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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.
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).
--
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
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.
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
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.
The thing is that we'd be spending billions on our own economy. This pays off greatly in terms of jobs and technological advancement. It's not like all this money ends up in space. An earlier slashdot posting mentioned that the estimated return on investment of the moon shots was about 9 dollars in the economy for every dollar spent on the program. People seem to forget that what makes our economy strong is actually perception and activity. Oddly enough, this is often used as an excuse to run budget deficits (fiscal policy). While any extreme is bad, extreme stinginess and an unwillingness to spend money (even money we don't think we have) actually slows the economy down, which is one of the reaons for our present slump.
I'm also astounded by the negativism and pessimism by the majority of slashdotters. If we're to go forward and make any progress as society, we have to seriously adjust our attitudes. If we aren't ambitious, then we will stagnate as a society, and all of the social ills that we see around us will get worse, not better, as a result.
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.
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.
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.
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.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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
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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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
Not true!!! OK, yes the missions are expensive (few hundred million), but the largest ground-based observatories cost on order of 100 million each (e.g., Keck, VLT, etc.) with a few million per year in supporting costs. And as for "propsed" large ground-based telescopes put together -- that is ALSO quite false. There are several 30-100 meter telescopes at various levels of development and these are going to cost much more than Keck or the VLT telescopes. There was also a study done concerning the scientific impact per dollar spent on different astronomical missions/facilities. Despite Hubble's few billion dollar price tag it was rated as the best science per dollar spent. And if we've already spent a few billion, what's a few hundred million to keep it going? Finally, we ARE putting up a new one. Cancelling SM4 and any other servicing missions makes sure that Hubble will be gone at least several YEARS before the next one goes up. Most astronomers want to keep Hubble, but only until there is an alternative.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)