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NASA Cancels Hubble Mission, and Other Space Bits
An anonymous reader writes "NASA Watch is reporting that NASA has cancelled Servicing Mission 4 for the Hubble Space Telescope. The reason given is not for budgets, but for safety." ender81b writes "With all the excitement generated by the Mars Exploration Rovers now is a good time to look at future space exploration missions. One of the most exciting is the Kepler spacecraft which will search for terrestrial planets around nearby stars. Other interesting upcoming missions include the New Horizons mission to explore Pluto and the Kuiper belt, Deep Impact which will fire a small impactor into a comet to study the insides, Messenger which will fully photograph Mercury for the first time, and the ESA's Herschel infrared space telescope and Rosetta spacecraft which will land on a comet for the first time. Whew, good time to be invovled in space exploration!" StarWreck writes "Cnet.com is reporting that the Mars Rover uses Java. The same piece of software that lets people around the world play video games on their cell phones is now letting scientists drive the ultimate remote-controlled car across the surface of Mars."
Making NASA stronger == Kill NASA.
Don't Leave Children Behind == Leave them behind.
Healthy Forests == Cut down the forests.
I'm a space fan. I like manned space programs too. But they are going to wreck what NASA does do well, scientific research, for a program they will also not complete.
-pyrrho
Sir, we've run into a serious problem with the mission. These Nielsen ratings are the lowest ever.
Oh my God! We've been beaten by a "Connie Chung Christmas."
I'm laughing at clouds.
The article states only that Java is being used for the software used to send commands to the rover and process the output.
I'm assuming that the limited amount of power the rover has access to would forbid the use of Java, would that be right? And if everything is controlled from the ground anyways, we're not talking about especially complicated code in any case, so why bother with the overhead?
Then again, if they're sending code to the rover maybe Java does make sense; bytecode tends to be smaller than machine code, so you get better utilization of upstream bandwidth.
(Anybody know what OS the rover uses?)
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
With all those links, you'd think maybe a Hubble link would surface... Here's a couple good ones:
Hubble For General Public
Hubble For Scientists
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For news, status, updates, scientific info, images, video, and more, check out:
(AXCH) 2004 Mars Exploration Rovers - News, Status, Technical Info, History.
And, therefore, make a complete fool of themselves?
I can see the inevitable kneejerk reaction now. "OMG Bush is taking away money from science to fund his reelection he is evil."
Get A GRIP!
This was being considered before Bush's new proposal. It is not the fault of his proposal. And we are going to have a replacement put up. Nothing is being lost here, nothing is being sacrificed on the altar of MTMS, Man To Mars Soonest.
We're spending in the billions for a failure rate that wouldn't be tolerated in any long-term business venture. The program should seek alternative funding, perhaps via advertisement opportunities or by seizing the potential of the universe as a means of solving our garbage crisis, so that we can meet our space exploration goals on a faster timetable and take safety a little more seriously.
You killed Hubble! You bastard!
Anybody know what OS the rover uses?
MER2004 Mars Rovers use an OS by Wind River. Read about it at that link (press release).
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For news, status, updates, scientific info, images, video, and more, check out:
(AXCH) 2004 Mars Exploration Rovers - News, Status, Technical Info, History.
The impactor's purpose would not be to destroy the comet, but merely to penetrate the outer shell to see what's inside a typical comet.
"John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief scientist, said NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe made the decision to cancel the fifth space shuttle service mission to the Hubble when it became clear there was not enough time to conduct it before the shuttle is retired."
"He said the decision was influenced by President Bush's new space initiative, which calls for NASA to start developing the spacecraft and equipment for voyages to the moon and later to Mars. The president's plan also called for the space shuttle to be retired by 2010. Virtually all of the shuttle's remaining flights would be used to complete construction of the International Space Station."
I sure hope Bush follows through on his promise of funding, because NASA is going to be fucked if they start shifting priorities to his ideas and then don't get the money to follow through.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Okay, now I know that it is somewhat of the geek stereotype that "If its not broke, gimme a minute to make it faster", but why does it seem like we are abandoning the HST?
.02, YMMV.
Yes, I know that technically it is coming to the end of its projected life span, but that does not mean we should just let it die. I never cease to be amazed at some of the images (yes I know they are touched up) that the HST has given us.
Yes, NASA and JPL are (and righfully so) basking in the glory of the success of the latest Mars probe. But what about in 6 months when those probes are gone. All I see in these stories are future flights. Why abandon something that is still giving us good results.
With the less than perfect track records of probes sent by *any* space agency, I can't pin my hopes of data (and dreams) on future flights.
I think its only wise to keep the HST working as long as we can, or at least until the Webb (is that correct?) telescope is up and functional.
Just my
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
I've been a fan of the Space program since I was a kid watching guys in bulky suits bounce around on the Moon. I may have been a fan earlier, but I don't remember much about the space program before Apollo.
Hubble was an amazing piece of hardware, designed to be serviced by the then-existant shuttle fleet. Which, as we all know, isn't what it used to be.
NASA's budget is limited. Always has been, always will be. They've got to make decisions on whether to keep servicing an old scope that, admitedly, is still doing good science, or spend their money on new projects that will arguably jump the state of the art as far ahead of Hubble as Hubble did in its day.
