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NASA Engineers Dispute Hubble Safety Claim
Zeinfeld writes "According to the administration, the Hubble space telescope is going to be allowed to die in the next three years because the shuttle mission required to save it would be too risky. Meanwhile the public plans say shuttle missions to the space station will resume. Papers leaked to the New York Times say hogwash. The article (free subscription required) reports claims that money and politics, not safety are the reason. The public NASA story is clearly nonsense, and if the science from Hubble does not justify a shuttle mission, then it's time to pull the plug on the space station. I suspect that is exactly what will happen after the November election."
Currently this story links to the second page of the article.
...differently? Lets face it, the tax cuts served two purposes for the Bush administration, buy off support of the richest in America and to run the finances of the nation into the ground so far that we would have to cut spending. This Mars crap is just that, a canard to distract the populace and make Bush look like a visionary. Given it was unfunded I would imagine he does not have any serious desire to see the US travel to Mars, although I would imagine he would like Terry McCauliffe get sent there...
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
These safety issues are just plain silly. It's the same thing as to why we are allowing our privacy and dignity to be invaded when taking a plane somewhere. The columbia crash sucks, yes, but when did a couple of human deaths ever stop human invention. There are still 6 billion people on this planet I don't think we should stop our science because a couple people died. The next telescope to be put in space won't happen until 2012 and it can't even see the same spectrum that hubble can. The new one is going to be infrared, hubble on the other hand uses human visible spectrum. This is a loss that can't be imagined. Stop playing your silly little games NASA and let us use hubble!
So does that mean Bush is going to make a campaign pledge to stop "wasting money" on NASA?
I'll vote for the first president who promises to fund research in Lofstrom Loops or the like...
"The amount of intelligence on this planet is a constant. The population is growing." -Cole's Axiom
I think he meant that if the hubble is `useless' and we're pulling funding, then we might as well also pull funding from the space station, since it is also `useless'.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Well it was great while it lasted and can never truly be replaced because it was a great achievment during its time period. As technology grows their will be a new and improved telescope that will take its place but the Hubble will never be forgoten. Hubble RIS (Rest In Space)
MonkeysKickAss
I will probably get modded down as a troll here but no one who supports tax cuts really understand that service cuts must follow.
This being just one example of them.
As voters you chose bush and must live with that untill Novemember.
If you care about Hubble then vote for someone who will raise your taxes. One or the other.
Many americans are upset about the deficit but they keep voting for tax cuts again and again every couple of years after things are paid off.
http://saveie6.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/07/science/07HUBB.h tml?ex=1076734800&en=f74fc93d9204bbee&ei=5062&part ner=GOOGLE
The astronaughts on board Columbia and all the other NASA astronaughts who're being kept grounded now understand that going into space is risky. They're interested in what they do, they've chosen to take the risks and they're interested in the science.
If the adminstration were to let the astronaughts decide whether to go up to fix Hubble when required, I doubt they would have a shortage of them volunteering to do that. The last thing the late astronaughts aboard Columbia would have wanted was to see their deaths result in the grounding of the space program and the premature death of Hubble.
Engineer's Papers Dispute Hubble Decision
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: February 7, 2004
ASA's decision to abandon its crown scientific jewel, the Hubble Space Telescope, cannot be justified on safety grounds, according to a pair of reports by a NASA engineer that have been circulating in scientific and political circles in the last few days.
The unsigned documents are attracting attention on Capitol Hill, particularly in the House Science Committee, which is expected to discuss the Hubble decision at a meeting on Thursday.
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"We're reviewing the Hubble decision, looking at it very closely," said a spokesman for Representative Sherwood Boehlert, Republican of New York and chairman of the committee. "We're going to be examining the views in this particular document as well as a whole host of others."
The documents have also created a buzz among astronomers, who hope that their wider distribution will help spark a larger debate about the telescope's fate. The reports have deepened astronomers' skepticism that safety and not politics and money was the issue last month when Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator, announced the cancellation of the space shuttle's planned 2006 maintenance visit to the telescope. As a result, the telescope will probably die in orbit within three years, astronomers say, instead of lasting into the early part of the next decade as originally planned.
