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NASA Debates How And When To Kill Hubble Telescope
Amy's Robot writes "The Washington Post reports that after 13 years of wear and tear, the Hubble telescope may be on the way out. NASA and some outside scientists have become involved in a heated debate about how and when to end the Hubble telescope program. Keeping Hubble in service until 2020 would require an extra maintenance visit by astronauts at a cost of at least $600 million. Some even worry the batteries could fail by 2010, since the next maintenance visit has been delayed by the Columbia accident and space station priorities. Is it worth maintaining our old friend Hubble, or should NASA let him go out in a blaze of glory?"
"How And When To Kill Hubble"
Professor Plum will use the candlestick in the library next Tuesday.
Trolling is a art,
Why? Its up there, lets use it till gravity takes its course. (Or it fails mechanically)
~ Maintainer of the Skajake Projects
Yes I think hubble should be maintained. At least until we get the Lunar observatory built. Then you will get some cool picures of hubble crashing into the sun.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
I propose in the conservatory with the candlestick.
Oh...and when? Just after he's changed his will to leave everything to Anna Nicole Smith and his Shitsu.
Time to start planning Hubbleson, instead of burning money keeping the old one patched up .. in the end we'll have a much better telescope.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
First, I'll preface my comments by stating that I think the Hubble Space Telescope has been a fantastic boon to science. It has allowed us to peer farther out in space, and farther back in time, than we ever thought possible. This has helped increase not only scientific awareness among the public, but also helped push for greater funding for space-related enterprises in Congress. After all, there's nothing like a picture of a quasar, burning brightly as it streaks around the sun, to hypnotize a mentally deficient Senator into loosening the purse strings.
That said, I think the government has been spending far too much money on the telescope over the past few years. Sure, at first it was cheap and easy, and the "oooh's" and "aaahhh's" of delighted schoolchildren certainly help drown out the cacophony of "this costs HOW much?!" cries from whistle-blowing dog washers. So, perhaps, then it's time to make this enterprise profitable! I've been hearing a lot about space tourism, and I think this could be just the ticket to turn this failing boondoggle around.
How much do you think Lance Bass, Kenny Blankenship, or Julie Ahoolian would pay to travel to space to look through the telescope with their own eyes? I'd imagine quit a bit! Then, they could even turn the telescope around, and use it to peer back at our own home, Mother Earth. I bet you could see your house from up there! The only thing that worries me is that they may use it as a sun-focusing death ray to burn up enormous swaths of our fair countryside. However, that is a small price to pay to keep the Hubble up and flying, and to please celebrities.
The funds from this, of course, will pay to maintain the telescope. Also, keep in mind now that China dominates the skies, maintenance on the telescope could be outsourced to cheap Chinese immigrant labor. This seems like a win-win-win for all concerned, and I encourage you all to write your congress-people, and tell them, with one clear voice, "Keep our Space Microscope Accessible to Celebrities with Chinese Coolie Labor!"
Cool slide show of Hubble photographs at http://wires.news.com.au/special/mm/030811-hubble. htm
seems fairly cheap to me, compared to what it would cost to build and launch a new one
the ISS, so they can look at all the pretty wimmins here on earth.
I can't remember how Hubble was put up there - was it on a shuttle? If so, how feasible is it to just rope the thing in and bring it back? Is it worth the effort to do so and just fix it up, retrofit it, and re-launch, vs. dropping it out of the sky and building a new one?
It'd be great if they could bring it home in the Shuttle and put it in the Smithsonian... I'm certain the museum would hang it from the ceiling!
--Rob
This may sound idealistic, but whether they choose to prolong the mission or not, NASA should definitely consider bringing back the Hubble. It has tought us so much about the universe, and it's such a great piece of History that it's worth to be displayed in a place like the Smithsonian.
R,Somehow there needs to be a way to gaurentee a next generation before ditching our current technology.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
Aww, sounds like someone got turned down for welfare... again.
Better luck next time.
Stop wasting money on pipedreams. Spend it on our national defence and economy.
And we should have spent the money on exactly what?
(My vote - try to see if the hubble can be brought safely back to earth. For its museum (and hopefully) insperation value. )
To push it out of our orbit, and see what kind of images is gets while it heads out of our solar system (and beyond maybe)? Or is is calibrated in such a way that it can only serve its purpose from our orbit?
Give the "hunk-of-junk" to me... I'm sure I can find many... uses, for it... **cough** SETI@HOME **cough**
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
Hubble bubble, toil and trouble...
Seriously, without knowing how much work is involved, would it be possible for NASA to retreive Hubble with a shuttle after a routine mission had been completed? Hubble has taught us so much it deserves to be retained in a museum somewhere. In a way, it's been as important to astronomers and astrophysicists as perhaps the Wright brothers' flyer was to aviators. It would be a crying shame to let it just burn up in the atmosphere.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
It's already beyond its original expected mission lifetime. It's worth maintaining, if it were just a matter of money and labor and willpower.
However, the very real issues of the unforeseen logistics hurdles can really shift the equation. Shuttles don't fly this year. Congress is in a cut-taxes, cut-spending mode. Space Station gets the focus of any meager space program priorities in the interim.
[
I wonder if they can keep things going for a while by auctioning off time of the telescope? I doubt they could raise 600 million, but I'd bet they could keep things going for a while.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I mean in 13 years, how much is it that the Hubble telescope can see that it hasn't done yet? Is it now mostly "humm has anything changed" or is the exposure time so long and the focus so small that only a small part of the sky has been charted?
If it's the former, let it die and make a new, stronger and better one and send up. If it's the latter, fix it up and keep it running so it can continue to do its thing.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Shouldn't this kind of discussion occur before we send Tons of metal/glass into space with the possibility of it comming back down? That said, whoever sent it up on the shuttle should send the shuttle back to retrive it. This whole "let it fall back to earth" way of dealing with our space trash is going to get someone killed. Part of any launch budget should include retrival costs that go in an Escrow until it's time to go get it.
Post: Sigged, for your pleasure.
It would be incredibly difficult, as well as dangerous to bring it back, but it would be really, really cool, so maybe it's worth it.
;-)
As for when it should be decommisioned, it should happen when we have a replacement for it, it is a great research tool and we can't afford to lose it. Ground based telescopes are so limited. Besides, how else are we going to look back 8 billion years if we don't replace it right away? Something might happen
The hubble is powerful enough it could probably even see you hiding under your bridge waiting to catch innocent newbies passing about your wee little head.
--Rob
They can turn it around and use it to spy on americans.
Attach a rocket pack and crash it on Europa. Might take some interesting pictures before impact.
If you haven't read the article, just taking amoment to read the first paragraph really summarizes it to me. I was just a teen when Hubble was launched but the images of space that Hubble gave me were a personal experience, though I have no connection to the industry of space exploration in the slightest.
...On the other hand, didn't they think of all these things 13 years ago when the were launching Hubble?
To me, it seems like destroying Hubble is not a fitting end to a tool that has built so much for us for over a decade.
So I wonder, why are devices like Hubble not built to be retooled - built with some type of standard socket connections so batteries, comupters, lenses, etc. could be more easily upgraded by swapping out major units and bolting them together on a frame just like a computer?
Would a shift in design principles not be the ultimate homage to Hubble, that it would live on as inspiration for developing space exploration devices that were upgradable?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Do you think Taco Bell might set up another target for it to hit. Then the world could get free Chalupas...
Turn the shuttles over to the USAF, let them launch one of them out of Vandenberg when they have to, and dump the Government-funded civilian space program.
Further work on space propulsion systems should be moved to the Department of Energy.
Anyone who has seen Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie knows how this will end...
"Mike killed the Hubble! Mike killed the Hubble!"
