Slashdot Mirror
NASA to Reconsider Hubble Decision
blamanj writes "It's not dead yet. With cries of opposition coming in from all quarters, NASA has decided to review its earlier decision. Adm. Hal Gehman, chairman of the board that investigated the Columbia shuttle breakup last year, will 'review the (Hubble) matter and offer his unique perspective,' NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said"
At the very least, they should turn it around and point it at some nude beaches.
'review the (Hubble) matter and offer his unique perspective,'
What is so unique about his perspective? Because he was involved in an advisory board?
Attention Martians: If you see a gentleman in a suit with a texas accent, and slightly funny ears, landing, be sure to send him back - he wants your oil!
The site owner's response may show where future advances in space will occur.It looks like it's boiling down to a (deceptively) simple question: will you risk your life for your dreams? More importantly: will your country allow you to take that risk?
Brazil's answer seems to be, "yes". Meanwhile, here in the US, we're too busy killing ourselves in our SUVs. And don't get me started on 500+ dead and hundreds of $billions spent on the other side of own ball of rock!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
.... "Try previewing your posts before you hit submit!"
Polluting the Internet since 2003...
http://percep
Maybe it is just me, but I don't understand the point of abandoning a space project and crashing it into the earth. Why not push it out to space a little more... to somewhat a safe distance, and GIVE it to someone, like a school, or something. Im sure SOMEONE can put things like this, or a SPACE STATION to good use. Maybe if it isnt even in the immediate future, I think there is plenty of empty space out there, that we can even park them anywhere. Even if that is orbiting the moon... and if it gets destroyed, there will be no issue
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Hubble gave us a new perspective on what it means to feel small and insignificant in the universe. Take a look at all the images it has produced- I've downloaded many and had them dumped to AgX paper so I can hang them up on the wall.
Hell, just click over to the hubble site here http://hubble.nasa.gov/image-gallery/ and you'll see star formation.
Just don't take away the tool that has cleaned a small bit of grease off the window to the universe and let us see what's out there. We need more photos to help 'instruct' some people down here that already are too big for their own good.
Without the shuttle to replace the failing gyro's onboard the Hubble, their isn't much that NASA can do, besides boost its orbit... Pretty much their choices are: -reconsider shuttle usage -ask the Russians to help with a manned mission (would need to send up a capsule, and something to hold the paylod - Soyuz is too small to hold all the replacement parts and astronauts) -come up with an unmanned mission to boost the orbit (this still wouldn't address failing gyros and other critical parts wearing out)
With the cost of sending things to mars, and George bush all in "I'm happy spending truckloads of money" mood, I'm sure a few million $ to spend on keeping hubble operational could be found.
;)
Hell, if they turn it round to face us, they could use to to find terrorists and stick it on the war against terror budget
Well, if they don't want it, can I have it? I only have one tree in the back so it would be nice to tie a hammock to.
If they decide to not continue operating the Hubble it'd be nice to see it in the Smithsonian or on loan to other museums. Having that unique piece of equipment within arms reach of kids may give them the spark to pursue a career in science or at least make them appreciate it.
A phoney mock-up won't do, it have the real thing there: pits, warts and all. One of my earliest museum memories (very early 70's?) from our provincial museum was "Sputnik" on display. I remember being in awe of it until my mom told me it wasn't the real Sputnik. It was a let down, like realizing Santa isn't real. Being told a few bones in otherwise complete dinosaur skeletons wasn't nearly as bad, at least most of the bones were legit.
Trolling is a art,
But, hey, let's burn taxpayers dollars at end-80ies technology !
Guess why some people want to close the NASA.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
There wasa previous slashdot article talking abouit the advances in imaging processors. Couldn't they dso the same for the Hubble? The lenses are great (albeit slightly flawed), but with such raw data, new computers will pull better info.
Their previous decision may have been unpopular, but this is ridiculous. NASA needs to learn how to make a game-plan and stand by it, rather than trying to do everything in a really half-assed way. Plus, if they had waited a bit longer, I think they might have seen some interesting proposals on Hubble's future come crawling out of the woodwork from the private sector. Private investment and innovation in space technology is something NASA definitely needs to encourage rather than trample on in the years ahead.
AC.
I think it's ironic that whenever NASA gets something working correctly, they choose not to continue servicing a peice of equipment that has brought back some amazing images.
/.!