In explaining his decision, Mr. O'Keefe had cited a recommendation of the board that investigated the Columbia space shuttle disaster last year that NASA must develop a way to inspect and repair damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system.
While the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was committed to developing this ability for missions to the International Space Station, which could serve as a "safe haven" for the astronauts if the shuttle was damaged, Mr. O'Keefe said it was too risky and expensive to develop an "autonomous" inspection and repair capability for a single mission to the telescope.
The new reports challenge Mr. O'Keefe's conclusion, citing data and references from NASA documents in arguing that the administrator's statement "cannot be supported."
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board recommendations and NASA's plans for "return to flight" include ultimately developing just such an ability to inspect and repair the tiles independently of the station. That autonomous ability is needed because the shuttle might fail to make it to the space station, or the space station may become too big and complex to serve as a repair base, according to the papers.
One of the reports concludes that missions to the telescope "are as safe as or perhaps safer than" space station missions "conducted in the same time frame."
The author is a NASA engineer who wrote the reports based on internal data and who declined to be identified for fear of losing his job. Copies of the documents were provided to The New York Times by an astronomer who is not part of NASA and opposes the decision to let the telescope die.
"Those documents certainly undercut the public position of the agency," said Dr. Garth Illingworth, an astronomer at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a member of a committee that advises NASA on space science.
Dr. Illingworth added that it was important to open up debate on these issues. "We need to get real information out there, and not just have a few people in NASA saying we know what's best," he said.
A Congressional staff member who was given the documents said they appeared to be credible. "We are taking them seriously," he said. Referring to the requirement of an autonomous repair capability, he said, "NASA's going to have to spend the money to do this" if the agency follows the accident board's recommendations.
The documents also argue that missions to the space station might actually be riskier than going to the space telescope for several reasons. Because of the space
Given that this change in the US space program is occuring during an election year, it's very likely that we'll get the good news now, and the bad news after the elections. The ISS is already in serious trouble since from what I've read of the new policy, it appears that we'll eventually discontinue involvement in the ISS after it's completed. That may mean that everyone will bail on the project confirming Zeinfeld's suspicions.
What the hell is the space station doing for research? Anyone know any science coming out of it? I'm sure there might be some life sciences, but is it any more than the Russians have already learned? I'm asking if any Slashdotters know of anything useful the space station has done. I know Hubble has been historic in what it has delivered. The space station seems to be a goose egg if you ask me.
Hence Hubble. Its taken some pretty pictures dont get me wrong, but has it saved humanity? Do we owe our lives or some pretty pictures to hubble? I think its time to let it die and wait until we get the time to put a newer better space satellite in orbit.
I say don't intentionally kill it, but let it die on its own. AND if you get around to it, see if maybe there isn't a cost effective means to do a little repair work on it. I know I'd rather my tax dollars went to puting a base on the moon where a larger more powerful telescope can be placed on the darkside. Or a roundtrip to mars to begin the study of sustaining life there.
So yes, I'm in favor of killing the hubble if it means more advancement in space science, which it undoubtedly does. Out with the old and in with the new!!! (no comment on voyager though)
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
The last few Apollo missions were quietly turned into expensive scrap.
Viking landers where the budget to listen to them was cut before they stopped sending.
Skylab which was allowed to die while waiting for the shuttle to make it better.
Various of shuttle replacement projects that given a half-hearted try and dropped.
And with the amount of continuous program and budget changes, it's a miracle that the shuttle and ISS ever got off the ground. (The slow morph from Freedom to the ISS and now to this is extremely sickening.)
The cut-backs so that manned Mars exploration and a Moon base can go forward are a joke. After the cut-backs have been done, the new programs will never go forward.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Every time I hear someone bragging about how he/she won't vote "because one vote won't make a difference" I get this almost uncontrollable urge to slap them around.
Now is the time to vote.