With the quality and light gathering abilities of surface based scopes approacing or surpassing Hubble - thanks to advances in adaptive optics and other fields - the decision to discontinue servicing Hubble is understandable. It was a fantastic instrument, and it will be missed when the mission finally ends. Note that the announcement isn't "Turn it off tomorrow." It's "We're not going to do any more servicing, but we'll let run until it dies of natural causes."
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
While a lot of this might be politics, the truth is, Hubble is what it is and has reached a point of where the question is, is it important to spend billions to service Hubble, or do we move on to something better. It would be nice if the space crews could drop by Hubble now and then and clean the bugs off the mirror, charge the battery, change the oil, but the truth is, this will be a task for the antique space junk fanatics of the centuries to come, they can take pictures of them next to it and post them on the Net with their cars with fins. We need to move on.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Hubble has been the best publicity generator for astronomy for *years* now. My bet is that this was announced when and how it was precisely because they are hoping to generate enough public outrage to get this decision reversed. Personally, I know it was a blow to many of my colleagues. Trying to get HST time has been difficult and frustrating, but you can't deny its impact. The number of high quality science results that have been generated by the telescope dwarfs just about all of its competition when you use most object measurement criteria. We'll see what happens, I guess, but my guess is that the astronomical community is going to at least try to put whatever weight they can muster behind getting the HST servicing mission made a priority again.
"The same piece of software that lets people around the world play video games on their cell phones is now letting scientists drive the ultimate remote-controlled car across the surface of Mars." The specific Java program used to run the rover is called Maestro. It is available for Wintel, Mac, Linux and Solaris, from: http://mars.telascience.org/home/ Regular science and graphics updates come in here. You can get/view them just like the folks at JPL see them.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
As a note about fully mapping mercury, it seems to be one of the forgotten planets nobody talks about much, but has had some attention in the past.
Still, there are some interesting Mariner shots of the planet online. Not quite half has been mapped yet, but there's some interesting features that make it unique.
nude macgirls webcam
first im fairely sure it said "blowing a chunk out" not "blowing up"
second there are a lot of explosives that do not denoated if they crash into objects (nuclear weapons are a good example - they will ONLY detonate if their DETONATION CIRCUITRY initiates a detonation -- and they can be impact-harddened so that if they crash the casing won't even crack -- hell i bet you could shield a nuke enough to let it survive reentery without it leaking any radioactivity let alone detonating)
it's sad when mindless reactionism is modded insightful
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
They're saying the Hubble won't get serviced because there isn't enough time to do it before the shuttle fleet is retired. And since the date for the retirement of shuttle was selected after the Mars announcement, I think it's fair to say that Hubble is being neglected for budgetary reasons.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
NASA Watch is reporting that NASA has cancelled Servicing Mission 4 for the Hubble Space Telescope. The reason given is not for budgets, but for safety."
Associated Links:
thestar.com
news.scotsman.com
I do not understand this. We've got a wonderful tool up there a generating ton of data. Just because it's not getting great press anymore... and just because it's not the sexy thing right now, why forget about it?
They can easily (well, easy for me to say) work on it during their visits to the space station.
We'll spend a trillion to get men to Mars... but we can't take the time and energy to keep the space telescope up and running?
I like the push to Mars... but why abandon a tool that is gathering so much wonderful data?
AC
This article (http://www.nature.com/nsu/030728/030728-13.html) from the summer had the following speculation-
"Until recently, the agency had planned to have the space shuttle return Hubble to Earth for museum display. "No one wants to do that anymore," says Anne Kinney, head of NASA's astronomy and physics division.
In fact, the US astronaut corps opposes "risking human lives for the purpose of disabling great science" representative John Grunsfeld told the meeting. It would support a servicing mission to extend Hubble's life or ensure its safe re-entry, he said. A servicing trip to the telescope costs NASA about US$700 million, much of which maintains planning teams at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The option of moving the Hubble to a higher storage orbit has also been dropped. Instead, NASA favours attaching a rocket booster to the telescope in 2010 to steer it to burn up over the ocean.
So far, NASA has found no affordable way to attach the rocket and extend the telescope's life without degrading its performance. Defenders argue that the problem can be solved, and that useful observations can still be obtained from the telescope after the booster is attached."
I guess it's just going to drift while. It's in a 600km orbit.
NASA doesn't have that much money to play with anymore, and the hundreds of millions needed for another repair mission (even before the backup orbiter issue) was going to seriously screw up the timing of even getting the follow on telescope into the sky, not to mention the other robotic missions they're trying to keep alive.
Luke, help me take this mask off
http://mars.telascience.org/home
They have a data pack from gustav crater and will be updating it with more data packs as the rovers mission progresses.
I did notice that it was a hog of a program, it nearly brought my workstation to it's knees.
The messages linked to state that the Hubble service mission was cancelled purely for safety reasons, and that "Only ISS missions will be carried out in the future" out of concern for shuttle inspection procedures. The general purpose space shuttle has been reduced to only being used for one particular type of mission - it's useful life is effectively over.
The space telescope is a science project that has produced a lot of valuable information. There is some risk involved in a mission to service it, but there is not known to be a high probability of failure.
The newly announced mission to mars also has a science component, but is also largely a human exploration project. Without sending people, we could still get great science done by sending robots, especially if we were to spend the same amount of money as we are willing to spend to send humans. Sending people is a feel-good exercise, yet for this we are willing to take on great risks. The chances that some harm (if not death) will come to the astronauts looks very high. Even with the kind of technology we might be able to develop over the next 30 years there are still some serious inherent risks that will not be overcome.
