That's the title of my piece at TCS this morning.

Just read your article in TCS and while its a fine piece of writing; I must take strong exception to your dismissal of telerobotic tecnology. Firstly, using Skylab as a refutation of telerobots is bizarre and the relevance of the Solar Max repair mission is something of a stretch since it used old technology and did not include anything resembling the two armed, dual camera, anthropomorphic robot using 2000's tech that was proposed. Since no comparable device has been tested on-orbit and given the absolute confidence expressed by the contractor based on ground tests, your conclusion seems premature.
Also, development of telerobotics on-orbit is an enabling technology which can increase human mediated activity in space by orders of magnitude versus spacewalking astronauts. The flexibility of humans to respond to the unexpected is actually increased if a telerobot is their tool since it is able to do things that would be to risky for the human and since it can stay on station hundreds of times longer. Untill a hard shell type spacesuit with dextrous gloves is developed, humans will be severely limited vs. telerobots. With TR the number and variety of repair and reboost missions will greatly increase while the lead times and costs go way down.
Admittedly there are many issues including the variable signal delay time to be solved but at the end of the day a new capability is developed not just a single repair accomplished.

Remember how long it took to get Hubble up there in the first place? Well that was done when the gov was in far better financial shape than now. I wouldn,t hold my breath.

Steve Mickler

I've replied to your comment here.