One of my most favorite hobbies is looking at images brought back from the hubble on a friday night since I have no life outside of
Those who trade in their freedom for security, deserve neither.
Legos decided to get free press by saying they were going to stop creating Mindstorm legos. This got a lot of people up-in-arms and they started spilling the wonders of Mindstorm everywhere. Then lego states that they have decided not to stop making them. What free advertising!
I feel that NASA has used the same technique here. The general population supports NASA but it's hard to get the people to publically stand for NASA's support. By saying that they are scrapping the Hubble, they found a way to stimulate the public into lobbying for the program.
Way to go NASA! Marketing brillance!
AC
Scientists at NASA have decided to keep the aging Hubble Telescope around for a little while longer. In a joint marketing effort with 'Booble', the telescope will be turned around to face the earth and used in the serious business of finding more content for the upstart pr0n search engine. One NASA Scientist has been quoted saying, "Before this opportunity we searched through space for heavenly bodies. Is it not HIGH time we search for heavenly bodies at home?"
Wouldn't the risk and cost of safely returning it to Earth be far greater than just going and maintaining it?
I remember being in awe of it until my mom told me it wasn't the real Sputnik. It was a let down, like realizing Santa isn't real.
Sorry, Virginia. No Santy Claus. And no billion dollar operation to get the Hubble back to Earth to assuage your severe childhood trauma.
And I hate to break it to you, but most of the dinosaur skeletons on actual display are casts from the originals.
--- Ban humanity.
It's possible that some of the decision makers at NASA may have expected (or at least hoped for) this sort of reaction. If you want to boost your funding, propose cutting an expensive but popular program, in the hopes that you'll get an outcry and support for budget increases.
(I'm not complaining if this was intentional, mind you; I'm just congratulating them on their clever strategy if it was.)
How much would keeping the Hubble active cost compared to some of the proposed massively powerful earthbound scopes, anyway? Given the choice, I'd probably go for buying the OWL or the like rather than the Hubble if the costs are similar.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
NASA was planning only Space Station compatible orbits as one of the safety mechanisms for the shuttles. The Hubble is in a very different orbit, with inadequate fuel to reach the Space Station in case of trouble.
On the other hand, the Hubbe is arguably the most successful astronomical project ever conducted and NASAs second most successful project after the moon landing.
This guy is military - somebody quick, write up a proposal on how Hubble can be adapted to function as an orbital death laser.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
In these hard times there are more important things NASA can do. Like for (inter-)national security.
I'm a proud citizen of a free country (USA) and I can't believe that money is still wasted on things like Hubble when the world needs our help and our united military forces and our military expertise.
The decision prompted letters from Mikulski and a joint letter from all members of Congress from Maryland, from where the orbiting platform is operated. Hubble's fate has also become a cause for amateur and professional astronomers worldwide.
E-mails have poured in to the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which coordinates the use of Hubble's instruments.
"It's been overwhelming. My e-mail is overflowing," said Steve Beckwith, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute.
"Every day, we've had offers of ideas, political support and even money. Every day, I get people who want to know how they can contribute to keeping Hubble alive."
Web pages have also been set up dedicated to saving the floating space telescope.
If they want more funding, NASA can't afford to *look* like wasters.
Don't worry. That's the last thing we'd do. There's nothing more mind destroying and numbing than a prattling ideologe. Yeesh!
Need I say more?
Here are a coulpe links to articles:
From today's NY Times:
NASA Chief Affirms Stand on Canceling Hubble Mission
Also,
O'Keefe has sent a second letter (dated Jan. 28) to Senator Mikulski.
The earliest time that the telescope would fall to earth was 2007 correct? That means were have at least 3 years to build, test, and launch a mission to save it. I believe the science community at large would agree with me that this telescope will not go down without a serious fight. On a slight side note. I have noticed that tech issues, other then cs outsourcing to india, have not been discussed much in the US's presidential races so far. Personally I am upset that politicians think that welfare, tax reform, and social security are more important then the advancement of our society. Along with making our voices heard for the Hubble we as a scientific and technical community need to let our voices be heard that all our issues are just as, if not more, important then the common problems that face our society.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Adm. Hal Gehman would do well to think of this in military terms: do you really want to give up your best intelligence-gathering source based on the promise from the government that the funds will be available for a new one three years after you give it up?
