Clock Ticking for Hubble

DoraLives writes "Ok then, what are we going to do with Hubble? Eventually, it MUST come down. The New York Times has a piece that addresses this less than pleasant (at least for the astronomical community) subject. Additionally "The decision about what happens then has been complicated by the breakup of the Columbia." Read all about it."

Comments

*sigh*

[gerardrj]

I just find is pathetic that the U.S. can't find $600m to refurb the HST. We're spending about twice that EVERY DAY on operations in Iraq.
Just pull the troops out two days earlier and there you have it... enough cash to service the Hubble twice!

My opinion is that the HST should be retrofitted with a small nuclear power source (like those on the Voyager series) and send out of the solar system. But unlike previous missions were the probes were sent past the outer planets, we should send HST perpendicular to the Earth's orbit, so we can look back "down" on ourselves and surrounding stars/planets.

I can't recall if the solar system plane is about parallel to the galactic plane, but if so this would also give us a tremendous perspective on the galaxy that we haven'y had before. Yea, yea it would take a decade or two to get to a distance that would mean anything astronomically, but it has to happen some time, why not now.

Re:Thoughts of why private is better.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm certain that it would have brain-dead simple to convince GM or Ford or DuPont to spend billions of dollars to build, launch, and maintain something which produces pictures of objects in space. In fact, I seem to recall that NASA had to sue a number of such companies to keep them from launching several other pure science satellites which had no commercial value. Stockholders in those companies were outraged that the attempts of their management to dump billions of dollars into altruistic enterprises were thwarted by evil bureaucrats. Idiot. Get a clue as to what private companies do and why and how they do it.

Re:Hubble?

[anthony_dipierro]

We spent so much time, money and effort fixing it, why not spend some more and upgrade it for another decade of use?

Same reason many people will junk an old car which they've spent lots of time, money, and effort fixing. It's nearly the same cost to just buy a new one as to fix the old one, and the new one comes with more features.

Re:Thoughts of why private is better.

[metatruk]

one of the worst possible things that can happen to a government program is ..... that is becomes successfull. At that point it becomes an entrenched bureauocracy that sucks the air out ofanything else that might have been a viable or healthy alternative. The moon race isn't the only example, SSI, public education, medicade/medicare are all drastic and sorry failures.

Drastic and sorry failures? Do you have any evidence to back your claims that all of these programs are failures?

Let us imagine for a moment what things would be like without public education.
For one, a lot of children would receive *no* education. Either because their parents could not afford it, or because their parents did not believe that education is a necessary component of a democratic society.
Secondly, many high school graduates (of private high schools) would not be able to attend college. Even public college tuition is expensive these days.

Another interesting thing about publicly funded research is that it benefits everyone. The goal of publicly funded programs is to benefit our society as a whole. The goal of privately funded programs is to make money for the company. If something isn't ultimately profitable, it won't get funded, even if it is beneficial in other ways.

Re: Thoughts of why private is better.

[Black Parrot]

> I was just thinking, what happened to the space program is a classic example of why it's better for things to be privatized. I mean, one of the worst possible things that can happen to a government program is ..... that is becomes successfull. At that point it becomes an entrenched bureauocracy that sucks the air out ofanything else that might have been a viable or healthy alternative. The moon race isn't the only example, SSI, public education, medicade/medicare are all drastic and sorry failures. I really feel sorry for the prople who truely believe in them.

I find myself wondering whether you've every had a job. Surely even the most casual observation reveals that private enterprise doesn't have all the magical properties commonly attributed to it. Failed or discontinued projects in the private sector are a dime a dozen, as are pet projects that get funded on the basis of which manager is the best suck-up rather than on the basis of which best satisfies some other requirement (even if that requirement has no higher social goals than raking more gold into corporate coffers). Waste and "dumbsizing" of good projects seem to be the rule in the private sector as much as in the public sector; you're just less likely to see them in the news or hear them harped on for political exploitation by radio talkjox.

That's expensive sentimental claptrap

[jez_f]

Sure hubble has done great things for astronomy but it is just a hunk of metal (and other materials).

I am sure that I still have my first computer somewhere in the loft but that didn't cost me $600 M to keep.

Wouldn't be much better and more respectfull to the exsisting peice of metal to spend the money you would use preserving it to build a bigger better teliscope. (what happened to the idea of building arrays of teliscopes in orbit?)

A lot of the things in the air and space museam are replicas anyway, one more won't hurt.

So use low accel thrusters

[adoll]

The Deep Space 1 spacecraft was propelled by a TINY amount of thrust over a long period. Mounting tiny low acceleration thrusters at a few structural strong points would do the job in a few months. Likely can't use the telescope during that time because even that low accel is likely to goof up the gyroscopes that hold it steady. But that is preferable to the alternative

-AD

Re:So use low accel thrusters

[DerekLyons]

The Deep Space 1 spacecraft was propelled by a TINY amount of thrust over a long period. Mounting tiny low acceleration thrusters at a few structural strong points would do the job in a few months.

DS1 is a very small space craft, so small thrusters with small fuel tanks, and small amounts of thrust made sense.

HST on the other hand is a *very* large object weighing 12 tons. Your solution is not practical because thrusters and fuel systems the size of DS1's would barely nudge the HST. (Remember force=mass*accelleration and acceleration=thrust/mass.) Even producing .001G of acceleration on the HST means you need 24.5 pounds of thrust, which is well outside of the range produceable by thrusters of the type used by DS1.

No propulsion and fuel system currently available or in development can boost the Hubble. Not that matters because the Hubble has no attachment points for such thrusters anyhow.