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
But clever uses for space junk don't result in checks written to "campaign donators." Isn't that why we went to war in the first place?
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
Hubble is a SPY SAT to point at earth.
Others exist taht do it bettter, That is why it is allowed to die. It was 85% science and 15% classified spying.
You never hear about the spying part under penalty of imprisonment.
That damned huge thing points down at earth at times, though not its most sensitive sensors that can theoretically get stressed.
Its a spy sat. i do not care if it dies that much.
rather than putting it into the Atmosphere, why not put it up on Ebay.
one deep space telescope. has seen where no man has seen before.
used, with millions of miles. as is, where is.
been refurbed a few times but will let go to
good new home. procedes will go to new programs.
They should just keep Hubble up long enough until the replacement is up and working. Otherwise, we will suffer a significant lapse in astronomical research.
As for what do with it once it's deactivated? I say we try scavenging it for parts and drop the rest into the Pacific. The UV/IR sensors and whatever else is on board must be worth something to someone...
The HST has been an incredible success. Not to launch a discussion of national priorities, but we seem to have plenty of $$$ for plutocratic tax cuts and Earthbound warfare ... might as well keep the Hubble alive until something better comes along, or it stops producing good astronomy (unlikely).
... we need to ditch the shuttle. It has drastically limited our space exploration and was never meant to be our sole launch vehicle. It's also ten times more expensive than it was supposed to be. Space plane, next-gen rockets, whatever -- just move on, NASA.
That said
Of course that will require funding too. Maybe they should tax dividend income.
Crash it into the moon - we can then finally see if that flag is up there.
Send some elementary school kids up there. If they don't destroy it by doing the monkey bars on its delicate superstructure, they'll hasten its suicide by circling it and chanting, "One Eye, Got One Eye, One Eye, Got One Eye!"
Ask it what time it is, then when it looks at its wrist, hit it with a hammer.
Rename it Old Yeller. Dad'll put it down, while you weep into your dusty wool shirt.
Just put a Democrat on it! It will be sure to 'mysteriously' crash, probably in a wooded area full of hippies.
Does anyone remember just how much MIR was sold for on EBay? I mean... it seems that if people are willing to pay 10K $ for a piece of genuine space junk fished up from the Pacific, it would almost be profitable to send up a couple of shuttles and sell it by the pound on auction..
At least in production. Being part of the great observatory project, it has specific wavelengths to observe.
It doesn't have to be the ultimate scope, but we should have a visible light observatory, located outside our atmosphere.
Then can we send it the way of the Voyager crafts? A Kevlar(tm) vest around it to protect from microdust, escape velocity perpendicular to the Milky Way, and if we're lucky, some other civilization will find it and use it to look at us.
Hubble this instead of something that you're highly unlikely to see!
and send a better one - you know, one with a proper reflector this time...
I wonder if it's at all possible or feasible to figure out a way to attach it to the space station. Then it can be either maintained by crew on the station from time to time (since the space station seems to be where we're keeping or interests/people), or slowly scrapped. There's gotta be a few million $$ of parts that can be reused on that sucker, no?
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
Lets hope that NASA thinks carefully about it. It would have been useful to have Spacelab or Mir up there. Hubble still has a lot of usefulness even at US$ 3/4 B. The science that we have received has been awesome.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This guy is talking through his hat. If anything would cause Chinese immigrant laborers to organize and demand overtime, it would be continuous bombardment with deadly high-energy cosmic rays. Just wouldn't be cost-effective.
Though I'd think they could purge the tanks and drop all of the consumables to loose a lot of mass, and the reaction wheel assemblies I believe are on the bottom edge where they could be quickly detached in orbit and ditched.
--Rob
Therefore a logical decommissioning date would be just after the new scope is up and checks out functionally.
Has anyone thought about automating this stuff? Make these things modular so unmanned robots can do the servicing and updating. Embed little marker tags into the craft so an approaching repair-bot can find its way around, like those robots that follow colored lines on the floor.
--- Ban humanity.
I just had a fancy thought that it would be interesting to shoot robots at it and attempt to maintian it with automation. Rather than use astronauts use it as a test platform.
Instead of "sacrifice the extra servicing mission for the Hubble or give up many years worth of smaller, fast-response space science missions," make a fast-response mission be the repair mission.
NPR Science Friday discussed this back in early August:p rgId=5&pr gDate=8-Aug-2003
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?
Also it's been discussed in many journals and periodicals going back several years.
Personally I think we ought to keep Hubble going until there's another VISIBLE LIGHT optical scope in operation in orbit, or until earth-bound adaptive optics catch up.
There's another scope due up in 2010, but it'll doubtless be pushed back, and it's an IR scope so it won't do the same kind of science that Hubble does.
Adaptive optics are already able to make the best earth-bound scopes do better than the Hubble did before its first servicing mission (when they corrected its mirror) - if you remember, at the time even with the misfigured mirror it was better than earth-bound scopes.
Does it have to be burned up/crashed into the ocean? Is it not possible to bring it back safely, and put it on display in a museum? I know it would be expensive, but it seems like Hubble has had a significant enough role in astronomy to try and preserve it.
There have been several options listed
a - burn it up
b - bring it back (maybe if the transporter survives the trip)
c - patch it (and give up other items)
and myabe others I missed in the convoluted article.
But one I didn't see in the article was to give it a good hard shove and put it into solar, or translunar orbit.
If this option were followed there would be a chance that it could be retieved later when bugdets were better, or could serve as a permanent exhibit in an solar space museum if we ever get serious about getting off this rock in a more permanent way.
The destruction of our orbital heritige is a symptom of our throw away society, the mass has been moved the hardest part of the journey.
Why waste the effort spent by turning it into terrestrial litter.
If we learned anything from the movie 'Independence Day', we know that any spacecraft can be brought down by a virus. So NASA should just fire up the 'ol Powerbook and upload a virus to bring down Hubble. Problem solved.
Free tacos for everyone!
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The Hubble is arguably the most productive space science mission ever flown. The rate of discovery continues to be very high. I would argue that until its replacement, the James Webb Telescope is in place and operational, that the Hubble should continue to be fully used and funded. There is simply no reason to bring it down.
an ill wind that blows no good
Or develop some multi-billion dollar, space-qualified gimbal mounting.
Nah, the attitude/orbital requirements for the scope and the station are just too different.
Plus the vibrations from the space station everytime someone sneezes or touches anything would probably ruin your images.
--- Ban humanity.
We shouldn't keep doing costly upgrades .
Also isn't possible to build a newer,bigger version of Hubble for less money. Say a billion dollars ?
And also why does it take so long to build a space telescope. Why weren't we prepared for a replacement ? Is ground based going to cut it ? Keck ?
Nasa projects interferometer mission in 2009 but not soon enough.
The Hubble Telescope has a 2.4 meter primary mirror (it's a Ritchey-Critien type Cassegrain design). Hubble's successor is currently in development and will have a 6-meter multi-cell primary mirror. This will give the James Webb telescope roughly 25 times the light-gathering ability of Hubble. Improved electronics will let the new telescope resolve objects about 400 times fainter than Hubble.
What's more, the new telescope will not be in low Earth orbit like Hubble. Instead, it'll reside at the L2 Lagrange point which is about 1.5 million KM from Earth. This means it's a one-shot deal. It has to work right the first time: there won't be any manned repair missions. One of the benefits of sitting at the L2 point is that it can be oriented so that one side always faces the sun...put a good solar shield on that side of the telescope and the rest of the telescope will remain frigid...essentially, you get a cryogenic cooling system for free.
The Hubbell was placed in just about as high an orbit as the Space Shuttle could reach. If left alone, its orbit will take quite a long time to decay. So, the Question really is, "Do we need to have this telescope up and running 100% of the time?"