It's an interesting contrast:- for science we are apparently not willing to take any risk, but for the sake of a feel good exercise we are willing to take an enourmous risk.
Its a shell game. Bush announces new space plan: ' I hold a silver dollar in my hand'. Nasa immediately organizes and abandons hubble telescope mission. Nasa decides to abandon space station after completing it. Nasa decides to abandon shuttle replacement because the US wont be using the station after completing it and retiring shuttle Expect the following: To go the moon will require reinventing a rocket similiar to saturn 5 but at least twice the capacity. Money wont be found for this and that will kill the moon lander and mars landers. Nasa gets reduced by 1/2 or 2/3rds and will only launch small robotic vehicles to moon and mars. After awhile Nasa can't get budget for even those, because we've been there and done that. End of Nasa. End of US space program. Year 2012.
The articles state that NASA is going to "design and build" a robotic attachment to send up to Hubble when the lifetime is over. This is going to dock with Hubble, the control the re-entry so that it doesn't end up hitting a populated area.
Seems to be, the costs of one additional shuttle mission may very well be cheaper than the costs to design and build this robotic craft.
Also, the original plan called for a final shuttle flight to return Hubble inside the payload bay. Hubble was to be studied in detail to see the effects of long-term exposure in space to help design future craft to be more resistant.
After that, it was going to be given to the Smithsonian AIr and Space museum. A fitting place given the discoveries made with Hubble.
Sometimes I think we are often shortsighted these days...Doing everything for the bottom line and not thinking about future generations ability to "see and touch" some of the great things we have done.
Bruce Garrett, a member of the Hubble team, has posted to his blog about the matter:
t m# b22
http://www.brucegarrett.com/brucelog_2004_1_1.h
Just thought that was worth mentioning.
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
If anyone's curious about the CPU used by the rovers, it's one of the POWER derived radiation hardened chips made by BAE Systems. While it's PPC based, it's more similar to a family of CPUs that split off even before the first of the Mac PPCs, the 601. Similar operating speed and power, however, as the first of those.
The newer PPC based space capable CPUs are RAD750s, which are directly related to the G3 PPC powering iMacs and iBooks.
While on the topic of space hardware, and going back to photograph mercury, what kind of camera equipment was used to take images of the moon and mars in the 1960s/1970s? I was told by an English teacher that each photo was snapshotted on film, then exposed in a small photoprocessing lab inside the probes, and scanned to send back to earth as there was no possibility of capturing fast moving images on CCD that far back. I think that sounds a bit of wishful thinking urban legend. Anyone know for sure?
thanks
This administration has no interest in science, mostly because they lack intellectual curiosity, as do most religious types, I might add.
Putting a man on the moon! I guess he got this Vision Thing from his Dad.
Help fight continental drift.
Read the letters. The reason SM4 is cancelled is due to the need for developing safety procedures that are not necessary for (science lightweight) ISS, now the exclusive beneficiary of shuttle missions. Why would it be impossible to develop these safety procedures? It only takes half a dimwit to understand that money is the roadblock. Sadly, we've less than half a dimwit sitting in the Oval Office, randomly reshuffling NASA in order to generate election buzz...
It seems like it is just an excuse from the head of NASA, who was a beancounter, alone. Perhaps the most tragic thing was that Columbia was lost while on a purely-for-science mission.
The thing is, bang for bucks, Hubble must be at least two orders of magnitude above the ISS in returning scientific data. It would not have costed above 10billion, compared to the hundreds of billions the ISS sucked up, and it had given us little, or next to nothing scientific data. No permanent scientific crew, the Destiny science module not being put to good use because the barebone crew of two is too preoccupied running it. All it stands for is an ego booster - we have a permanent manned presence in space, albeit a skeletal crew stuck for years in low Earth orbit, forever tied down doing endless plumbing just to keep it there.
I am starting to doubt if we will see a Hubble successor. And the sad fact is that we will not be fully realising the potential of Hubble, a good piece of hardware that had inspired and impressed so many of us at such a bargain price of under the cost of a B2 bomber.
Not urban legend.
Check out the cameras used on Russian probes. They used a film camera, then 'standard' television technology to scan the picture and send it back. Not sure what the Americans used, but was probably pretty similar.
If I was worried about Karma, I'd eat tofu.
In fact it is approximately 10 minutes there and 10 minutes back. Here's how to find out. Go to John Walker's Orrery to find the current planet positions. Mars is indicated at 1.257 AU from Earth. Since we know one AU (Sun to Earth) takes about 8 min, then 8 x 1.3 = ~10 min. Check it out yourself, it's a great tool.
For this and more, check out the link in the sig below.
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For news, status, updates, scientific info, images, video, and more, check out:
(AXCH) 2004 Mars Exploration Rovers - News, Status, Technical Info, History.
The following estimates state that servicing mission 4 (really 5 considering there was 3A and 3B) spent about $200 million so far developing instruments. But the NASA head administrator (Sean O'Keefe) estimated that only $40 million remains for funding to completion. IMHO, it's a total shame and waste to pull the plug now, if we're only $40 million away from goal.
Another note regarding safety is really suspect. Supposedly all future shuttle missions will go to ISS in case of failure, so the astronauts can stay there and maybe use an escape pod if absolutely necessary. Hence, no more Hubble missions in the interest of safety.