As a former intel geek myself, I'd say the answer is a resounding "no"... Pay the extra money to keep my current source while you build and deploy a new one for me to use.
blog |
One minute a multi-billion dollar project is cancelled, the next it's not.
Makes me wonder exactly how seriously the consider ANY decision they make.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I think they should continue to service the Hubble, at least until its replacement is online. However, at some point it will have to be abandoned as components fail. When it comes time to abandon it, there are a few options:
1) Let it return to the Earth. Probably the cheapest possible option.
2) Spend money and risk lives to push it farther out into space, possibly into Lunar orbit. This means that when it breaks down, it cannot be repaired because we do not have a system of getting people to it reliably.
3) Donate it to some other organization. Tell me about this organization that will spend $100s of millions to maintain the Hubble. If they cannot or will not spend the money, result #1 will occur.
If you want to focus on a waste of resources, look at the ISS. What a boondoggle.
The answer had always better be YES when it comes to scientific research and exploration. If the answer was NO, we'd still think the world was flat, if we'd even exist at all.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Well, IIRC, ESA participated in the financing of Hubble. I think it wasn't a lot of money but still, does ESA have something to say about the future of Hubble ?
Iraq: war to save the U
Now think what you could build with that money in todays technology. I would suggest reusing some of the detectors designed for the next service mission. Use a modern light-weight mirror. No options for repear in space, just launch and forget. If it blows up, build another one. Mightbe be really modest in your goals, don't go for a design that is 10 times better than hubble, but try to equal it with a mirror of 1.5 - 2 meter. I don't know the exact number, but i believe SIRTF was built for something between 0.5 and 1B$. I would guess this could be done for less than 1B$ within 3 years to close the gap till NGST is built.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
O'Keefe is obviously being pressured by Hubble's political constituency. He needs validation of his controversial (but in my mind correct) decision to quell the disent. Who better than Adm. Hal Gehman who effectively put severe limitations on the further use of the Space Shuttle without being completely specific about its future use. I think it is very clever on O'Keefe's part. NASA had to swallow all of the recommendations of Gehman's board of review, whether they made sense or not. O'Keefe just wants to put responsibility on Gehman if an orbiter is stranded servicing Hubble. It is against O'Keefe's better judgement.
an ill wind that blows no good
... it to the space station, that way they could work on it, share fuel, be able to command it better, etc...
The Russians could have a Soyuz on the pad nearly ready to go. If the shuttle has another problem, they can launch a rescue mission.
If the shuttle lands safely, send the Soyuz up to the ISS.
It goes a little something like this....
Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease ooohprettypleasewithsugarontop!! Please. Come on....*stomps in a petulent and frustrated manner* I'll never ask for anything again. PLLLleeaaase!? *drops to the floor in true melodramatic fashion, makes a small nearly inaudiable whining sound and goes limp when someone tries to pick them up*
That episode makes me glad the US doesn't have very many nude beaches.
They know the risks. Most of the active astronauts would jump at the chance to go on another Hubble mission.
A few quick notes on Hubble and NASA:
If Hubble is going to come home on its own around 2007, that does not mean we have 3 years to make a decision. With every orbit Hubble gets a tiny bit closer to Earth. It isn't going to take a left turn in 3 years and suddenly be on collision course. We need to do something in the next year or so before the orbit decays to the point that a boost won't move it high enough. That and this is mostly about repair and replacement parts as previously stated - which brings me to:
There was a Hubble plan. NASA has had a plan all along to successfully and responsibly keep Hubble going. Obviously, some unexpected and tragic events have changed that plan.
However, U.S. folks posting with a gripe about NASA's bad planning with Hubble and the International Space Station need to re-direct their energies and complain to their congresspeople - they are the ones holding the purse strings, and they are the ones who cut the Hab module for the ISS. Each of us share the burden of what "popular opinion" is, and that is the only thing we can do about keeping plans on track.
Kulakovich
Proud owner of a Mensa membership card.
WOW. That means you might have gotten more than 1250 or so on your SAT's. Impressive. Or not.
Of course the real question is if it's in your name.
is there any value in retrieving the dead gyros for analysis on why they failed? and how to improve the design for future projects?
I think it's kinda funny that NASA no longer considers Hubble a Project, Program, or even equipment, but that it's simply referred to as MATTER....
and would like to see it extended for as long as possible.
t ml
Space Optical Interferometry seems a better option to spend the cash on.