So lie about it. The NYT thinks I'm a 70 year old female CEO living in Afghanistan pulling down less than $20K per year.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
But in the mean time, humanity really needs a frontier. Our systems have a tendency to slowly but surely become slower and more mired as time passes, in part because power tends to be gravitational; it gets concentrated in the hands of smaller groups of people, who in turn often become more cautious and inflexible with regards to things that would rock the boat. Bureaucracy gets bigger, not smaller, and it becomes harder to try radically new ways of doing things. The best way for change to take place is often for it to be experimented with somewhere else, and then filter back; this is what happened in the past with America. These people, coming to a new place without any entrenched baggage, got to try to start a system from scratch, and when it was successful, other countries could observe and then emulate and improve on it as it filtered back. But there is no frontier to experiment with anymore. The whole world (the oceans don't count, they are too hard/expensive to colonize for now) has people living in it. I think it is important for our development as a species to move on to new places, where new laws can be tried (including new ways of thinking about stuff like IP and citizen participation), and so that no single entity will ever be able to easily control everyone.
For many people, I believe that the excitement, opportunity, etc. are worth the risk and sacrifice that it will take. The Hubble has been one of our most successful and productive projects, and one that wouldn't have been possible without astronauts; the space station, in contrast, has in fact been sort of a waste from the point of view of both science and exploration. But neither should be the sole reason to keep or get rid of the shuttle, or the concept of manned space flight. A certain amount of capital is needed to prime things, so to speak, before enough momentum can develop for space exploration to become self-sustaining without government aid. This large up front cost has been and will be difficult for many to swallow, especially in our notoriously money hungry Congress. But as a country, and a species, we need this, and it will pay back many times over. I apologize for my long windedness, but I am hopeful that eventually some politicians will try to get votes from people with some large vision and dream instead of simply the usual issues.
These funding cuts will happen with or without George Bush. The raw truth is that the public, as foolish as it may be, don't have alot of support for a serious government funded space program. Thus it will likely die on the vine. Isn't that the idea of "by the people, for the people"?
Furthermore, we're really fooling ourselves badly to think that NASA is going to do any real advances in the near future. Unless old George goes against the edict of the people and dumps cash into the space program NASA is going to continue to spend it's budget sending out failure after failure instead of working with what we have in our hands and what's on our doorstep. And since NASA really doesn't answer to anyone there will be no recourse for the blatent waste of taxpayer cash.
I've said it before ad I'll say it again, there will be no serious movement into space without the large backing of private enterprise. Give corporations a reason to get to the moon/mars and it'll be done in a third of the time of NASA's best estimates.
As for Hubble? If NASA is saying no than guess what... you're SOL and frankly I doubt this decision was based on anything that George Bush does or says.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Who listens to the engineers anyway?
Come on! This is the new new new economy! All we need is marketing!
</sarcasm>
(This is funny because it's true)
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
To me, this report doesn't really make sense. The current policy is that the shuttle will always go to the space station. There it will be inspected to make sure that the tiles are good before it goes back for reentry. Such an inspection would have detected the Columbia problem. Then in the unlikely case that there is damage, the crew could stay at the station on an emergency basis while another shuttle is launched.
No such actions are possible on a mission to the Hubble. Because of the orbital parameters, it is impossible for the shuttle to be able to go to both places on one mission. So any inspection, repair or wait-for-rescue would have to occur right there at the telescope.
Now, the report claims that NASA plans "eventually" to create additional facilities for these operations, other than at the space station. But that's obviously going to take a great deal of time. For one thing, just consider building the docking mechanism to allow two shuttles to connect and transfer crews from one to the other. No such thing has ever been designed, while such facilities already exist at the space station. Plus, the space station has additional supplies and space to let the crew wait safely for rescue. And it can hold inspection and repair equipment.
So while NASA may eventually create off-station repair facilities, that won't happen for a long time. Their initial efforts will be very properly focused on getting these abilities set up at the space station itself. And that means that no such facilities can be available by 2006, when the mission to Hubble is needed.
The reason that the shuttle program will be allowed to
die is that its true justification was deployment and maintenance of intelligence gathering satellites. Deployment of VERY LARGE array antennas in orbit required a vehicle like the shuttle. The science benefits from the shuttle program were just a cover story to allow congress to justify the expenditures. With the end of the cold war and recent repeated intelligence failures, it will be harder to justify the black budget support of the shuttle program. Not to mention the fact, that our current adversaries are relatively low tech, making technical spaceborn collection programs less valuable.
