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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)
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.
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.
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.
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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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.
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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.
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]
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
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.
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. No air on the Moon remember? Besides you can put an array on the Moon which you can't do on Earth. Finaly, a radio telescope array on the "dark side" of the moon won't have to contend with all the EM noise that Earth-based ones do.
Blaze a trail to the New World