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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"
At the very least, they should turn it around and point it at some nude beaches.
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.
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.
If I remember correctly, both he and the Hubble use the same prescription.
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,
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?"
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
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.
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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 $100s of millions to maintain the Hubble. If they cannot or will not spend the money, result #1 will occur.
If you want to focus on a waste of resources, look at the ISS. What a boondoggle.
The answer had always better be YES when it comes to scientific research and exploration. If the answer was NO, we'd still think the world was flat, if we'd even exist at all.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Well, look at it this way. If you, Administrator O'Keefe, order a Hubble servicing mission and something goes terribly wrong, your career along with several people's lives are almost guaranteed to be forfeit. Are you going to make that order against the better judgment of the CAIB which was responsible for unravelling the previous catastrophe? No -- if you're even thinking about going back to Hubble, this guy needs to be involved.
Well, IIRC, ESA participated in the financing of Hubble. I think it wasn't a lot of money but still, does ESA have something to say about the future of Hubble ?
Iraq: war to save the U
Now think what you could build with that money in todays technology. I would suggest reusing some of the detectors designed for the next service mission. Use a modern light-weight mirror. No options for repear in space, just launch and forget. If it blows up, build another one. Mightbe be really modest in your goals, don't go for a design that is 10 times better than hubble, but try to equal it with a mirror of 1.5 - 2 meter. I don't know the exact number, but i believe SIRTF was built for something between 0.5 and 1B$. 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
That episode makes me glad the US doesn't have very many nude beaches.
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
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
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!
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.
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.
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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.
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
What is so unique about his perspective? Because he was involved in an advisory board?
Chaired it, actually. He probably has a better insight into the capabilities and limitations of the shuttle program (which would have to be used in the event of any HST maintenance or rescue mission) than all but a handful of NASA engineers.
Disclaimer: I worked for ADM Gehman for a couple of years when he was the J3 (Operations) at USACOM (now morphed into JFCOM). Super guy, both thorough and thoughtful, totally unflappable.
Trusted by cats.
Yes, we could put a telescope on the moon (not so easily and probably not for many many years, and there are problems there, too, with vibration issues for instance), but that isn't really the point here. The issue is about whether or not to keep an operating telescope in operation until its replacement is flying. Hubble servicing missions have upgraded it from 1980s (or even 1970s) technology to 1990s technology (instruments, computers, solar panels, etc., get upgrades), so that's not a valid criticism.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
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
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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).
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
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