What is missing from this discussion is that NASA is still keeping with their plans to bring Hubble back down from orbit as per an international treaty regarding space debris above a specific size. This entails heavily modifying one of the shuttles as Colombia was the only one large enough to fit the HST inside its cargo bay.
So they consider bringing Hubble down intact (as opposed to crashing it into the ocean, for instance) higher priority than keeping it running. I think that's a shame, again.
SM4 is important. Hubble only has 3 functioning gyros right now (SM4 would replace these and batteries, as well as install new instruments). If one of these gyros breaks, Hubble is severely crippled, and can do some, but only limited pointing and hence less science. If the next gyro breaks beyond this, then Hubble is effectively next to useless.
Come on NASA, change your mind and keep the SM4. It's been in progress for a long time, and its estimated cost is a drop in the bucket compared to some other USA funded endeavours (cough IRAQ cough).
make world, not war
We're thinking of sending someone to mars, but that Hubble thing--WAY too dangerous!
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
The three main beneficiaries are Cape Canavral (launch, at Florida), Johnson Space Center (Mission Control, at Houston), and JPL (interplanetary craft, at Pasadena, California). FL, TX, and CA. All of these centers, and hence states, will see vastly increased funding. And all of these centers are also in key states Bush needs to win the election.
Sorry about the conspiracy theory, but it's an interesting trend, noticed especially by several NASA folks too.
make world, not war
... is a fine piece of work for its time, but we are capable of making much more powerful space telescopes now, it might be best that we DON'T put mroe money into the Hubble.
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
Hmm, Java.
Slight clarification, after re-reading the link I just posted:
/.)
The Americans used pretty standard television technology for their cameras. The Russians developed a slightly different technology - still based on the 'cathode/anode tube thingy' idea, but with more sensitive equipment and a pan-n-scan technique for sending photos back. The cathode tube thingy (Photoelectron Multiplier Tube) would scan across the photo film, so that the entire image could be scanned a piece at a time, and with better clarity.
Read the above link for more info, it's pretty cool stuff. The site has quite a bit of interesting information on the Russian space program, including some enhanced and reprocessed images of Venus (previously seen on
If I was worried about Karma, I'd eat tofu.
For US residents:
If you'd like NASA to reconsider, http://savethehubble.org is carrying a petition to uncancel the servicing mission.
You might also consider sending a message to your representative. The house.gov website makes it easy.
This is really sad, since I think we need a strong (and useful) presence in low earth orbit before we tackle the big goals. For example, telescopes (plural), at least one space station that does useful things like stockpile food, rocket fuel, etc. The reason is that it is easier to build a smaller space vehicle to escape earth's gravity (well, the strong part near the surface) and restock supplies in orbit. Let the damn shuttle with its huge storage capacity ferry supplies to orbit, while moon and mars vehicles are built leaner.
I really think it is important to get a habitable space station, maybe with artifical gravity (a big spinning thing, greenhouses, etc), into orbit. It provides a launchpad to bigger and better goals, and who knows, maybe people will start living in orbit full time like in science fiction. That is a good thing for reasearch if we ever want to send humans farther out.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
1. NASA already has Hubble's replacement telescope in line for 2011.
2. NASA will be able to operate the Hubble until 2007 or 2008.
3. There are a limited number of shuttle launches possible before 2010 when the station is complete. NASA needs to spend those launches on finishing the station, not upgrading a telescope that is being replaced, just so it can last a few extra years.
4. Since the Columbia disaster, non-station trips require TWO shuttles prepped for every ONE launch, so that there is a rescue shuttle available. That is a tremendous waste of resources for upgrading the Hubble, which is being replaced in any case.
In sum: The Hubble is being replaced in 2011 with an improved space telescope, so it is a waste of limited resources (shuttle launches) to upgrade it just to drag out its lifetime by three years or so. The time and energy saved from not upgrading Hubble can be spent on getting other projects done.
Hubble was great. It's lifetime is over, and it has lasted longer than scheduled. Time to move on.
Interestingly, Hubble is (soon to be was) the only telescope that could observe certain wavelengths of ultraviolet used to test metallicity. Since Earth's atmosphere is opaque in these wavelengths, space-based observatories are the only way to observe these wavelengths.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
The space race was a race, and in the 60's people new race was a risk that people took, was not safe, it was a balance between safety and cutting edge... It's a calculated gamble. You balance the risk with the will to win.
In this day of safety latches and plastic electrical covers for "child safe homes," and McDonald's lawsuits over hot coffee being too hot, is it any wonder that NASA is failing?
When I was a kid, I stuck a fork in an electrical outlet and LEARNED MY LESSON, I put my hand on the stove and LEARNED MY LESSON. I also have been burned by hot coffee in a McDonald's Styrofoam (not environmentally friendly) coffee cup.
Did I sue? Did I blame society? NO. That's just life lesson, things hurt, knifes are sharp and carving a pumpkin can result in injury... THAT WAS LIFE.
Now days, with the world as it is, is there any wonder NASA is failing? What was that famous 60's quote by an Apollo astronaut? Something about "we are sitting in a 10 sq ft cone on 90 tons of explosive fuel, does this feel as crazy to you as it does to me?" Something like that, I wish I had the real quote.. But point is, It's about pushing the limits of what humans can do, not about putting foam safety bumpers on all the sharp corners you could get a bo-bo from.
According to this NY Times article ...$200 million worth of instruments that had been built to be added in the later shuttle mission will also be left on the ground...