I worked on STS as test engineer for several years until the mid 80's. The estimated catastrophic failure rates were then about 1/25 launches, based upon the 5 fleet. We're in the realm of physics here (well within an order of magnitude/factor of two or so.)
The politics has always overwhelmed the science; my pals in the spacelab DESPISED the scientists as eggheads, the scientists loathed the silliness of manned flight programs which bled the fundpot dry, without any real result. As physicist working in an engineering area, I got shot at by both sides. (A former NASA historian wrote a good treatise on that a few years back; can't recall the particulars.) Here we go again, except that this administration goes WAY further with it's hatred of science. In fact, I'll wager to say that it's his faith-based baloney which is behind this move, along with a goodly dose of wanting only manned programs, for the politics of it, and all science be damned.
http://thenation.com/outrage/index.mhtml?bid=6
BTW, I was asked to lecture to our entire department (about 400 engineers and technicians) when I left in mid-'85. The topic: what can we do to improve. Here's what I said: GET SERIOUS ABOUT SAFETY OR SOMEBODY'S GONNA DIE. And STAND UP AND SAY NO TO THE BOSS WHEN HE SAYS IT'S OK, AND YOU KNOW BETTER.
If such a mission, close to home, is considered too much of a risk to astronaut lives, then I have to wonder about plans for a manned Mars expedition.
Ames should be cut back to a wind tunnel operation. Slidell (now "the Stennis Space Center", a "multi-agency center for 30 resident agencies"), should be sold off to a private developer. The "Independent Verification and Validation Facility" in West Virginia should be consolidated with some NASA facility that needs its services. Goddard needs some major cutbacks. (Goddard just awarded a $34 million contract for "conference support, duplicating, computer graphics, publication, and documentation" on a cost plus award fee basis. Then they issued a press release about it.)
NASA's non-flight research should be funded through the National Science Foundation. Environmental resarch should be moved to the EPA. In fact, even space science should go through NSF. NASA's job should be limited to flight hardware and support systems.
If NASA got rid of about half its organization, and insisted that the remaining half build stuff that flies, they might get somewhere.
It's not the personnel, it's the spacecraft. The program can't afford to lose another shuttle or it will be scrapped. Congress will never approve building another one of these old birds and we are a decade away from having a replacement. We have barely started the basic R&D for a suitable replacement. Even with unlimited resources it would take 6 years to get a test flight on a new vehicle.
People landed on the moon a few years before I was born. I grew up to the early space shuttle program and fantastic photos from Voyager. Back then, I figured we be back to the moon by 2000 and to mars by 2010. Surely the common man would have been able to experience earth orbit by then.
Here we are in 2004 and basically nothing new has happened with manned space exploration. It's depressing to think that it'll take until 2020 just to get back to the moon! Will humans even reach Mars in my lifetime now?
All those dollars wasted on blowing up Iraq that could've been put toward much grander goals in space!
I guess I need to start building a Mars transport in my garage since nobody else is going to bother.
What we should do is ASK those who have to fly the shuttle. We have heard a great deal from the leadership at NASA and everyone else. What do the rank and file Astronauts think? Is it worth the risk do they want to fly on the Shuttle?
I grew up in the Fulda Gap, where did you?
- Clinton was asked "Did you have sexual relations with Monica Lewinski?" by the prosecutor
- Clinton asked the Judge to clarify and define the term "Sexual Relations"
- The definition given by the judge excluded oral sex, and concentrated on intercourse, consensual or otherwise
- Clinton stated the famous line
So he did not lie. His reply was within the definition given by the Judge, and is perfectly acceptable.Mir. You know, that old space station? The one where people lived for over a year at a time, far longer than any ISS mission?
We already know what we need to know about the long-term effects of weightlessness. The ISS is worthless, simply providing a destination for the shuttle. With 2 crew members aboard, there's not even time for science - it takes 2 crew just to run the thing.