If we can't afford $600million now, maybe we can afford to set aside $100million per year for a while. Various people have suggested various schemes, such as selling lottery tickets for viewing time. Meanwhile, let the Hubbell hibernate until we're completely ready to send a mission. Then go get it. First grab it an put it into the Cargo Bay, to carry it back up to higher orbit. Then fix and let loose.
How can you call something "old" that's barely hit puberty???
Ohhhh, I bet that's the problem -- curly hairs on the lense.
What does it mean to wake out of a dream
and be wearing someone else's shorts?
BNL, Born on a Pirate Ship (1998)
Just attach a Segway to it. That way when the batteries get low, it will just fall over and burn up.
i think it's obvious that the job should be left to Zap Brannigan
Did you know that "FTW" ("for the win") is a direct translation of "Sieg Heil"?
Or, "lens" if you're not paying attention to your message...
What does it mean to wake out of a dream
and be wearing someone else's shorts?
BNL, Born on a Pirate Ship (1998)
One B-2 Stealth Bomber --> $2.2 Billion USD
15+ more years of Hubble --> $600 Million USD
which would contribute more?
Why does the space station take priority ? they should scrap the ISS and start planning new orbital telescopes. most of the real valid research is done with hubble, and the dmand for time on it is outragous. NASA is a failure because it focuses on money sinks that do nothing.
Earth-based telescopes are not necessarily limited.
The VLT Array in Chile, when fully operational, will produce images with greater resolution than Hubble, using adaptive optics and interferometry.
The downside is that you are more limited in where you can point it; however, most of the more interesting astronomical stuff is visible from the southern hemisphere anyway.
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
if the HST is working now- why not just use it till it breaks
We don't want another Skylab, with the whole world wondering where it will crash. Hubble is a rather large satellite (nothing like Skylab, but still quite large), and NASA doesn't want it falling on a populated area. Electronics wear out (especially in the harsh environment of space), batteries die, etc. If it is going to be brought down safely, it must be done while it is still functioning, so the de-orbit can be controlled.
Even before Columbia, there were only a couple of more Hubble servicing missions planned, before Hubble was decommissioned and replaced by the Webb telescope. The service missions have now been reduced to one, and they'll get everything that they think is reasonably possible out of it, but then they need to give up on Hubble and move on.
Deorbit Hubble and attach it to the ISS. Since the Hubble is 590 km above the earth (or 6960 km from the centre of the earth) and the ISS is 500 km above the earth (or 6378 km from the center of earth), use a well timed deorbital burn could send Hubble slowing coasting to the ISS.
at a nude beach in Brazil and then charge your average /. reader a small fee to view the pics.
600 mil in no time and then you can face it back to space.
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
...need I say more?
Now I won't claim that the ISS has produced zero science, but I will claim that it's a mighty expensive way to do science. Humans in space may win congressional votes, but they're a pretty expensive way to do research. Remote control machines such as the space telescope, the Mars landers, Voyager, etc. have produced much more science for much less money.
If we let the ISS drop, there's be plenty of money to keep Hubble running, build its successor, send machines to Pluto, and a ton of other stuff. Unfortunately, the political reality is that Congress and the American public aren't particularly interested in the actual science. But we're willing to spend $2.5 billion per year because we think astronauts are cool!
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
We could do like Moon Base Alpha! But then, it would be a nuclear disposal site, and would knock the moon out of orbit when a weird electrical storm overtook the disposal site.
This sig no verb.
If we can afford to launch an unmanned rocket to bring it down, we can instead use the same vehicle to boost it into a higher, safer orbit. More space junk? Not really - the space junk we're worried about now is not the big goodies, but the countless loose bits of debris that are so hard to track - yet so bad to run into.
So why boost it? We have no shortage of the raw materials used to build the Hubble here on earth - but getting goodies into orbit is very expensive. At some point, hopefully soon, quite a few bits of the Hubble could be more valuable as space salvage, than as burned debris on the bottom of the Pacific.
Homeless, will code for sigs.
Might it be a good idea to just sorta launch it towards a planet that we want better pictures of? it can't cost that much to strap an ion engine to it... That would get us some really great photos of stuff we just can't see that well from here, like Pluto
"73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
2. Put it into an orbit that'll whip it around a few planets and into the sun
3. Snap pictures all the way
4. No Profit!!
yes +1 Funny, but its a serious idea at the same time
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Why not just leave it up there? I would be neat to leave it up there for someone to revive 100 years from now....
My potato gun was confiscated by the United Nations. They said I wasn't allowed to have weapons of mash destruction.
Someone please mod this up!!!!
NASA is considering spending $300M for a special unmanned mission to deorbit the Hubble 'safely', instead of letting it just reenter. Given the risks this is a disgusting waste of money.
If anything indicates that NASA is a risk averse bunch of middle management buffoons that needs to be pried lose from the purse strings they're grasping, this does.
Several people here said we should bring the HST back to earth in the shuttle - and lots of other people have explained why it's impossible - I beg to differ.
The shuttle can haul 63,500lbs of payload up to orbit - but it can only carry 43,500lbs on return to earth. However, the Hubble only weighs 23,500lbs - it's BIG - but it's mostly empty space. So it's NOT impossible.
However, consider things like retracting those big solar panels - I doubt they were designed to retract under power - there are probably all sorts of other reasons you can't bring it back - but shuttle cargo capacity isn't one of them.
Personally, I'd vote to build a replacement - get it up to orbit - then either bring Hubble down on the same shuttle - or get rid of it in a controlled crash.
www.sjbaker.org
Remember Skylab?
Yes, Skylab! It was the first manned space station, and it was american! well, anyway, instead of worrying about TODAY and keeping it operational with TODAY's technology, the pie-in-the-sky nasa engineers decided to wait until tomorrow's technology could save them from poor planning.
Do I see history repeating itself?
MARK MY WORDS: If they allow Hubble to de-orbit, in order to free up cash to build a new replacement, THERE WILL BE NO REPLACEMENT FOR A VERY LONG TIME. Remember, this is Congress, isn't it? And this is a country filled with half-ignoramus who get all their news from Rupert Murdoch.
Cue "Dueling Banjos" - "How come we spend all this money on space monkeys when we don't have no jobs down here?"
Of course, you try to inform these people that NASA has a very small budget - pratically non-existant next to the defense department's big money handout, and that many of the NASA programs are actually at the behest of the Department of Defense, so that their "real budget" for science is very very small.
Cue "Dueling Banjos", again: "But we don't need no science, we need jobs"
Of course, this man is retarded - but he actually represents the majority sentiment.
Now, of course, to you and me, we see the hallmark of a productive society as scientific research. And we are smart enough to know that science for science's sake often has a fantastic impact on everyday lives, etc...
But, this hayseed has a congressman, who also wants to know why you crazy science people want $600 million just to look at the sky.
So, keep in mind - if Hubble fails, their will be no timely replacement.
Crash it into the sun - works all the time on Star Trek.
Hubble's a marine, a real trooper. But why take a chance?
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
This article sums up the scientific value of Hubble so far: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3115159. stm
I appreciate your insistence that the only reason to go into space is for scientific knowledge, but I don't think your premise regarding manned space flight is correct.
All the knowledge we gain (scientific or otherwise) is ultimately tied to the fact that we must eventually leave this world if we are to grow as a species. Eventually, manufacturing, mining, and even our quality of life will depend on this.
I also don't see how burning up an unused/unfinished $13 billion dollar investment is considered a plus for all the people who have paid for it. I also don't see how you can gauge the scientific potential of the ISS before it's finished and has a full crew dedicated to experimentation and science.
I agree that we should find a way to increase NASA's budget. I believe there is no reason to down the Hubble if we can service it and it remains useful. I don't believe the way to accomplish either goal is to abandon manned spaceflight, or cannibalize it for other programs. We spend 400 billion on our military every year, surely we can find a way of cannabalizing THAT boondoggle before picking on any of NASA's current budget?