It also notes that a service mission costs around $500 million. If we have already invested 40% of the price of a service mission on parts we might want to consider actually using them.
This is where you can
. ht ml
submit your name for the Deep Impact Mission
After you give them your name the site even generates a a really cool, serial numbered certificate you can print out and hang up on the wall.
The parent wasn't being a troll by saying it only accepts the english character set:
http://deepimpact.umd.edu/sendyourname/namehelp
"At the present however, our database is unable to accept foreign characters, so please use the English alphabet/character set when adding your name. Also, please avoid using special characters such as quotation marks, ampersands, brackets, underscores, mathematical symbols, etc. These characters may cause unexpected errors, and you may not be able to retrieve your certificate from the database. Numbers, apostrophes, dashes, and letters with accents or other embellishments (such as "e" or "n") are acceptable."
I think its pretty cool I can have my name sent to a comet. The mission wont be launched until 2005 or so but I can wait. The last time NASA did something like this I missed out.
It's not too dangerous to haul more wasted money to that floating albatross in the sky, but it is too dangerous to service the Hubble, which is arguably the most important telescope in the history of astronomy.
Asshats.
The responses you see here aren't really negativism and pessimism. They're anti-Bush hysteria. If Howard Dean had announced the same plan, the same I'm-against-Bush-because-the-man-on-TV-told-me-to crowd would be drooling all over themselves at this brave heralding of man's destiny in the stars.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
They can easily (well, easy for me to say) work on it during their visits to the space station.
i could find a thousand physicists to disagree with you...it's all about orbital inclination. the hubble is at 39 deg inclination to the equator. the station is at 51.6. it would take MASSIVE amounts of propellant to make your idea feasible.
why? remember spinning that bike tire as a kid? translating the axis was easy. changing it's direction, huh, there's some kind of weird force opposing that...same thing with orbital mechanics.
the same argument holds true (but to a larger extent) for the challenger...they couldn't go to the space station because of different inclinations.
for the lazy - lower inclinations are the same as smaller amplitudes on the sinusoidal ground tracks that are visible in mission control...
That's why I keep reiterating the need for nuclear powered launchers. Development would cost less than building a new Saturn V, and with 6 million pound launch capacity (2 million cargo) we could send an entire space station up in one go!
...
The same nuclear power could take us on round trip excursions to Mars in a fraction of the time it would take a chemical rocket!
Ah, fuck it. No one's paying any attention anyway.
*sigh*
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
500M$US to bring it down? Chicken feed to an Administration that spends 1000 times that in deficit. Shame. Shame on them.
The two most common things in the Universe are dark matter and stupidity.
rebooting the rover prolly isnt an option
;-)
Military: "Failure is not an option!"
NASA: "Failure is not in the budget!"
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
NASA is not going to die. Most people seem to forget that NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. There's an awful lot more going on than a few robotic probes and shuttle launches.
What is abundantly clear, however, is that Bush's "space initiative" is nothing more than smoke and mirrors designed to boost his approval ratings. Let's crunch a few numbers: Bush's plan set aside an additional $12 billion for developing a "Saturn Mark II" launch vehicle with a capsule capable of landings on both the Moon and Mars. Not only is the number ridiculous, but so is the method for obtaining the funds. Bush claims that $1 billion will be allocated by Congress, and the additional $11 billion will be found by restructuring NASA, including ending shuttle flights. So we'll finish up the station by 2010, auction the shuttles on eBay, and be on the Moon by 2015? Riiiight. First of all, NASA won't have any free funds from ending the shuttle program until at least 2010 when the station is complete, and then that only leaves 5 years for development of a completely new vehicle and support system. Even then, the shuttle's budget is only about $4 billion. The remaining $7 billion will have to be earned by cutting into NASA's remaining $11 billion. So once again, the Aeronautics branch of NASA is getting the shaft in favor of a bloated and fatally optimistic manned space program. Sound familiar? It's the shuttle all over again.
Since the federal government seems to be waffling on what it thinks NASA should be doing, I am in favor of a much less glamorous "bottom-up" approach to space exploration. Let the private entrepreneurs build simple craft to get us barely out of the atmosphere. From there, the craft get slightly more sophisticated, and through the magic of technological evolution from several sources, we end up exploring the solar system in ways we can't even dream of now. We can parallel this growth to that of the internet: it started as a large, well funded government program (ARPANET), but it wasn't until the little guy started to find commercial opportunities that it really took off (Amazon, anyone?) If we had relied on the DoD to create the internet for us, we'd be stuck with an online copy of the Library of Congress, distributed through a huge router the size of a steel factory and transmitting over a 9600 baud connection.
While Bush has his head in the sand, the X-Prize and the X-Prize Cup will be ruling the upper atmosphere! I plan on retiring at the Shady Craters Lunar Resort.
And, to keep this little tirade on topic:
The Hubble Telescope has performed beautifully and well beyond its intended lifespan. There are other, better space telescopes in the works. Let's save the shuttle flight for station hardware and let the telescope retire with dignity.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
The Hubble is being replaced in 2011 with an improved space telescope, so it is a waste of limited resources (shuttle launches) to upgrade it just to drag out its lifetime by three years or so.
The Next Generation Space Telescope, now called the James Webb Space Telescope (first time NASA's named a scientific instrument after an administrator) is not a replacement for Hubble.
