NASA's Zero-Gravity Robotic-Arm Partnership With Canada

AndreV writes "We've entered into an extraterrestrial quid pro quo with our Northern neighbors: After celebrating 25 years of the Canadarm's first venture into space, NASA has reached out (so to speak) to the Canadian Space Agency and begun research and development on a new generation of robotic arms, which would ultimately be used for the US agency's Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle that will provide transportation for Moon missions and jaunts to the international space station. In exchange, Canada will trade the robotic-limb technology's use on Orion and other future US-manned spacecraft for flight time for Canadian astronauts. And seeing solid results shouldn't be far off — the engineering company designing the bionic branch, responsible for the previous Canadarms, has already begun investigating the effects of zero gravity on their components. (Another forward-looking project being bartered for astronaut time is a rover for the Moon and Mars.) Fair trade?"

NASA's internal robot research

[Big Smirk]

NASA had a big robotics research going on in the mid to early 1990s. The big issue was cost. NASA was down sizing the space station and actively seeking other countries to help fund it. For a brief moment, Orbital Sciences won the contract to develop the arm for the space station. It was based on an underseas robot technology - just with much weaker motors and other environmental considerations (zero-g, zero pressure, grease tends to evaporate under zero pressure). Canada piped in and said they would build the arm if NASA pays. NASA essentially said 'nuts' and awarded the contract [eventually] to Orbital, only to pull it back when Canada said, "just kidding we'll pay for it."
So my opportunity to work on a really cool project evaporated.
Few months later Canada came to Orbital trying to figure out how we were going to do it so cheaply. "nuts" to them.
Anyway: http://www.robotics-research.com/ [robotics-research.com] and ultimately: http://www.robotics-research.com/SATBaysmall.jpg [robotics-research.com]

Not surprising...

[tjstork]

Canada has been building robotic arms for NASA for quite some time, and they've done their job well. Canada has been a good strategic ally, and there's no reason to switch vendors.

Re:Why not just trade with Richard Branson

[Gerafix]

Just because it is difficult to become an astronaut doesn't mean NASA is a closed system. Anyway, your other paragraph is almost nonsensical but I think I understand what you're trying to say. This whole "space thing" is 'relatively' new, so I'm not surprised only a few big nations are investing heavily into it. Eventually it will be globalized and NASA will have to find new ways to stay ahead of the game instead of just having a relative monopoly on the ability to launch people into space. This is rocket science after all...

Defending the Earth from the giant Space Monsters

[EdZ]

A little known feature of the Canadarm is a set of explosive bolts, designed that in the event of the arm swinging an object towards the station in a manner that it cannot stop, the manipulator can be jettisoned.

In essence, the ISS can rocket-punch.