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/SIM/sim_index.h
Lower maintenance and deliverable via disposable launch systems. One unit fails just fire up a replacement.
Worst
It's gotta be worth a couple bucks to someone!
This wasn't Bush's call. This was NASA trying to appear "decisive" in implementing the new space push. Mismanagement on their part as usual. Don't be so dismissive of it either. If we do establish a presence on the Moon, we'll be able to build a telescope that will make Hubble look like a 25-cent plastic magnifying glass.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Which will replace Hubble anyway, is more capable, and doesn't need a shuttle launch.
If you're going to go to the expense of a space launch, why not launch a nice new telescope instead of trying to fix up the Hubble, which at this point is a beater anyway.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I've always been skeptical of the Star Trek images that get released...can someone confirm whether or not these are true photoimages or do they get doctored up based on what they think the things look like.
...Need I say more?
IANARS either but here goes: If you could attach a booster to Hubble you could put it into a higher orbit. If you boost in the direction of the orbit you will get a higher apogee (highest point in an eliptical orbit) You will always return to the point where you fired your engines, so a second burn is needed at apogee to make the orbit less elipitical, and this raises the perigee (lowest point in the orbit). Firing the booster in the direction of orbit will never lower the perigee.
IIRC they were considering sending a robotic booster to de-orbit the Hubble. To do that they would boost in the opposite direction to the orbit which would lower the perigee.
Note, this suggestion isn't original; I think Bob Parks made it somewhere in What's New.
Tooting my own horn dept: as I said here, Bush's Mars plan is wildly underfunded, and that unless there's serious funding the Mars plan is at best a publicity stunt, and at worst a president micro-managing NASA in a way that will get rid of the few remaining actual science programs. Decomissioning Hubble is exhibit A for that argument.
In answer to the original question, "Is repairing the Hubble worth 5 astronaut's lives?" I'd just like to say that I'll go. I'll risk my life for science (and maybe the adventure of a lifetime in LEO).
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
...my son. I obviously have to post AC or else I get spammed up the whazooo. Don't even get me started on the MyDoom thing... I build the world in six days and some paramecium with a bad attitude brings it to a halt in a day...
Well, back to work...
p.s. Your wife is having an affair, and don't forget to pay your car insurance.
GOD
god@earthlink.net
Holy, Moley Trinity!
It's just me and my friend, The Brain. (Oh, wait! Brain, you ARE Ross Perot in at least one episode! Narf!!)
Anonymous Pinky
If you think that people should be going to Mars, then you should have no qualms about reparing the Hubble. Going to Mars is much, much riskier.
nothin there yet!
Next!
Here is an article about a private company that wants to save the Hubble with a "space tug". I say if NASA is going to let it burn anyway, they should let private industry bid for the project. There are a lot of reasons that the Hubble is still relevant. NEO (near earth objects) anyone? The Hubble has made some amazing discoveries and I don't think it has outlived its usefulness yet.
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
...if it works, leave it?
Jonathanjk.com
Not only would the Hubble servicing mission save one of astronomy's most valuable instruments, it would offer desperately needed aid to the sagging aerospace industry. Keeping Hubble UP is a good thing, not only for science, but for industry.
Personally, I think the troubled aerospace industry is more than a little responsible for Bush's sudden excitement about going to Mars and the Moon. IIRC, not too long ago government was hacking away at NASA's budget at light-speed.
His perspective isn't unique. I know a lot of management types with their heads up their asses.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Is it just me, or didn't the decision to let the Hubble die early seem to come awefully quick after President Bush's policy directive? I mean, that's a major decision and it came days after. Clearly not enough time to think it through, and let's face it, in many ways, the Hubble is NASA's most successful public relations program since Apollo. I mean, I hate to say, let's spend millions 'cause the pictures look cool, but think twice before you toss it out.
I rather like the old comparison, "F*ck for Chastity!"
Let it go.. it's served its purpose (and what an amazing job it did!) but they're already planning a newer, better telescope to be launched in a few years. Plus, when we get on the moon we can build an even better one that will make the Hubble look insignificant in comparison.
Model it after Battlebots or the DARPA Grand Challenge. Let entrants audition their robots in the same groundside Hubble-repair simulations used by Astronauts. Give the best entrant a ride to Hubble to make real fixes.
More discussion at Send Asimo to Save Hubble and Hubble Rescue Battlebots .
1. Pull the Hubble down...
2. ???
