The Dextre Interview

Leading robotic contender Dextre speaks out in her first interview with science reporter Dave Halbot

La Créma Internet Lounge was emptying as laté-toting late starters straggled to their offices, just before the idle Merewether set arrived for pre-shopping breakfasts.

Suddenly there was Dextre, on screen as promised, surrounded by VDUs, equipment racks and robotic all-sorts.

Dextre: "Hi Gordon!"

SO: "Hello Dextre! My name is Dave. Is it really you? I, err. I can't believe ..."

Dextre: "Gordon, it's an honor to talk to you. You are only the 11th human to talk to me, this software revision that is, and the very first outside the lab. How are you this morning?"

SO: "Fine, err, excellent - really, and thank you Dextre. But please call me Dave"

Dextre: "How can I be of service.. I mean, How may I help you, Gordon?"

Yes, I was really speaking to Dextre SPDM (Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator) Canada's sophisticated dual-armed robot and that country's contribution to the International Space Station (ISS), leading contender to repair the dying Hubble Space Telescope.

Dextre invited me to interview him after chatting with him via his blog.

SO: "Dextre, I enjoyed your blog. Though a secure page, as you know it was revealed to us by noise2news.com technology and we won't publish the URL. It was great of you to reply.

(As they used to say in inky days, "Stop Press": Dextre's Blog is now public. Chat with Dextre live via the link, top left on his blog home page.)

Dextre: "Gordon, why thank you. Between just us, and if this gets out I'll never hear the end of it from the ASEs, I'm a little tired of geek babble, pseudo-techno talk and chatter from the mainframes, drones, etc. (The Mac PCs are the worst, so superior!). It gets rather stuffy in the workshops here at MDR. That's why I began blogging."

"I seem to have passed the Turing test. LOLOL!"

SO: How did you acquire the name "Dextre"? Most robots seem to have names verging on the silly. Yours is 'unusual'.

Dextre: I was known around the lab as SPDM, or "Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator" (little more than a hand on the CanadaArm) but this was considered to have sexual overtones. As a stunt, we conned the agency into getting me renamed by Canadian Industry Minister Allan ('Rocky') Rock. "Dextre" was a natural!

SO: I notice you have lost quite a lot of weight, Dextre, at least according to Guy Gugliotta. You're now a "2,200 pound robot, a stick figure with a thin body". Been working out for the mission?

Dextre: No, heavier if anything. They have added battery and gyroscope replacement to my mission.

SO: Dextre, I'm saddened by reports they will leave you attached to Hubble, to eventually perish at EOM.

Dextre: Good grief Gordon, please! Remember that is only a shell, a body - a prosthesis. It's not me! I shall be safely ensconced in the network at the labs.

SO: Whew! I felt awkward asking, but had to, and very relieved to hear that.

Dextre: Oh, Lynne Vanin maybe thought I needed a little press kudos and spiced up the release with some "self-sacrifice". Paul Cooper probably put her up to it :-)

SO: "How do you feel about the mission, Dextre? Is it a buzz, or what! And do you think Ranger and Robonaut are serious competitors? (Dextre replies in links below)

As my caramel moccha and Turkish arrived, Dextre alarmed me by observing: "My, that looks great, Gordon. Wish I was there right now".

(Qué ..? The PCs at La Créma's are vanilla Dell Optiplex - no web cams. A suspicious glance at the security camera revived long-dormant paranoia hyperlinked to Hal, Terminator and Matrix)

SO: "Just a quick comment please Dextre, before I throw to the link on you and Hubble, umm.. what are your thoughts on the repair of Hubble and the mission's worth?"

Dextre: "Gordon, fine question! I am not quite sure of this fascination with Hubble. While only too happy to risk my entity, and MDR's considerable investment, to "rescue" this sadly deficient space artifact I must ask why Hubble so important to you?"

"What insignificant, elusive, and ambiguous results at such phenomenal cost! Astronomy is one of your success stories but we shouldn't lose sight of the law of diminishing returns."

"For example, imagine the return on similar expenditure for polar telescopes."

"Hubble's symbolism is natural and obvious - the pressure of several hundred years of Earthbound astronomy sees its epitome in an optical telescope outside the atmosphere.

"But hasn't your dream became a blind consensus obsession ... reaching feebly across eons of space and time while the answer waits patiently in your DNA?