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
Something I've wondered for awhile...why not use a rocket to shoot stuff like this straight at the sun? Gets rid of the space junk problem and it's not like we have to worry about polluting the sun. Surely it couldn't cost $300 million to accomplish that compared with that same amount to burn it up safely over the pacific. Seems to me like that'd be a good method for disposing of nuclear waste also...we already have containers that can withstand rocket launch failures. Granted we have many tons of nuclear waste that would be expensive to launch out, but how expensive is it to build storage facilities and get approval through Congress? Not to mention those folks living in New Mexico for whom no amount of money can be much consolation for having the country's nuclear waste in their backyards.
It was too much to ask to make the design rely on robotic repair. We had to include it in the ridiculous series of projects that require a human presence in space. Instead of spending a couple of hundred million (more? less?) on tele-operated and quasi-robotic equipment, we will destroy a telescope that cost about 6 billion dollars. There is one word for this result. Stupid. Or maybe a pair of words, colossally wasteful. Or maybe a whole series of words, but I'm sure you all are quite capable of composing them.
While we're at it, make the telescope time Open Source-ish. Allow anyone to (a) submit observation requests, and (b) download all data from all observations. Hm, that would take a big server or something. I know, how about hubble.slashdot.org? :-)
We could all vote on what gets observed, with the top 100 winners each month actually being observed (or something).
I'm guessing that the reason they don't use L3 already is because there is too much space junk accumulating there, but this is a what-the-hell solution, so we don't care much. Maybe the solar panels will get smashed by some junk, but at least the bulk will be relatively preserved (compared to re-entry burn) for future space museums!
[ReidNews]
Until we have something better. If there is an indefinite limit (battery life) it should be pushed for all its worth until it dies. However the safe disposal/recovery of the unit should be discussed.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
If they don't want to pay the full $600 million to maintain the thing, all NASA has to do is outsource the maintenance contract to the Chinese - isn't that the reason China has a space program?
He's just a troll in search of karma!
Don't get sucked in!
"current recommendation is to extend it - if we get the shuttle back...that discussion happened on the hill a couple of months ago... basically it will get less useful over time. There is some talk that even when the shuttle goes back up, they may limit it to Space Station only flights. That would mean no upgrades or rocket boosts for us. the next telescope doesn't get launched until at least 2012, so if nothing happens with Hubble, we will have a 2 year gap of no major observatory. And that will hurt here a lot. Hopefully we can get the Shuttles back up and running soon. That would be best. As long as they are safe."
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
If you use chemical rockets, it would take quite a bit of fuel to boost Hubble. But with solar electric, as for example is being used by Smart-1's ion engine, you wouldn't need much fuel at all. NASA doesn't seem to like doing innovative things like solar electric though (well, they did use it on Deep Space 1, but that was just once so far).
Energy: time to change the picture.
Planned, needed instrumentation might get canned to save Hubble.
They should just sell Hubble off, maybe another country or group or private enterprise might find it useful enough to maintain it.
Why space objects need to be burnt up in the atmosphere? Is there really that much of a danger of leaving them in orbit?? Why can't Hubble (or Mir before it) be left in orbit for the time being?
Yeah, a little backwards from the Indiana Jones quote, but it'll do.
If there's a dog, or person, or whatever, that is named after the "Hubble Telescope," is it then called "Hubble Telescope?" Do these people know who the telescope was named for originally, and how much of an honor it truly was?
If there's a dog named "Hubble," then he was named after Hubble himself, the scientist, and not some fricken telescope. The world should know better.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
for those who don't know, the whole point of a nuclear reactor is to provide lots of heat to boil liquids for a turbine generator. You wouldn't need to do this if you can use all those microwaves and hard radiation floating around space. con: water is heavy. pro: water blocks radiation and it never needs replacing
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
pack it full of explosives and let it fall somewhere in Canaduh. Kill two birds with one stone.
Cost of operations in Iraq so far: $85.38B and growing.
Gotta love this countries priorities.
Beware blue cats moving at
The easiest solution to resolve the issue, end the vicious debates, cut expenses, and recoup some of the costs all at the same time is already known. They just need to follow the example set by everyone else who has some annoying junk they want to get rid of...
Sell it on ebay.
Just don't forget the standard clause of "Buyer is responsible for paying delivery charges."
It also reminds me of a joke:
Q: Why did the French Navy switch to glass-bottom ships?
Ans: To keep an eye on the old French Navy
But excuse me, isn't 600 M$ chump change compared to 87 B$, which the congress ponied up rather quickly? If NASA really have to get rid of it, why not donate it. May be some private donation can maintain it, or Russia or China or ESA? Or how about ebay?
What's the possibility of placing Hubble inside a special re-entry vehicle (perhaps a big tube with heat shield) and parachuting it down like the old apollo spacecraft did? It's seems like such a waste to destroy such a significant part of space history.
When all else fails, run.
"What the hell is that thing?"
"It appears to be the mothership."
"Then what did we just blow up?"
"... The Hubble telescope."
Long live Brannigan!
"You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is...never try. Heh!" -Homer
$600 Million ?
Not even enough to make a line item !
Too bad there is no energy in space,
like the Oil in Iraq.
the main problem with fixing the hubble is not price, but the availability of scare resources, namely shuttle flights. The best solution would be to outsource this to a country with lower wages *coughCHINAcough*
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
We have probes that have been outside the reach of earth for over a quarter of a century and they are STILL sending back information and Hubbel is already on its way out? Maybe they should just find a way to attach it to the space station or something. Not sure why there is such an emphasis on 'reusable' craft as opposed to permenant space based solutions. Granted I understand that things become obsolete, but shouldn't they be done in such a way that we can keep them fueld (or attached to ISS) and keep using them?
This sounds incredibly wasteful!
Average people can understand visible light.
Quality photos are a benefit in themselves. Yes, I know the hot discoveries have been in other areas recently, but there is still science to be done, areas of space to be explored, at the optical wavelengths.
At this point in time, we could probably get a huge percentage of the HST capability with a re-configured DOD spy satellite design for about $100M.
This would be great if it was in reach of schools that can't afford big science.
they can land it in or significantly around the area of Lindon, Utah.
That would be okay then, I suppose.
All Ad hominem replies happily ignored as the sender shall be deemed to lack the faculties to comprehend the equation.
Our government sure has some messed up priorities.
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
The second one failed in April. If Hubble only had two working gyros, it would be shut down until repairs could be made (as was done in 1999). Three is the minimum required for pointing the telescope (one for each dimension).
The director is given some hours of observation time to distribute outside the normal proposal channel. These have been distibuted to school children competitions, amateurs, sudden extraodrinary astronomical events, etc. I havent heard of auctions.
Back in August, a NASA panel recommended keeping Hubble:
pdf link at nasa
But they did want proposed experiments to go through another round of peer review.
Maybe they need another spy satellite.
Or, they could use it as an offensive weapon. Focus the rays of the sun and fry cities!
Or perhaps they could use it for some kind of solar collector/intesifier to provide power?
-- Have you ever noticed that at trade shows, Microsoft is always the company that is handing out stress balls?
This popular gem, held by a great many people, is a patently ridiculous assertion. It is hardly a "fact," it is an arbitrary belief akin to the tenets of many magical-religious cosmologies in which some bountiful, perfect afterlife awaits us after we shed the grim chains of earthly suffering. It is intellectual rubbish. It ignores the physics and chemistry involved in spreading human life to other celestial bodies. It ignores the costs involved, and how the costs of derived products and services will be affected. How much do you think a can of Coke will cost if its aluminum can is made from bauxite mined on a distant asteroid and refined on a hugely expensive space complex? Homeless people who gather aluminum cans for resale would suddenly become aristocrats. How long do you thing it will take to make Mars habitable? How much will it cost? Will we need to bring in water, atmospheric gases, and other materials? From where? Is it even possible to do? Where will the heat and light energy needed to make it earth-like come from? How will we transport any significant fraction of the human population? At what cost, how long will it take, how will they be selected, what will they do there, etc.?