3. PROFIT!
But seriously, is this any different than the situtation where that guy who owned WTC #7, decided to blow it up rather than put out a small fire, just so we could get a nice $500M insurance check?
We can 'blow up' the Hubble, and make Billions in from kickbacks on the contracts for the Hubble II.
It's simple, really. To sink the Hubble, NASA already plans on firing off an un-manned mission to drive it down into a decaying orbit:
This shows the resources for manuevering the telescope are already budgeted. There may be added expense in engineering a mount point on the ISS, and additional risk & effort involved in calculating a safe vector, but as the following (kick ass) tools can show you, the HST and the ISS have practically identical orbits assigned them. The difference in orbits between the ISS and the HST are in almost identical orbits, as regards altitude, speed and direction of travel. It would be simple and cheap to re-purpose the end-of-life booster pack to serve as a tow truck into ISS space.
What problems would this plan solve? Well, service missions are suddenly a matter of popping out on the patio and replacing a fuse, instead of a multi-billion dollar voyage risking the life and safety of many billions more worth of equipment, personel and reputation. Extra parts can be tucked in with ISS mission carry-on baggage if necessary. and the HST would still be one of the finest optical instruments ever imagined.
Would there be problems with this solution? Yes. There may be issues with local radiation effects in the vicinity of the station, effects that might diminish the sensitivity of the instrument, whether by heating, light-polution, communications equipment or even vibration from the motors used aboard the station. The HST was not designed to work under such conditions. However, many of these issues can be solved with careful consideration with engineering the mount point spar. Any remaining degradation is worth the pain, as a hobbled hubble is better than a scrubbed hubbled.
This solution is just the first off the top of my head. There are others to consider. Perhaps they could use the booster to park the HST in a non-decaying orbit long enough to wait on the arrival of cherap space flight. On second though, by the time we have cheap space flight, it will be a simple thing to put up copies of the HST and far more besides. I suppose there are other possibilities, but mating the HST to the ISS is the cheapest, fastest, safest and sanest choice for the immediate future.
Hubble is the most successful of NASA's programs since the Apollo missions. And it's not just being used in USA, but the data is being used/analyzed by people all around the world. It's freely available (after a 1 year period that the PI has exclusive access to it) and astronomers from Pakistan to Brazil have been using it.
The factor O'Keefe keeps mentioning is safety. But the ironic thing is that he keeps promoting a Mars program where risk, and hence safety issues, is far far greater. Also, there are many astronauts that have already volunteered to service Hubble (eg Grunsfeld, who was the lead in servicing mission 3B and did another Hubble servicing mission prior). In fact, Grunsfeld said he'd go in the shuttle to Hubble but not to ISS!
It seems to be more politics than science/funding issues. O'Keefe was selected by Bush, and now is actively pushing Bush's "Mars" agenda, which is starting to look more and more like a carefully disguised space-based militaristic program.
Most NASA and other scientists, as well as amateur astronomers around the globe, are against the decision to cancel Hubble. Even people actively interested in Mars exploration have praised the decision to fund Mars programs but adamanatly advocate not cancelling Hubble to do so.
Hopefully this decision will be overturned. Senator Mikulski addressed STScI this morning saying she was able to convince O'Keefe to set up a committee to review the feasability to service Hubble. Hopefully the committee will be unbiased and actively consider science instead of politics.
make world, not war
But the original poster asked about the astronaut's lives, not the expense or the future of the space program. Unfortunately, if the decision on whether space missions could proceed were based on whether there were any risk for the astronauts, there would not be a space program at all.
I like the hubble and all, and I feel like they should save it, but here's a thought:
;) ). Why not crash it into the moon instead?
So they're planning on send a remote rocket and bring it down in a controlled crash (btw, you waon't catch me anywhere near Colorado that week
I mean look at it this way.
1) Hope fully at some point we are going to have some manufacturing going on either in a space station or on the moon.
2) Lifting supplies costs lots and lots of money
Ok, so they could crash it into the moon, it's all broken and twisted on the landscape, no big deal, BUT there are at least some raw materials sitting there on thye moon that we won't have to pay a 3rd time to get up there
I mean we pay once to get the thing up there, pay to keep it up there, then pay to bring it down and junk it? That doesn't make sense, plant it up there and let it wait for us to reuse some of that stuff.
