> No life support... That was the point, no humans, just the 'bot. And 
> it
> doesn't have to be totally autonomous, it could easily just be a
> telepresence device with very slow "back and forth" of it sending 
> pictures
> of what the problem is and the ground teams back here programming a 
> sequence
> of motions to try to correct it.

For many years I have considered that ALL deep space craft should have 
such a capability. A general purpose "robot" that can travel anywhere 
on the surface of the craft and perform basic mechanical manipulation. 
Having a person on board would be even better, but, given the already 
much discussed unfavourable logistics of this,  a very very crude 
facsimile would be far better than nothing at all.

FWIW, such a device on Columbia would quite probably have allowed 
detection of the damage, even if it was beyond repair. A 
semi-autonomous free flying remote inspection device was demonstrated 
by NASA many years before and then quietly abandoned.



        Russell McMahon

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