Its an infrared optimised 6ish m telescope (downscoped from 8m). It has little optical capability, no UV capability. Its an extension to what Hubble can do not a replacement. There is much excellent stuff that JWST will be able to do, but there is much that Hubble can and could do in the future that JWST cannot. Indeed there has been a lot of debate about keeping HST running so that it can operate concurrently with JWST filling in the missing parts of the spectrum for the new telescope as well as continuing with its own excellent work. The synergy would have been excellent.
To suggest that JWST is a straightforward replacement for HST is very wrong, and demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the capabilities of the two instruments. Do check your facts first.
Yes, I agree. Nuclear launchers could be a fantastically efficient way to get people into space and off to Mars.
However, in this world of Tom Clancy movienovels and WMD propoganda, the public has a hard time wrapping its brain around anything involving the words "nuclear," "fission," or "reaction." The space program is nothing without popular support and the populous currently believes the mantra "Nuclear = Evil." Sad, but true.
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It is a simple trade-off between glory and science, and science is being screwed. I hate to say it, but robots can do the same job cheaper. Humans on Mars would be nice, but if it is good science OR man on Mars, I will go with the first. I want to see clear photos of Pluto's face before I become Earth dust. (And I don't mean the frippen dog.)
Table-ized A.I.
The space program is nothing without popular support and the populous currently believes the mantra "Nuclear = Evil." Sad, but true.
Even sadder is that the space program will go nowhere without nuclear. Of all the propulsion methods that have been theorized, only nuclear powered ones (be it fission, fusion, or matter/antimatter) produce enough power and thrust to make space travel a feasible option.
Not to mention that no other solution provides a way to "live off the land" and create your own fuel from just about any source. A GCNR rocket could conceivably run off of hydrogen, oxygen, xenon, water, CO2, Iron Oxides, or just about anything else that can be cracked into a gas.
I really would give up this crazy crusade if I thought there was another option that was "good enough". Unfortunately, large amounts of energy are just plain scary. There's nothing we can do about that other than to handle that energy with care.
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No, but Jack Black did have a bit part as a pilot in Waterworld, which featured the stunt talents of one Scott Hubbell!
From there, I think it's only one more step to Kevin Bacon...
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In other words, real science takes a back burner or is canned as a cost-cutting measure whilst more photogenic and "sexy" manned exploration is pumped full of cash.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
What's puzzled me is why NASA doesn't consider licensing Energia from the Russians and using it to lift the remaining ISS components. Because of its cargo capacity, they won't have to worry about cramming all the stuff into the Shuttle...
Energia is a proven platform, at any rate; and we wouldn't even have to send people up on it.
Come on, NASA, just get that Orbital Space Plane up so we have a people ferry. Save the heavy hauling for other platforms.
They wouldn't be abandoned.
Weepy celebrities and televangelists could hold telethons to raise money to send supplies out there.
Each package would take years to arrive, traveling to Mars by slow, efficient orbits that criss-cross the inner system to build velocity before finally careening into Mars' upper atmosphere, reentering, and bouncing to a stop, persued by eager colonists in grubby, patched space suits.
"Dig deep my friends! Just $350 can send a package of Ramen Noodles to a needy Mars pioneer. A mere $500 can send this roll of single-ply toilet paper, or two day's worth of tampons, to a brave colonist. And imagine the joy this package of Jolly Roger treats could bring, for only $150."
Stefan "I'll stick with suborbital stuff!" Jones
You're still better off with a GCNR engine. Given that the engine can "breath" different forms of gases, you can build it to power a horizontal takeoff and landing craft using *only* air. When the air supply is not high enough (during sub-sonic speeds and near orbital periods) hydrogen or oxygen fuel could be pumped from fuel tanks. Plus, the craft would have the power and fuel to make a more gradual ascent so that the airframe doesn't have to be strong enough to support Mach 12 atmospheric conditions. Instead, it can accelerate to those speeds as the air thins.
Another advantage to the nuclear solution is for interplanetary craft. It doesn't make sense to land a few million ton craft, so small GCNR transportation "shuttles" could be launched from the main craft. Since no oxidizer is necessary, the shuttles could fly in O2, CO2, Methane, or just plain no atmosphere.
Oh, and the military already built a nuclear ramjet that ran off of air for fuel. Do a search for "Project Pluto". The actual design was a little disgusting as it considered it a "bonus" to spew radiation all over Russia. Still, it was 1950's technology. With our modern resources, simulation abilities, and exotic materials, there's no reason why we can't build a far better design.
Scramjets are looking to be at least a decade away from usable designs. We have the technology to build a nuclear space plane now.
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No they cannot. Hubble can get near-UV, ground based cannot.
Hubble can aim at targets for LONG durations, being much more stsable, unlike ground-based telescopes.
And astronomy is much more than photographs, namely spectroscopy. Ground-based spectroscopy, even with adaptive optics, is still limited by atmospheric absorption and emission spectra. Hubble is not.
Keeping it around is really just an exercise in nostalgia for all the great things it has done for us.
As well as fruitful exercises in astrophysical research for the slews of scientists that currently use it, and those that have planned to use it in the coming years.