Course I could see a buch of people getting all up in arms about littering on the moon, no matter how many billions we save by leaving some resources up there till later...
Whee signature.
is another evaluation ala Richard P. Feynman. Too bad he is no longer available, having shifted off this mortal coil... 'Unique perspectives' can be very enlightening. Feynman's Challenger Report
TallGreen CMS hosting
Back in 1990 as an Astronomy-Physics student at the University of Wisconsin... The Hubble Space Telescope was touted as the "Next Big Thing" since Galileo trained his telescope upon the Sun and Jupiter. "If that mirror was as big as the United States," one of my professors claimed, "it would deviate from a perfect parabola by 1 cm." This kind of resolution would lead to a revolution in Astronomy near the magnitude of Galileo's discoveries (e.g. heavenly bodies revolving around something *other than* the Earth, sun spots) It's a sad day for me personally to see this paragon of discovery and wonder being talked about like yet another busload of space trash. Sigh.
Ma gavte la nata
On the other hand, NASA has developed a new space telescope with a better mirror that is scheduled to be launched in 2011.
It is very important for NASA to do valuable science, but why not do it cost effectively? The cost of a shuttle mission, estimated at about $400m - $500m, is almost half of the whole budget for the next generation space telescope ($825m).
Why don't you go over there and do a count yourself, but be sure to count all of those in mass graves. Just because it didn't happen this last year, doesn't mean it's not newsworthy. Sure you wouldn't get quite the same "welcome" that you would have with Saddam in power, but at least now you have a reasonable chance of avoiding his henchmen. Perhaps while your in the area, you can report on political freedom in Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia. Most likely, you wouldn't even get in the country.
The guy who posted the parent post is found dead.
- Chocked on his own dick.
Then they will have something to stretch out for. Those who gets to Hubble first, gets Hubble.
Maybe, but then we've done some pretty amazing things with solar golf before. Stage the changes correctly and Hubble will slide into an orbit which will co-incide with the ISS and still provide a envelope of saftey which will permit another opportunity to properly manuver the Hubble close enough to the station to permit it to be grappled by the robotic arm and be serviced by personel on the ISS. It is possible for patience and common sense to carry the day on this one and make everyone look good. 2) Even if you could work around the fuel-problem-thingy, it might be even more risky than a servicing mission; the hubble was not designed to perform a docking, so you would risk crashing it into the ISS. It wouldn't be pretty.
addressed this with the first rebut.
3) The thrusters of the ISS and leaks create a sort of gas bubble around the ISS. Not ideal for oservations. Although there is a particle field surrounding the ISS, the Hubble would only be there long enough to see the hardware replaced and another orbital solution projected. It might also be a nice idea to retrofit the hubble with a bootser harness which could provide it with some nifty ion propulsion capabilities. It would rock to have that telescope be able to shoot-n-scoot.
4a) if you were to attach it to the ISS, the vibrations from the space station would make observations a problem.
The telescope wouldn't actualy be in anything but self-test and maint-mode.
4b) If it were to be floating around the ISS, you'd have a constant risk (see problem 2).
Actually, any two large bodies in micro-gravity influence each other, creating a new orbital solution. That's probably the more intense concern as the ISS-Hubble will have to be reboosted more frequently until the maint. is completed or Hubble is released.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
I find many of these posts vastly amusing with the common theme of "let it go, it's obsolete, it'll be replaced". All this common sentiment is utterly ignorant of how telescopes are used.
... and the prior 'scopes still have waiting lists. You can't possibly build enough square meters of mirror to satisfy demand.
... many decades, probably. The amortization of Hubble can be very long. But you have to regain an understanding of the amortization process itself.
As soon as you build a major 'scope, people are lined up to use it
So, Hubble will never be "obsolete", since even old, old 'scopes on Earth are being used.
It's time for you throw-it-out boneheads to wake the fuck up from your Western dream (actually a "nightmare") of conspicuous consumption. You cannot afford to continue building things and then throwing them away when they fail to contine to excite your techie bone. Hubble can be used up to a certain limit in the degradation of the mirror's aluminizing layer
Use it up, make it last, wear it out. The old New English sayings ring true today.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
cragen
I'm so glad that they're at least considering repairing the Hubble Telescope and keeping it operational. I've been amazed by the images it has produced. It would be such a shame to let it die now.
