on 16-03-2008 16:08

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By Marcia Dunn
Associated Press
updated 1:56 a.m. PT, Sun., March. 16, 2008

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - The space station's gigantic new robot, Dextre, rose like Frankenstein from its transport bed early Sunday, enabling spacewalking astronauts to attach its 11-foot arms.

"It's really eerie out here. It's pitch black and there's just this big white kind of humanoid-looking thing below me," Linnehan said.

Dextre's hands were attached to its arms during the first spacewalk of Endeavour's international space station trip. This time, astronauts connected the arms to the shoulders, representing the bulk of the walking and working machine.

"Good work guys," astronaut Robert Behnken called out to his colleagues after they hooked up the first arm. "We've got a one-armed monster now." The second arm went on soon afterward.

Spacewalkers Linnehan and Michael Foreman had to use brute force and a pry bar to get one of the robot's arms off the transport bed, where it had been latched down for launch. Two of the bolts wouldn't budge, even when the astronauts banged on them and yanked with all their might.

"We're really having to get medieval on Mr. Dextre," Foreman observed.

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Last update: 16-03-2008 16:16

Published in : Bot News, Robots in Space

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