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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"
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.
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.
It takes energy to boost things into higher orbits - what's more, it takes fuel. And that, right now, means a shuttle needs to stop by and give the Hubble a little nudge every now and then (the same with the ISS). Communications satellites orbit much higher, so they face less drag, and they're generally considered disposable in any event, since any repair hardware would cost more to launch than a complete new satellite.
Only the space shuttle can push the Hubble out. Not true. An unmanned mission could boost its orbit (NASA was already considering an unmanned mission to de-orbit the HST - no reason it couldn't boost it instead). The shuttle is just the only vehicle that can repair any damaged parts, and upgrade components...
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.
It'll fit in the shuttle (that's how it got up there in the first place). However, the shuttle's landing gear won't support the added weight on landing.
blog |
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
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
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.
They are true images, but not necessarilly what you would see if you went there and looked out the window. They usually are false-color to allow the non-visible spectrum to be seen. What you see may actually have been captured in the ultra-violet, X-ray, or some other non visible band.
If it's not on fire, it's a software problem.
Unfortunately 3 Soyuz capsuls would be required to rescue a full space shuttle, not 1.
What I think we should be developing, in addition to a shuttle replacement, is robotic repair vehicles that we could use in case of a backup, or in cases of hardware that we really don't want people risking their lives for.
We're working on technologies for that right now, through things like NASA's Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology mission and DARPA's Orbital Express program. Right now we don't have good sensors for bringing two crafts together under robotic or tele-robotic control. With luck, we'll have them working and working well in the very near future.
And yeah, I am a rocket scientist.
The plan always was to bring HST back down to Earth and put it in the Smithsonian. So I was very confused about why they started talking about deorbiting it in the more destructive way about a year ago. Then a fellow astronomer told me that that is no longer possible. The only shuttle that had a large enough bay to carry it (into orbit or back down again) was Colombia. That's no longer a possibility, obviously.
So as much as I agree with your sentiment, I think I can understand the reasons for the decision not to bring it back down intact.
Because it isn't a question of up or down. Up or down are relatively easy.
Hubble and ISS are in totally different orbital planes (28 and 51 degrees respectively, if I haven't had too much crackrock recently). And plane changes are incredibly expensive in terms of delta-V.
Technically not true. A Soyux+Progress mission could allow the hubble to be upgraded on-orbit. Such a mission would have severe limitations as to what could be replaced (size/weight limits of progress carrier) as well as duration (on-orbit capabilities of the Soyuz module).
Uggh, this fact doesn't seem to be sinking in here on /.
NGST is infrared, just like SIRTF. After Hubble's demise, there will be a serious gap in the spectrum available to space-based observatories (SIRTF/JWST for IR, FUSE for far-UV, Chandra for X-Ray). But no optical wavelengths.
At this point someone usually mentions that ground-based adaptive optics can produce image resolution comparable to Hubble. This ignores two factors.
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ground-based adaptive optic systems cannot take the stable long-term imaging integration data that Hubble can.
- ground-based adaptive optic systems do not produce good spectral data due to emission/absorption spectra interference in the atmosphere.
Summary - cancelling Hubble will leave a serious gap in astronomical science for at least 1-2 decades.One shouldn't consider killing Hubble in favor of JWST, but look at the whole picture and see if this scientific gap of killing Hubble is worth the price savings and added safety of not servicing it. IMHO, the answer is no.
make world, not war
Considering Discovery was the shuttle that actually deployed Hubble, I think your information is wrong.
and possibly also the booster add-on that was discussed recently.
Well, we *do* have to orbit Hubble in a controlled manner. It's massive enough that there's a possibility some of the components might reach Earth intact. The political fallout of not even attempting to controllably deorbit Hubble would be, um, nasty
Ergo, the booster will be built regardless. As long as we're going to put a (unmanned, probably) booster up there, why not use it for a greater purpose than destroying the most productive orbital instrument we've already launched? Putting the booster up in the first place is the most expensive part; the additional fuel cost (use an ion engine, maybe?) is negligible when you consider the total cost of the operation.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.