Why would a moon base need to have a scientific purpose? I thought it was meant as a piece of space infrastructure. The idea is that you can use it to build things on the moon, out of raw materials extracted and refined there. That way you only have to boost them off of the moon rather than off of the earth.
I think I understand your line of reasoning. Space Telescope + Private investment ??? Profit!!!
...not to service the Shuttle again is for safety's sake, a Hubble mission would need a spare Shuttle ready to go for a rescue mission, just in cause Something Happen. Okay - but would it not be worth just one time to protect the investment in this, one of the most successful space project ever?
Great idea. And you don't have to worry at all about the rocks and dust that have been accumulating there for billions of years. They won't affect the sensitive optics nor will they block the view. Why hasn't anyone thought of that before?
"Ayn Rand is a bloody socialist compared to me." - Robert A. Heinlein
dude, a lot more than 500 PEOPLE died over there...
:)
Well, duh, I knew that when I posted. But I was trying to post about the space program and the concept of relative risk. I simply wanted to point out that US leadership has no problem expending a lot of lives for a goal with dubious merit. Look where it got me -- an instant +5, then a kick back down to 3 by knee-jerk anti-politicos. It's as if I linked to some radical country group, for crying out loud.
For the record:
* 500 troops vastly understates the issue, even if all you care about are US casualties. Last I heard, there were 2000+ troops injured, and we're talking debilitating injuries like limbs, eyes, and parts of brains blown away. Give Bush enough time, and he'll top the WTC numbers.
* Of course, Bush has clearly topped the WTC tally when you count the number of Iraqis killed since we invaded. But relatively few of those deaths are due to direct US action -- they're mostly due to the chaos we caused by invading.
* Even so, it may yet turn out that the 5-year death toll among Iraqis is less than it would have been under Saddam, who was an unmitigated bastard.
* But even if Saddam was a bastard, Bush could have tried not lying about WMDs, and he sure as heck could have planned ahead for the complete lack of order everyone knew our entry would cause. He could have simply asked NPR's Anne Garrels, whose book shows that she had better on-the-ground intelligence than Bush's sources.
* No thanks to Bush, the troops are performing as well as can be expected in the situation they've been ordered into.
So, in your esteemed opinion, have I redeemed my Green Party credentials?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The rush to take the government out of everything ignores how many great achievements throughout history never would have happened without government sponsorship. Erik the Red, Columbus, Balboa...all government sponsored. Goddard developing the liquid-fuelled rocket? Significant government (and university) sponsorship. Breaking the sound barrier? Government. And of course the Apollo moon landings and the existence of the HST...no private organization would ever have accomplished those, for there was no profit in any of them.
Everyone's rush to privatize things always seems to ignore how much poorer we'd be without government sponsorship of exploration. I sure don't want to live in a world where we only do anything because it's profitable. When endeavors naturally become commodities (automobiles, flight, etc.), then privatization makes sense in order to encourage reliability and cost containment. But when we're in the initial stages, which we definitely still are with space, the government plays a crucial role.
-Kurt
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
A single shuttle flight costs approxiamtely 500 million dollars when all is said and done. I think that it's pretty safe to assume that no one is going to want to foot the bill for a half-billion dollar museum display. It's just not going to happen.
The most important limiting factor in space exploration is propulsion. Launching payloads on liquid fueled rockets is expensive, dangerous, and requires a very large fuel to payload ratio.
Rather than focus on using 100 year old technology to access space, they should be funding R&D for new technologies such as scramjets and ion propulsion. Progress may be slow at first, but this is the only way to realize the 10:1 to 100:1 weight/cost reduction needed to make spaceflight affordable. In the meantime this research will produce spinoff technologies.
If that means taking a hiatus from manned spaceflight for a while, so what. Space isn't going anywhere. Once we have cheaper, more reliable propulsion technology, we won't be dependent on bloated, slow-moving bureaucracies like NASA to get to space.
Analogy: imagine the government announced that we were going to build the world's fastest computer using vacuum tubes, instead of funding semiconductor research. We go build the thing, and then by the time it is built, it's obsolete and the money is wasted. Same thing here. This is what happens when science is managed by politicians. Basic research isn't as exciting as a vanity mission to plant a flag on Mars.
I read in Time magazine that one of the proposed projects for the moon is the installation of a group of optical telescopes on the "dark side" of the moon. The cost is probably stratospheric (pun intended...). However, this type of installation would probably require less care since it is not floating in space. Or not. Either way, it may be the next logical step after Hubble. Happy Trails, Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
But we don't live in a three body Solar system.