AAS (American Astrophysical Society), for example, has even had discussions about a future SM5, so the lifetime of Hubble beyond SM4 was being considered by many "real" astrophysicists.
make world, not war
Actually VxWorks (Wind River's real-time, embedded OS) is not used exclusively by NASA. VxWorks is highly customizeable, which makes it handy for applications where space/speed tradeoffs are often necessary. VxWorks is used is a myriad of applications, from automobiles to EMCs to whatever you can think of. In addition, it's gotten much more robust in recent years, partially due to the exposure it's gotten in the space exploration community (i.e. JPL missions).
there are instruments, new cameras that is, ready to go to Hubble that were supposed to be installed in 2006, Bush just screwed not only the people that want to see their instruments used, but all the scientists that made science justifications and have therefore been planning to use those cameras for years and years.
They are throwing out years of scientific planning. Bush is screwing scientists and science, and you can support that or not but he is.
-pyrrho
new cameras were supposed to be installed, and the scientists that made science justifications have been planning for years to use then.
See here.
Why do you trust the President?
-pyrrho
With all due respect to those that died in all of the previous space missions. NASA, The current US administration, and the US public need to get over it and move on. Space travel is currently dangerous business. Every one who engages in it are educated and trained professionals. They know exactly the dangers, better than all of those who second guess them. I don't see the astronauts saying "Hell No I won't get in this craft, it's too dangerous". They realize that for what they are doing the track record is pretty good. Can safety at NASA improve? Of course! Should we stop until it's perfect? No!
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
The biggest advantage that the hubble had was the lack an atmosphere.
Adaptive optics have really improved in the years since Hubble went up and largely closed the gap in image clarity. Here on Earth you can afford much larger apertures when you don't have to think about the thousands of dollars per lb for lifting it up to space.
Going above the atmosphere is important for wavelengths that are absorbed by the atmosphere like certain infrared bands. Surprise! That is exactly the mission of the James Webb space telescope. The downside is that it won't be generating any pretty "true color" images to hang on your wall.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Your list of upcoming missions left out the most exciting of all: The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. It will be entering Saturnian orbit in 165 days; next year, it will be dropping the Huygens probe into the atmosphere of Titan. This is very cool stuff coming up this July. Here's the home page for details: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm
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So the new space initiative will have hubble destroyed *before* a replacement telescope (webb) is up.
It will leave the shuttle destroyed *before* a new human rated vehicle is in place.
Of course, it is likely that both these projects will die under the weight of the war/feed-the-rich deficit.
The next american on the moon will have to go through a chinese passport control. You wait and see!
Wake up and pay attention. This decision has been inevitable since the CAIB released its findings. All future Shuttle flights must be able to access the ISS for safety reasons. Flights to Hubble can't access ISS. End of story.
BTW, science is not the motivation for space travel. Nor are pretty pictures.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
They're anti-Bush hysteria.
t he-man-on-the-radio-told-me-crowd would be drooling all over themselves at the opportunity to blast him for this ludicrous heralding of man's destiny in the stars.
The responses you see here aren't really anti-Bush hysteria. They are pessimism about the feasability of Bush's proposed jaunt to Mars given the meagre budget increase, negativism regarding its severe impact on other NASA projects, and skepticism regarding Bush's motives for proposing such a grand project without giving it nearly enough funding. If Howard Dean had announced the same plan, the All-Bush-critics-are-hysterical-liberals-because-
The Hubble abandonment is a direct result of broader funding cutbacks (which include reduction of Combat and Hazardous Duty pay for our soldiers). The US government has slingshotted from a $450 billion surplus... to a $500 billion deficit, in just three years -- a $1 trillion reversal of fortune. Think about that for a second, because it is very real.
9/11? We're told that that cost 'only' $79bb. So, what happened to the other 871 billion?! Tax cuts for the richest 5% of our population, is what. If you're old enough to remember the Reagan tax cuts of '82, they directly led to the oil and real estate collapse of the late '80's, but at least that time we came out with new buildings. The Tax Act of '86 had to undo the imbalances. So how could anyone imagine that tax cuts without corresponding spending reductions would have any different result today? This time, they cut out the inefficiencies in transfer of wealth (building new buildings), by granting 'relief' directly to the corporation and high net-worth individual. The Party has been tipping up the US Treasury and shaking it empty.
While we're taking off our shoes in airports... almost every shipping container coming into US ports goes unchecked. WTF?
Is this asymmetry solely to convey a message of fear to the populous? To distract us with FUD, from thinking about important matters?
It appears tp me that Repubs do the opposite of what they say: Spend, and Spend, and abridge the Constitution, and Spend.
Campaign finance reform is national security.
NASA then followed up by saying consumers would enjoy a more stable and robust space-exploration experience by upgrading to HubbleXP(tm)
Am I the only one excited about the moon annoucement? I mean we went to the moon in the 60s and stopped in the 70s. That was 30 years ago. You would think by now, we'd have people on Pluto. Aren't you people science fiction fans? Doesn't exploring space excite you? Sure, you can look at stuff with a telescope, but why not try to go there and see it for yourself. Or send a telescope there, and get a better view.
And I'd like to see a network of communcation satellites placed thur the solar system, to make it easier for probes to report back to Earth.
And I've always thought it made more since to build a moon base first, instead of going to Mars. I know in the short run Mars looks more attractive. But in the long run, think of all we could learn from a permanet base in outer face. This knowledge could then be used to help other space ventures.
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If NASA is going to spend a launch on space telescopes, they may as well put up a new one. The Hubble was designed when NASA PR was claiming that shuttle launches were going to be cheap. They're not. Each one costs about a quarter billion dollars.