At a deeper level, believing that escape from earth is an ultimate solution distracts us from the pressing need to reorganize human life on earth to make our continued survival here possible. It is doubtful that we can survive as a species on our home planet with our current use of planetary resources. Nevermind the pie-in-the-sky idea of moving to another planet.
Get real, pal. It will be centuries before your magical beliefs can be brought to life, and you must prepare for the distinct possibility that they cannot be carried out in any recognizable way. In either case, we'd better spend our limited resources wisely, and stop believing in fairy tales.
and maybe we can discover what planet Darl is from.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
What the deal here is obsolete hardware. Some people throw away old computers, others keep them as reminders or parts or whatnot. What I think would be a nice option for NASA is to keep it intact until the Space Elevator (http://popularmechanics.com/science/space/2002/7/ going_up/) is built (I have high hopes for the project, no pun intended) and then bring Hubble down. That way, NASA can study what happens to an object that has been in space for 20+ years (by the time the elevator is completed) and brought back down, they can recycle old hardware, check out the data that wasnt sent, and have something to display as a definite success. God knows they need something to prove to the people that they can do something right. My generation really only knows spactacular failures, we didnt get to see the moon landing or sputnik. NASA needs to take this opportunity and use it well.
Save Sam and Max!
I think they should rent time to male college students to look into female student dorm windows or to look down on nude or topless beaches. Imagine the resolution? They'd certainly raise enough cash to keep Hubble going for at least another decade. They could use paypal. Instead of calling it Hubble Space Telescope they could call it the Hubba Hubba Nudiescope!
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hubble-03a.html
Can A Soyuz Service Hubble And Save A Bundle
"..there may be yet another alternative, cheaper and far less risky than a Shuttle servicing mission, but much more scientifically productive and cost-effective than simply letting Hubble fail within three years and replacing it with a far less powerful replacement satellite. It may be possible to fly one or more manned servicing missions to Hubble WITHOUT having to use the Shuttle... the OSP won't be available until 2008, and it's extremely likely that Hubble will have lost enough gyros to remove its ability to make science observations by 2006 or 2007 -- although it could probably be kept alive long enough to wait until the OSP repair mission is ready. Is there any way to fill in this serious gap in its science observations? Perhaps, for there is yet another manned vehicle already available that might be adaptable to the purpose -- the Soyuz."
Why not attach a thruster pack on it using an unmanned robot launched whenever and then have the Hubble pushed into a lunar orbit. That way we can preserve the Hubble (unless something small and fast hits it) and it will be in a great location for potential future use. I can Imagine the first moon base scientists taking on a "restore the Hubble" as a small project as from the moon getting into lunar orbit is so easy to do. yeah you would need to send the spare parts to the moon for such a thing to happen, but with the Hubble parked it would be a do-it-our-own-time kind project. Sure it wouldn't be as good as what we would have at the time, but it would still be very useful. If anything giving universities or other organizations "hubble time" on the cheap could help to pay for it.
I would hate to see something as wonderful as this work of art burned up.
I wonder how he has been doing with all these solar flares...
Why attach automated guidance rocket to make it splash in the ocean? Firstly, that is expensive. 2nd, I think it would leave a bad taste in my mouth to have Hubble end its career by polluting the ocean with debris.
Why not have a automated guidance system throw it into space, in the general direction of the sun, and let gravity do the rest?
Or....
Blow it up with a huge friggin' space gun! Not that we have any....
*whistles while walking away*
I say we use those big honkin' lenses to make the worlds greatest magnifying glass. Then we demand payment from certain wealthy individuals, celebrities, and heads of state. If the don't pay, we focus the sun's rays to fry them.
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
You are attempting to read sigs. Cancel or Allow?
Man, hearing that hubble is 13 years old makes me (on the virge of turning 25) feel old. I was 12 when it was launched but it doesn't seem that long ago.
*sigh*
Where's my walker?
University - a box of academia nuts.
Just leave it on Jay Leno's doorstep. He made enough on jokes about the "nearsighted" HST before it was fixed.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
That way we keep it safe for our grandkids to visit when we finally get space tourism off the ground...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I'll take it till it stops working so I can turn it towards Earth and into unsuspecting windows. I could sell subscriptions to the Hubble peeping tom Webcam.
Eat at Joe's.
Hubble is one of the VERY FEW things NASA has gotten right! Spend the $600 Million to fix it. Hubble has done more for science than the space station EVER will. It's like shooting a horse simply because it's old, even though it can still win a race.
... on the moon. I know it would take more fuel to get it there and down safely than to drop it on Bush ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H in the ocean, but that would give us another reason to get back to the moon.
What OS does Hubble use, anyway?
the /. effect!
"Hey Mike, you hit something"
"It's the Hubble!!"
"Mike killed the Hu-bble! Mike killed the Hu-bble!"
I have lots of tinfoil that will be auctioned off on ebay as "offical Hubble debris" when they do burn it off.
and chase politicians around like ants with a magnifying glass.
I can see it now:
One day while giving a speech in Iowa about local farming standards, Bush is suddenly bathed in white light.
Farmer Joe: Would you look at that, I rekon George is somekind of angel with all them lights and all.
Farmer Ted: I rekon your right Joe.. The war on Iraq must have been just if he was an Angel. Say. you smell bacon or somethin?
Farmer Joe: By bejesus your right Ted. It's a makin me hungry. I could eat a whole pig right now. Where you rekon it's comin from Ted?
Farmet Ted: I think it's George.. he's sizzling in his own crisco juices.
Farmer Joe: It must be like one of those Jesus last supper things, where he sacrifices himself.
--The town swarms the president--
By the time we need to de-orbit we will have OBL or SH location pinpointed, and it could serve one last purpose to mankind. (or at least do some creative removal of wasteful locations, like that decrepid little building along the river in NYC, or whatever building the French president happens to call home... sorry, couldn't resist).
makes a guy ill... we're so bloody casual about tossing out billions to build it, gazillions to keep it running and then to trash it... when, please, are we going to float something up there that'll do something practical, such as generate a few terawatts and ship same back here to bring the day closer oil is obsolete.
I'm curious if the lenses ands other glass components will make it through the atmosphere...
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
As I understand it, the current working plan is to send up a booster rocket to deorbit the HST safely into the Pacific.
But would it be all that much more expensive to send it into a higher orbit instead, where it can sit for two or three decades, and hopefully be retrieved when we have better space technology?
It seems like the basic task would be no more complex than deorbiting. I would think the only real issue is how large a rocket would be needed.
Why not turn it into a debris field stretching from Utah to Florida? That worked great when they needed to get rid of a space shuttle.
Besides, it gives amateur astronomers such as myself the opportunity to collect a piece of history. I still have a few pieces I found of the shuttle.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
This post as a +4 or +5? Y'all are hitting the crack pipe too hard.
--Rob
"Is it worth maintaining our old friend Hubble, or should NASA let him go out in a blaze of glory?" It is a tool. Not a friend.
Send up a crew to do repairs...
Then give it a good boost to send it out in the footsteps of our good friend in the heliopause...
Of course, all the naysayers will pop up and talk it down due to power requirements, payload, mods, orbits and orbital velocities for escape, the shuttle program, Bush, Congress, Osama...etc...kinda explaining why they don't have NASA jobs to begin with - negativism without even giving it a thought at trying it...