There are other considerations beside using the Shuttle as a tug boat... These comments from Goddard Space Flight Center webmaster: .....
"Also, Hubble's pointing and flight systems are contingent upon a specific orbit. It cannot be easily moved and still operate, much less be moved near another large oribiting body.
Hubble definitely cannot be attached to the ISS because it needs to be able to rotate and revolve freely (it often takes exposures that are several hours - imagine try to hold your camera on the same subject for hours while you are running.)
Hubble's view cannot be obstructed. ISS would vibrate too much."
Thanks for the support!
is arguably the most successful astronomical project ever conducted and NASAs second most successful project after the moon landing.
As I was quickly reading through, I somehow misread the end as "after the hindenberg".
I know they're not even remotely spelled the same, but I guess the mention of NASA somehow prepped my mind's context for disaster. =P
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
if you'd bother to follow the links i make at the top of this thread, you'd see precisely how close HST is to the ISS. Nobody said anything about star trek, but hey, great backhanded insult. I want you to consider that the shuttles have quite easilly made it to both HST and ISS on several occasions, and that there is no way matching orbits is cheaper than a relaunch, as if they'd ever relaunch a bird to begin with.
Notthat I mind being strung along like this. maybe you'e even trolled me? who can tell anymore.
I would be interested in any better answers you might have, though.
What about an "X Prize" to save the Hubble?
Have a private individual organize a mission to either boost/repair Hubble, or to bring it back safely, and they get to keep it?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Just because the orbits are close doesn't mean the objects are close. The links you gave do not show the heights of the objects. You realize that space is three dimensional right? As a matter of fact the ISS flies considerably higher than the HST. It takes MUCH more fuel to boost an object's height than to send it crashing into earth.
In fact, even if they were in the same orbit, at the same heights, they could still be 180 degrees out of phase with each other within that orbit. Bringing the two craft together in that scenario would cost more than trashing the hubble and relaunching it.
You do realize that you can't just stop in orbit and wait for the other vessel to catch up. The whole point of an orbit is that you have to keep moving to stay in the orbit.
I want you to consider that the shuttles have quite easilly made it to both HST and ISS on several occasions
This is absolutely false. I challenge you to present even one space shuttle mission that visited both the HST and the ISS. It's never happened before.
Parent is incorrect on several counts, and severely overrated:
distorting effects of gravity on the mirror? dude, what the hell are you talking about? The big selling point of Hubble is not that it it's outside of Earth's gravity, which it is not but rather outside of it's atmosphere. ground based telescopes don't have to worry about being bent out of shape, they need to worry about all the air they have to look through.
They need to worry about *both*. Hubble, while certainly within Earth's gravity well, is in freefall, like anything in orbit, and therefore a zero-gravity environment. Hence there's no mirror sagging due to gravity, which *is* one of the major problems affecting large telescopes on Earth.
Regarding telescopes on the Moon: unlikely. There's no reason to put an optical telescope down a gravity well at all, except for the convenience of astronomers who are already sitting in the same gravity well.
- nic
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
.. about Mars! .. about a robot failure on Mars! .. about ISS! .. about an engineering design flaw that will .. about Columbia! .. about seven humans who died to insure that ....
... ... "Think
fate ISS to an early doom!
he gets payed on time and gets his check
deposited on the bank he reguists,
that he gets his promotion on time,
that NASA does anthing meaningful in the
next 50 years,
This POWS (Piece Of Walking S**T) does not
deserve the air he breaths!
Next month, Russia will hold a "Training"
exercise for their nuclear forces
a big one! My adive to Putin
about the future! Think about 'what I can
to to make the future better!' Therefore,
Target O'Keefe! Blow the Basta@d to Kingdom
CUM!"
There is one exception: changing the eccentricity of an orbit is easier than shifting to a different altitude at the same eccentricity.
Crashing an orbiting object into earth does not actually require changing the apogee of the orbit. All you have to do is change the perigee i.e. the orbital eccentricity. Once the object hits the drag of the atmosphere, you don't need to spend any more energy on slowing it down.
If there is anything so tiresome and boorish as you, I have not seen it on Slashdot. Not even the GNAA or goatse.cx trolls. Whatever your next "project" is, I bet that it is just as risible and just as worthy of modding you down just to keep you from posting above +1.