Autonomous space robots could assemble large telescopes, habitats

Peering deeper and deeper into space will require telescopes with huge mirrors, but building, testing, and transporting those super-scopes will be a daunting challenge, a conference of future space leaders was told Thursday. Alberto Conti, a Northrop Grumman manager, said the James Webb Space Telescope, currently undergoing tests, has a mirror that's about 21 feet in diameter. Even at that size, Conti said it is difficult to find a facility large enough to test the mirror and a spacecraft that can transport it to the orbiting International Space Station. His solution, echoed by Jay Falker of NASA, is to use robots to begin building and testing the telescopes – in space, where there's plenty of elbow room. Robots in space were just one of the "wicked cool technologies" introduced at the Future Space Leaders conference on Capitol Hill last week.