No, not that kind of monster. But a two-armed space station robot that will rise like Frankenstein from its transport bed.
QUOTE |
Putting together Dextre, the robot, will be one of the main jobs for the seven Endeavour astronauts, who are scheduled to blast off in the wee hours of Tuesday, less than three weeks after the last shuttle flight. They're also delivering the first piece of Japan's massive Kibo space station lab, a float-in closet for storing tools, experiments and spare parts. For the first time, each of the five major international space station partners will own a piece of the real estate. At 16 days, the mission will be NASA's longest space station trip ever and will include five spacewalks, the most ever performed while a shuttle is docked there. Three of those spacewalks will feature Dextre, which is sure to steal the show. With 11-foot arms, a shoulder span of nearly 8 feet and a height of 12 feet, the Canadian Space Agency's Dextre - short for dexterous and pronounced like Dexter - is more than a little intimidating, at least for astronaut Garrett Reisman.... |
I think this will help in some of the later maneuvers that the space station will have to do as it grows. Soon they should have enough parts to start start having a permanent crew up there to live and work in outer space. Then it is a short jump to build and crew a ship that can take people to other places in our solar system. DO more exploration.
Space shuttle ending record visit
The US space shuttle Endeavour undocks from the International Space Station at the end of a record mission.
Ref. https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7312016.stm
I hope they keep on sending stuffs up to the space station. They need to send it up higher in a geostationary orbit thus making way for the space elevator. Get part of it to move to produce a artificial gravity and we can have a nice place to live and work up there.
Yeah. I think as things get more bigger up there the chances of a accidental hit increases. With all the junk up in orbit that also can increase the chance of a objecting hitting the space station. This is also a big concern for the space elevator if they get the space station in a stationary orbit.