600 mil is nothing compared to our military budget. Let's get our priorities straight here!!
we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively - bill hicks
I can think of one thing we GOTTA do with Hubble before we de-orbit it:
Point the big end at the sun, and see if we can burn some ants!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Get real, pal. It will be centuries before your magical beliefs can be brought to life, and you must prepare for the distinct possibility that they cannot be carried out in any recognizable way.
And all of your whining about fixing the planet means nothing if we get hit by an asteroid or have some home-grown menace take out a good portion of the population doesn't it? I find it just as amussing that so many limited-thinking individuals like yourself feel there is some "do not pass" bar that dictates that we must solve all our problems here on the planet before we venture out like some moral policeman. Get off your moral high horse and realize that populations will continue to rise, humans will continue to consume, and we are thrashing this planet. Understand that just because human spaceflight is hard is no reason not to do it. You don't need to colonize Mars, or build inter-stellar ships to populate our own moon. We don't need to be 100% recyclable, tree hugging, everyone is fed utopians to leave orbit and attempt to survive. In the end, that is what this is all about. This planet will become a cesspool, make no doubt. Humans are flawed and greedy, I agree. Does that mean we should halt our will for survival? You know, the one that has kept us alive for a few million years already? Oh, I am sure YOU feel you are the only capable of judging whether humanity is "worthy" of getting off the friggin planet, but luckily, you aren't. The reality is that humans kill, they cheat, they get lazy. Get over it. We'll export that as much as anything else we bring with us. Boo hoo!
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
is auction the hubble off. NASA could use the money I'm sure.
Just park it next to Mir..
Dude, you are an idiot. Focus on your reading comprehension skills. Understand sarcasm.
Couldn't they make it so the hubble will land on the Moon? If they could somehow manage that it would be preserved until one day when it can be brought back to earth.
Okay. ;)
I wanna free taco.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
> However, at some point each orbit must cross the other, so if timed properly...
Um, not only do you need to deorbit Hubble to the correct altitude so that it's at 500 km when it crosses the ISS orbit line, you also need the ISS actually to be near that crossing point at the time to capture it, and not at some other point in that orbit. Not likely at all. Forget this possibility, since it's not a possibility.
Virg
The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3)
They were scheduled to go up in the next servicing mission. The money has already been spent.
Call me overly sentimental and whatnot, but come on, why destroy every bit of historical (litterally (sp?), that thing did contribute significantly to advancing science, despite what Joe Sixpack says) piece of space equipment?
Why not simply try to bring it down in a controlled manner (shuttle or something else -- this could be one hell of an engineering project!) and put it in a museum?
I know this was said previously (I think), but I strongly believe it has to be repeated.
Actually... since the PR hit would be pretty bad if they had to nuke the project after so few years, I wouldn't be surprised if they blew it up and tried to pin it on some Al-Qaeda suicide space-bomber.
:)
Maybe we'd better have better screening at the Space Shuttle check-in from now on... just to make it harder for the U.S. shadow government to get use to believe that some mid-eastern previously-believed-to-be microgravity expert hijacked a shuttle and flew it into the Hubble.
Makes you stop and wonder, though... who'd end up being the head of "HomeSpace Security".
It seems to me alot of people forget NASA is funded by tax dollars. Hence making sure the taxpayers think its a good idea is probably not so stupid. Also for collecting redshifts and such, it is alot more to do with data processing and not the actual telescope. As long as it has a decent enough imager it is more sensible to cover a wide spectrum than just one end of it. This is one of the great facilities of the hubble, its abilitiy to be used for a myriad of different targets.
And while on the 'ancient universe' thing, why dont we figure out how to help our fellow neighbours first... instead of looking up maybe we should look around a bit more... in the long run we dont have to go anywhere to see where we come from.. we are all made of stardust arent we...
Let it die. Leave it up there.
When a new telescope is placed into orbit, if it is feasible at that time to bring Hubble back online they should do so. The reasoning is that by enabling Hubble you can *combine* its power with that of the new unit to gain a high degree of resolution. This is similar to the idea of using several small radio telescopes around the world in tandem to form a single mega-telescope.
If it is not feasible to bring Hubble back in service in the near future then someday it will be possible to do so with relative ease. Eventually - perhaps soon - we will develop small jet-like craft that can enter and exit the atmosphere with ease. Mucking with Hubble then will be like picking cherries.
I'd rather it kept being useful than end up sitting in the Smithsonian like a moon rock. The irony of a perfectly good telescope being looked-at!
-- thinkyhead software and media
How about we cut the Health and Human Services budget by 15% and put that toward NASA's budget. Any takers?
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
We send up satellites and such all the time in shuttles. Wasn't the hubble was sent up this way? If so, it will fit in a shuttle bay. So the next time we send a lot of stuff up for the space station or launch another satellite, why not make a few more orbits and bring hubble back to Earth? Then we could do a all the upgrades we want and return it to orbit at a later time.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
Perhaps a combined international mission where all parties contribute (after all, everybody benefits from the research of hubble). In the long term (20 to 30 years), china is going to space anyway, might as well service the telescope. Look at the long term..50 years from now, china and india are going to be the new superpowers on the block where all the cutting-edge nanotechnologies are going to be developed, because they simply have the most population of this planet. All they need is a large manufacturing base (made in china?) and high-tech sector, and since both of these countries are racing to develop those sectores, the west and the EU doesn't stand a chance in the long term. One thing that really bugs me is that, here in the west, we throw away perfectly good equipment all the time, or alternativly, we desing products (like the hubble), to be not easily servicable. Perhaps developing robotic remote-servicing (telerobotics) robots for the hubble may be the way to go if you don't want the cost of sending a person up there.
How about push Hubble to higher orbit or to deep space?
If it's going to cost $600 million to repair the thing to last longer, why not make a harness for it and attach it to ISS?
Then later you can use ISS's power and other systems to keep it operational.
This is the new millenium, we SHOULD take down the ancient hubble and put up a newer bigger better one.
Give me $600 million and though I know little about telescopes today or space flight, I bet I could get you a new and improved hubble into orbit with it. I'm sure NASA could manage it with a mere $10bil or so.
We need to have actual photos for desktop wallpapers. Almost every one who walks by my cube stops and comments about the neat space picture.
Instead of spending $600,000,000 they should put up 60 $10,000,000 satellittes that can be chained together in a huge array to get the big pictures. Or they could each point 60 different directions for projects like finding out when and where the next planet killing asteroid is going to hit the earth.
Then they could just put up 10 of these a year and who gives a fuck if some of them die or fail every year?
and now this!
I don't think I can take much more...
We will weep for you Hubble!
Who modded this crap up?
BTW, the word suicide means that you only take your own life, not the lives of other people around you who are just going about their daily routines. The phrase you should use is "homicide bomber."
...what we are seeing are the death throes of the U.S. space program. It became a sealed fate after Congress cut funding to the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project. The only thing left to do in space that is beneficial to anyone is maintaining spy and weather satellites, and some might speculate that the fine line between those two is thinning rapidly. If I were a betting man, I would go get your cameras and take some Shuttle pictures if it flies again, because it will be the last manned spacecraft that we develop, unless it's a black project...which might as well not exist as far as we, the average citizen, is concerned.
Right, I mean after that. I'm assuming that at least the next servicing mission happens. I'd like more.
we desing products (like the hubble), to be not easily servicable.
The Hubble is INCREDIBLY servicable. The only reason it's hard is that IT'S IN SPACE. This makes it extremely expensive to get to. I don't think that would be alleviated that much by using a robot instead of a person to work on it.
