Slashdot Mirror
Hubble Getting an Upgrade
instinctdesign writes: "The New York Times (free registration of course) is running a story on the planned upgrades to the one of NASA's greatest successes, the Hubble Space Telescope. Here is a quote from the article about the plans: 'Tasks include adding a new primary camera, replacing the telescope's electricity-generating solar arrays, replacing the main power switching controller, replacing a critical pointing device and installing an experimental cooling system in hopes of reviving a dormant instrument.'"
... to find Osama Bin Laden? I mean - it can't be much of a job pointing Hubble towards the earth instead of the faint stars? It would have been great to see some of the boring pictures of stars light years away been swapped with Bin Laden taking a shower.
--
Evil Attraction
This is good news. Yes, Hubble is indeed one of NASA's greatest successes. Remember when it was first launched, though? Everyone was talking about what a lemon it was. What a turnaround.
By the way, isn't NASA supposed to launch a successor to the Hubble in 2006? Is that still in the plans? The Hubble is wonderful, but it was built in something like 1981 (after which it sat in storage for a decade, deforming the mirrors). Just think what can be done with technology from the 2000's.
--Be human.
So, Is The New One An Opitcal, Or Wireless Mouse?
`Lex - Find Me Here: Text Appeal
We wil still be hearing about that same piece of flawed glass orbiting the earth taking better and better pictures with cameras that have been replace 10 times. Not that this would be a bad thing. All the Telescopes built on Kitt Peak are still in service in one form or another. The state of the art at the time .9m scope is now used by students while the new 4m scope is used by professionals. The expensive and heavy part being the glass, We will keep it in orbit and wrap new instruments around it until it gets hit by something big, like a bolt from Apollo 13.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
...mirrored?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
The Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) is the successor to Hubble. It is scheduled to launch in 2009.
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
Do the math $734 x 200,000,000 does not equal the NASA budget. Nor does the NASA budget even come close to the military or farm subsidies.
As far as getting the same results with radio telescopes, well I guess you should take some science courses, and perhaps an elective in photography.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
There were two mirrors made, and the company which made one of the mirrors (Company P) got to ``test'' them and decide which went to space. The mechanism they used to make their mirror, and also to check the mirrors was stuffed. Some the other mirror (made by Company K) stayed on the ground, and the buggered one flew. The rest, as they say, is history.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
more information about spy satellites
-Mark
Actually the entire NASA Budget for the last two years has been just under $15B with a full $15B budgeted for FY2003.
If you we take the US Census Bureau as an authority then the current US Population is about 286.5 Million.
$15,000,000,000 / 286,500,000 = $52.36, or almost exactly $1/week per American.
Plus, I find these statistics of cost per American pretty irrelevant, since the poorest 20% of Americans don't pay income tax and therefore are contributing nothing to run NASA. On the other hand, the Bush tax cuts passed last year by repealing the inheritance tax gave Bill Gates a $30B tax cut, enough to pay NASA's whole budget for two straight years!
Work for Change & GET PAID!
I would rather we screw up this planet so badly that humankind is forced to its destiny in space. There was even a Usenet group devoted to that. alt.destroy.the.earth or something.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.