Robot Helps NASA Refocus On Hubble

The ailing Hubble telescope keeps refusing to die; jdoire points out this story at the Washington Post which reads in part "Largely because of the Canadian robot named 'Dextre,' NASA has gone in less than a year from virtually writing off the Hubble to embracing a mission that will cost between $1 billion and $1.6 billion and approach in complexity the hardest jobs the agency has ever undertaken." (We last mentioned Dextre back in August.)

Comments

Repair? Replace!

[colinemckay]

For the 1.6 billion (or more) dollars that a repair mission would cost, with a good chance of failure, would it not be better to throw together two or three replacement Hubbles? The development work is already done, the mistakes recognized, and the bugs ironed out. So putting together a couple of replacements should be relatively cheap (say, about $600 million each, including launch.) That would open up all sorts of possibilities such as interferometry, at the same cost, and a lower risk.