The astronomical community has spent much effort in the past year reaching a consensus opinion, and conveying this opinion, to NASA and the government. Astronomers are in favor of continuing support and service for Hubble at least until the NGST (James Webb Telescope) is up and flying. Hubble does some things that cannot be done from the ground at all and has been a huge success. Despite the cost, Hubble has been evaluated to have provided the best science per dollar of all astronomy facilities. Hubble Space Telescope proposals for the next year of observations are due THIS Friday, Jan. 23. I assume we will go on with the current observing cycle, but probably not the one beyond. But we don't know yet. The timing here is shocking. I also have a lot of friends who work on Hubble Instruments that were due to be installed on SM4 -- their jobs will vanish as the funding is cut and we'll have a flood of unemployed astronomers (we are a small field and this will have a relatively large immediate impact). Many astronomers were looking forward to some spectacular new science capabilities. Those won't happen now (the Webb Telescope is being optimized for infrared work, so we will be losing general UV capability entirely). The American Astronomical Society is maintaining an informational webpage at http://www.aas.org/policy/CurrentIssues.html that should help us determine just how this is going to affect us. I served on the Hubble Space Telescope science review panel last year to determine what projects would be done. This was just after the shuttle accident, and there was speculation at the time that this could happen. We knew then that a Hubble-mission could not abort to ISS in the event of a problem and that this might curtail things like SM4. I don't think anyone there really believed it would happen though, at least not this abruptly at this time.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
I need to correct one small piece of this -- although the NASA PR department persists in calling JWST the replacement for HST, there is no scientific sense to this. HST's reasons for existence are UV astronomy and high resolution, with a lesser role in the very near IR. JWST is an IR telescope. Ground based telescopes may eventually catch up with HST on resolution (though people have been saying this for years), but when HST is gone, UV astronomy is over. There is no planned mission by any country that I know of that replaces it in that capacity.
'm no engineer but it seems that going to the moon is really not much of a problem, after all Armstrong was there. It looks to someone uninformed like me that Mars represents a small increment in difficulty and that it could probably be done with the same tech that got us to the moon.
I'm an unashamed space nut but I admit that there is simply no consensus that we ought to go there particularly if it costs what ever sum of money the public considers significant, by that I mean a sum likely to have a major impact on other government programs- just check the posts on slashdot if you diagree.
Presently business sees no economic return in going to the moon or beyond - no point in ranting that they are short sighted and wrong the fact remains they don't see it so we can't look to them as an alternative to government.
I,m sure you are all aware of the X-Prize http://www.xprize.org/press/what.html what is signicant about it is not just the intention - it's that the investment made by the participants bears no relation to the reward.
Historically there are many examples of government offering prizes for things they just can't justify spending the money on. It's a win win for government. If it succeeds they show foresight if it fails they spent their money on better things.
What about a government funded X-prize II - 500 million dollars for the first human spending six months on the moon. 500 million to be divided among other organisations that solved specific problems that would enable such a period on the moon.
How about the readers of slashdot design the rules. I offer my own ideas;
1. 500 m for living six months on the moon
2. 100 m for a reuseable rentry vehicle with a 10 tonne payload
3. 50 million dollars for designing and building a closed ecology weighing less than 5 tonnes that provided food and processed waste to allow a human to live for six months.
4. 10 million dollars for a rocket engine or other propulsion system that delivered weighed X tonnes requiring Y fuel giving Z thrust/specific impulse
5. 10 m illion dollars for an effective drug based therapy to cure low gravity induced decalcification
6. Once a design/build has won a prize - for space use purposes only the technology enters the public domain.
7 10 million dollars for Solar cells that weigh X that give Y watts of power that can be errected by one man.
8. etc etc etc
How about exemption from health and safety legislation so the families dying astronauts don't sue - and just like the early explorers on earth they will die. How about designing rules so that all the sciences get a slice of the pie not just engineering and materials science.
Much more fun thinking of a way to make it happen at a cost that does not offend rather than indulging in Bush Bashing - trotting out old arguments about child poverty, tech spinoff and the efficiencies of unmanned programs.
Is ther really anyone against the idea of going to the moon and beyond if it's done cheaply and without signifcantly detracting from other government programs ?
Sorry if this is a bit of topic - but sick of the old flames much prefer seeing such a well educated group of people coming up with answers.
The Shuttle: TWO out of seven shuttles have been lost. They're outrageously expensive to refurbish. It's time to find a better way. Personally, I believe that seperating the cargo/human parts of the shuttle into different missions, or a return to capsules, would be better than trying to launch the mass of the shuttle every time, then have to rebuild the shuttle before you launch it again. Launch a lab on some Saturn-5 equivalent, then when the orbit is stable, send the astornaughts up in a smaller 'space plane'. Designed right, you could quickly have a better space station than the ISS.
Hubble: See the Shuttle. Manned missions to refurbish the hubble are too risky in terms of human life, and we don't have the shuttles to both keep the ISS supplied and the Hubble repaired, among other things. There are a number of replacement telescopes, some orbital, some not. Just think about how easy it would be to set up a telescope on the moon, and the value of observations from it!
And who says that the Hubble is being given up? Or the decision is by the president? Part of the article:
See? Canceled for safety concerns, and a new policy that the shuttles will only be doing ISS missions.
And these comments are "flamebait" if you are a far-right whacko, kids.
You have a pretty encompassing definition of 'far-right whacko' then.
I don't read AC A human right