned?
Honestly, I'm probably not creative enough to come up with a high-quality spin. *sigh*
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.