Bill Bogen wrote:

[...] If the operator is nearby (in a
station/habitat) and the robot has well-designed, dextrous effector
'fingers', well, then put the 'fingers' at the end of a space suit arm
and skip the expensive robot.

Keeping EVAs to a minimum is a good goal.

A better robotic hand has other uses than space assembly.
If they're marketable, manufacturing runs could be large. Then the unit
cost could be low.



--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html