It would probably cost way more to develop a robotics system that could work on something that complex, than to pay the little bit more every flight that it costs to shoot up people. Besides, people can improvise when things go wrong (and they do, almost every flight). With a robot, even a remote-controlled one, you may just not be able to rescue a mission. One lost mission can kill a hell of a lot of savings.
We REALLY should put scopes on the moon.
Preferably where Briteny/CAM/Natalie/Angelina etc is holidaying...
And all of your whining about fixing the planet means nothing if we get hit by an asteroid or have some home-grown menace take out a good portion of the population doesn't it?
This coming from a guy who proposes to "populate our own moon." Guess which scenario is less survivable, continuing to survive on earth as we have been ("You know... for a few million years already?"), or living in extremly expensive and vulnerable habitats on the Moon's surface.
Get off your moral high horse and realize that populations will continue to rise, humans will continue to consume, and we are thrashing this planet.
Please point out where I made a moral argument. They were all quite pragmatic. Unlike you, I don't see the destruction of our earthly environment as inevitable. We can very likely manage reasonably well, even at population levels that will likely be reached in the near-term. Of course, we will have to work hard and spend money, but 1) not nearly as much as to colonize the moon or some other extraterrestrial location, and 2) millions or billions of people will benefit. In your plan, we all have to subsidize the survival of a tiny number of people for no compelling reason. And don't give me crap like "it's for the survival of the species." I am arguing for the survival of the species, you are arguing for the survival of some miniscule group of individuals.
Understand that just because human spaceflight is hard is no reason not to do it.
This is hardly my argument. Conversely, you have put forth nothing to justify it. So who's argument is more compelling, mine which is that we should spend our resources to save our planet and our species, or yours that we should spend our resources to see if a tiny number of people can be made to survive for a while on the moon? You didn't even begin to answer any of the practical questions I made in my post.
We don't need to be 100% recyclable, tree hugging, everyone is fed utopians to leave orbit and attempt to survive.
No, but we probably do "need to be 100% recyclable, tree hugging, everyone is fed utopians" to survive here on earth.
Does that mean we should halt our will for survival? You know, the one that has kept us alive for a few million years already? Oh, I am sure YOU feel you are the only capable of judging whether humanity is 'worthy' of getting off the friggin planet, but luckily, you aren't
By proposing that we reorganize our use of our planet's resources I "mean we should halt our will for survival?" Wow, you lost me there, Dude. I can't see how that follows. Where did I erect myself as the person to decide whether humanity was "worthy" of leaving the planet? Again, I made no moral arguments. But rest assured that I will resist wasting our precious resources so that a few lunatics can pretend they are space pilgrims on the moon until they have to be rescued.
The reality is that humans kill, they cheat, they get lazy. Get over it. We'll export that as much as anything else we bring with us.
Not if I have a vote. People who kill and defraud others should be incarcerated. People who are lazy will punish themselves.
Just put a few grams of explosives in all future space objects, wired to explode at reentry. If the pieces are small enough, they will burn before reaching earth. This is surely cheaper than sending a rocket to retrieve it.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
It isn't possible to push Hubble into the sun with a "cheap" rocket. 1. Given it's weight, direct routing to the sun would cost more than building a duplicate of the current space station, and involve a booster substantially bigger than the Saturn V 1st stage. We had a design once that _might_ have been capable of achieving a delta vee equal to earth's orbital velocity with a 24 ton object - it was called Orion. You might want to look that one up and find out why it was never built. While I won't swear that all possible indirect routes involving slingshot effects with Luna, Venus, etc are in the same ballpark, so far no one has come up with a good one. 2. No one has an actual design for such a booster, nor have they designed the couplings or automated grapples needed to get a grip on the Hubble with a booster that lines up through the center of mass of the object. 3. In fact, with all the add ons, retrofitting, and repairs, the location of Hubble's center of mass and the directions along which the scope is properly braced against thrust (if there still are any) are unknowns. What are the chances of a successful automated mission if you can't put an astronaut on scene to take some close measurements? Not real good at best.
Who is John Cabal?
One of the bigger problems, IMHO, between, say, Indian and Chinese space cooperation is two-fold:- a) the goals are different, b) the Chinese (and, let's admit it, to a large extent even the Indians, although this seems to be changing now) have largely been secretive about their mission.
That, and as such, there's very little scientific cooperation between the two countries. It'll be very interesting if that happens in the near future.
More than mere navel gazing.
Wouldn't any solar shield warm up and let heat through? Although it might be set up to radiate what it lets through???
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I favor using two of the ideas presented: service Hubble so it operates until the 'newer' model is up there & running and then bring Hubble down safely for display.
They stated that they didn't want to subject personell to any risks doing that but, hey guys, remember the Canadarm? I'm pretty sure it can be used rather than a bunch of people floating around out there. Not to mention we're talking about 7-8 years in the future. Who's to say innovation & development won't give us a better or more workable solution?
Hubble was (and still is IMHO) a brilliant scientific achevement. Galileo went out in blaze of glory, why should Hubble just be thrown into the ocean like so much garbage??
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
a refreshing change. so no rockets. (i tried to look up the Orion design, but there's quite a few rockets with the name Orion tacked onto them. i'm going to guess you were talking about this one which supposedly wouldn't work because it required an initial explosion quite a bit stronger than we can create today.)
What about an ion thruster? low weight, you don't have to worry about finding a load bearing mounting point... the biggest complication would be giving the little sucker a power source.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
get with the times - sell it on e-bay
Laplace keeps it up there, that's who. Orbital mechanics (and that nasty wisp of atmosphere that's still up there) dictate how long it's going to be up, and where it's going to go once its orbit starts to decay. But if they can spend $300M on the development of a de-orbiting module, why not use those thrusters to boost it into a higher orbit, or else to drive it around to the ISS orbit? If they want to prove they've got good remote docking capability, then they should use it to preserve the thing, not to turn it into the world's most expensive meteor shower.
Less is more.
So, Hubble's gonna burn. What a fucking surprise. Good ol' NASA. No matter how much money was spent getting something into orbit, it's always said to be the case that it's cheaper to let it burn.
... yes, Mir. If Mir's fall doesn't convince you of NASA's hidden mandate, nothing will.
Let's cut out the middle man and burn the money before NASA burns it into orbit and then burns it back down.
NASA is incapable of building and maintaining a space-borne infrastructure. It's obviously a shill for the aerospace companies, who benefit from the contracts to replace all the stuff that NASA lets fall and otherwise obsoletes.
NASA could have had a space station for the cost of orbit-stabilizing boost
Hubble doesn't worry me like the ISS. The ISS will fall in time, since the only point was in building it. I'd like to see NASA's blubbering excuses then for all the billions of dollars lost.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
delta-V.
The short story: Orbital distance from a body (say the earth) is a function of speed; the further out something orbits the faster it's moving. To raise the orbit of Hubble (which is currently in a relatively low orbit) out to the moon (which is fairly far out there) would require Hubble be accelerated to a faster speed... the difference in speed needed is called delta-V. I don't know what the delta-V would be, but I can guarantee you it's more than the small reaction jets on the hubble can generate.
I think if you google on "Hohlman Transfer Orbits" you'll find more info than you'd ever want on the subject.
--Rob
Funny how the country that first used nukes doesn't want anyone to have them, isn't it?
Use it as long as it lasts....
There's always room for improvement and bettrer gadgets. Though, unless there is a pressing need for the new, or an unmissable oppurtunity, we should sitck with the old until it dies, and then build for the future.
Have you read my journal today?
At least they have a space program that is going somewhere.
we must eventually leave this world if we are to grow as a species
This popular gem, held by a great many people, is a patently ridiculous assertion
You are correct that it is not a fact of human existance. However, it is true that a large number of people believe that man should expand past this one world. So, at some point some people probably will, providing that some technological and economic conditions are met.
Your arguments about costs are valid, but short-sighted. Technology brings the cost of manufacturing down, eventually it will probably be cost effective for entities with large economies to colonize space for the long term. As the tools are developed, the cost of entry will decrease (presuming political manuvering does not deliberately keep them high to prevent others from colonizing).
Your point about terraforming is also valid. And equally short sighted. Mars is not a friendly place for humans. However, its certainly possible that humans can be adapted to more easily survive the natural conditions there. Extensive bio-engineering could produce radiation hardened people who would not require extensive protection from the environment. Certainly they would live a very different life than us here on Earth, but that is part of the point.
believing that escape from earth is an ultimate solution distracts us from the pressing need to reorganize human life on earth
Leaving Earth is not an escape, and more than the pre-historical expansion of humans across the globe was an escape from Africa. Other than that, you are absolutely correct, our social problems are a huge problem that must be solved in a generally applicable way (we need to know exactly why these problems develop and how to structure society to avoid them in the most permanaent way possible). That does not mean that we should not continue to develop technology and plans for the future. Yes, it will be centuries before humans live their lives off of Earth, and yes, the details are such that we cannot forsee them. That is the nature of long-term planning, and the ultimate goals will be evaluated by our childrens children.
Your link pointed to an ammonium nitrate driven chemical rocket that would work on a pulse design similar to the origial orion conception. However, the original design wasn't chemical propulsion, it was nuclear, along the lines of a rack of 100 or more genuine A-bombs or even H-bombs, a pusher plate of solid steel twenty or so feet thick, a 'gun' that spit one bomb a second or so out beneath that plate, and shock absorbers the size of railroad cars or better between that plate and the payload. One proposed design could have put a colony on the Moon in a single shot (1,000 people, machine shops, housing, greenhouses for food, racks of moon buggys to explore with, etc.). And you could put the colony down just about anywhere, cause wherever it lands is now flatlands. No, I am not making any of this up - it was the 60's, and some people thought the radiation exposure risks could be made managable.
A low acceleration thruster, such as an ion drive, or possibly a solar sail, could gradually move the HST to a higher orbit. For Ion power, your choice of places to clamp it to the HST would be broader, but you still have to be pretty close to aligned with the center of mass, and there's still some things to worry about, like metal bits that stick out being too near the path of the beam and deflecting it. In 5 years, the gadjet could probably be designed to be clipped on to HSTs solar panels for power, and if we could only wait 20 to 50 years the booster would probably be smart enough to think of that itself, and move from spot to spot until it found the optimum anchor point.
I really think there are political sides to the issue, as in NASA figures the best way to get the Webb telecope is not to keep the Hubble, and I just hope that trick works.
Who is John Cabal?
Similarly, my remarks on terraforming Mars are not short-sighted. You may object to them, they may be extremely irritating obstacles, I may resemble some dour-faced accountant in presenting the costs to you, but they are fundamental physical obstacles that will need to be overcome. It is naive and quite frankly superstitious to believe that technological advances will inexorably push them aside. These extremely large monetary, energy, and time costs will not go away merely by Moore's law or constant technological advance.
Extensive bio-engineering could produce radiation hardened people who would not require extensive protection from the environment.
In this argument is a flaw that many people miss. In order for this to occur, one of two things must occur:
- Some evolutionary mechanism must be applied to humans to select for the characteristics you describe.
- The characteristics must be deliberately and accurately added to the human genome with high a priori confidence that they will have the intended results.
The flaw involves the basic mechanism of evolutionary change. In option one, as you should be aware, those individuals who did not have the intended phenotype must be selected out. That means that at very least they not be allowed to reproduce, and in nature that typically means that they must be allowed an early death. Only those with the desired phenotype would be allowed to survive and reproduce. In this scenario, some sort of iterative genetic engineering scheme would presumably be used. Individuals with the desired phenotype would not only be allowed to survive and reproduce, but they would also be the genetic platform for successive modification. Don't even dream that these changes are achievable in a single generation. Even with active and deliberate modification, it would take hundreds or even thousands of years. The second option is absurd. It implies we know exactly what to do without ever having done it. Even if it is extensively tested in animals, the technique will be fraught with uncertainty before it is applied to humans. It will be a complex change, very likely involving large numbers of genetic loci, and the perturbations this will cause in the genome, proteome, metabolome, etc. will not even be theoretically modelable for a long time, let alone clinically approved for humans by the FDA or its successors.In both cases, ethical objections are probably insurmountable, and rightly so for the time being. You might return to your argument that future technological advances will solve the problem, but you gloss over the complex genetic interactions that will vary among different individuals and over time within individuals. It is an NP-complete problem, which may be amenable to technological advances, or may not be.
Finally, I do not oppose space travel. I oppose manned space travel for the foreseeable future. It is wasteful and pointless. All useful and scientifically interesting goals that can be achieved with manned space travel can be achieved more quickly and cheaply with robotic and tele-operated devices. The only exception is the utterly redundant goal of carrying out manned space travel to improve manned space travel. If there is a distant goal of humans traveling to and colonizing extraterrestrial locations, and please bear this in mind in all future discussions of this topic, that goal will be reached if and only if that location has been fully set up and "colonized" by robotic vehicles beforehand, and routine round trips and prolonged stays can be carried out by the machines in a safe and reliable manner.
It will cost the same amount of energy today, tomorrow, and a thousand years from now to move large masses millions of miles, escape from planetary gravitation, etc
Correct, however, our ability to collect and apply the amounts of energy required will likely be increased in the future. For example, it would not be beyond the realm of possibility that we could develop autonomous solar collectors that convert solar energy into antimatter (or some other highly compact energy storage form) and ship it off to where it is required.
The possibilities for manned space travel are very good if such highly energetic fuels are available. Spacecraft size can be increased and issues related to our biological incompatibilities with low-gee conditions are eliminated (although I believe that within a few centuries we will have sufficent bio-engineering knowledge to ease these directly).
Additionally, since its also possible that human lifetimes could be enormously extended, project timescales on the order of hundreds of years could be reasonably undertaken.
I agree that extensive terraforming of Mars would probably be very difficult and would be a very long-term project, even with very advanced technology. But I do not think we know enough about the science of terraforming to make useful speculations.
Regarding human bio-engineering:
The characteristics must be deliberately and accurately added to the human genome with high a priori confidence that they will have the intended results. [This] is absurd. It implies we know exactly what to do without ever having done it.
I think you underestimate our ability to understand and apply genetic manipulation.
Also note that I didn't imply these changes must be genetic in nature. A bio-engineering solution could be, for example, an engineered symbiotic organism serving as an exoskeleton for normal humans. It could serve to block high-energy particles, compensate for low atmospheric pressure, regulate temperature, provide first-aid measures, and any number of other functions.
ethical objections are probably insurmountable,
The ethical issues of the far future are, IMO, utterly unpredictable. Those issues are for inhabitants of that future to work out.
I disagree regarding manned space travel only in near-space, Earth orbit and the Moon. I think that it would be reasonable to establish a permanent base on the moon, provided it has some use. One only has to watch deep-sea ROVs fumble with the most basic of object manipulations to see that one human is vastly more capable of performing general tasks than an army of general purpose robots. Until propulsion technology is improved by orders of magnitude, I agree that distant places are better explored by machines.
It seems to me that propulsion is the main limiting factor in manned exploration. If we were not constrained by the need to make everything as small and light as possible, and only take what is absolutely necessary, the possibility of manned exploration is much much better.
While we can collect just about as much data as we could want with unmanned missions, I think that the thrill of actually being there, or knowing that 'we' are out there planting flags or snapping pictures with our own flesh-and-blood is vastly more satisfying then knowing we can get a machine out there to do those things. Economicly robots are cheaper and easier, but we don't always want to do things the cheap, easy way.