I agree with this article that the only thing worth bringing the shuttle out of retirement for is a Hubble servicing mission. The STS and ISS programs aren't fit to hold the Space Telescope's jock.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Does the hubble really count as a space station? Or is the author implying that if the Hubble is dangerous, so is the ISS? Just what is the problem.
Hubble Space Telescope is the single most successful scientific instrument ever (measured by the usual "articles published" metric). If HST is to be pulled due its "uselessness", one must ask why not down ISS with its questionable scientific yields? HST is big time success, ISS is waste of money. Why they give up on Hubble is beyond me.
I beg your pardon?
... well. I just wish they would make more like it. You're probably one of those people that thinks science is just about accumulating tables of numbers and taking pretty pictures, and that scientists should get out and find real jobs. I have news for you. The technology you use every day, including the computer you're typing on, is based upon research into how our Universe works. Understanding gleaned from such research has continually resulted in new and better ways to manipulate the physical world to our benefit. The fact that you see no value in something as wonderful as the Hubble is unfortunate, and I feel a little sorry for you, but I must say that if scientific and technological advancement had been left in the hands of people with that mindset we'd likely still be living in caves. Fortunately there are a lot of taxpayers who disagree with you, myself included.
Scientific research is the single best investment the human race has ever learned how to make. Our government alone has made so many truly bad investments over the years that when I see it make one that pays off so handsomely
While it is true that one cannot predict whether a given line of research will have practical application, it is also true that investment made by the human race in such activity has paid for itself many, many times over. Furthermore, the data acquired from the Hubble's years in space are affecting so many different disciplines that I have no doubt that it will also pay for itself, if it hasn't already. Get the big picture, my friend: there are many other government programs far more worthy of complaint than the Hubble Space Telescope.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If NASA called me up and said, we're going to launch you on the shuttle, are you willing to go. You have a 1 in 50 chance in being killed during the mission, but, you'll get to go to space if you live. I would bet there are easily 100,000 people that would do this. Astronauts know the risks they are taking, and, there are plenty of people willing to take those risks.
It's my understanding that we are going to return to the moon by having NASA join in the military on the costs of an updated EELV. The new Atlas and Delta rockets already can do payload into GEO and LEO orbits for less than a 1/10th cost of the shuttle.
This is my sig.
Oh, come on, the safety issues are NOT nonsense. In order to go to Hubble, they would need to have two shuttles ready to launch at the same time so they can go up and rescue the first shuttle if it has a problem. If they both have problems, then they are both screwed. And no, you can't get to the space station from Hubble's orbit. Now, if they go to the space station, they can at least live up there until other launch vehicles come and rescue them. The safety concerns are completely valid.
Okay, well, if you're going to generalize to that degree then I withdraw my comment since it's irrelevant: it's not the Hubble you're complaining about in particular it's the use of any government funding for anything other than what you (or someone else) deems is minimally necessary. Of course, who makes those decisions is the real question. I, for one, would like to be that person.
There is also the fact that some things are simply too expensive to be easily done by the private sector, if at all. Your logic could easily be applied to the Interstate Highway System: that was a massive investment of tax dollars made by the Federal Government. And yet, it is still in use to this very day after half a century, indeed it makes our entire economic system possible. So no, I don't agree that the government should, under no circumstances, be allowed to invest our tax dollars in our future. The question is really one of: what investments should they be allowed to make on our behalf. Ideally, those should be ones that have the biggest potential payoff. The industrialization of space would be the greatest payoff in the history of Man, exceeding the discovery of the New World by orders of magnitude.
And it will likely turn out that the private sector isn't up to doing it on its' own, at least initially, which means that tax dollars will have to be used. On the other hand, it is also very likely that the private sector will make more efficient use of those dollars, particularly if a competitive environment is encouraged. We'll see.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Let's face it. Bush's new plan is nothing more than militarization of space. Any space mission is to achieve this goal. Everything else is totally worthless. So, it should not come as a surprise that the US govt is ditching its Hubble Telescope, possibly the Station Station in the future, and maybe even the Mars missions (who cares about Mars when putting weapons in space is a higher priority?).
Here is an editorial on the recently announced space plan by Bush. Conservatives might want to stay away since its from a socialist web site but if you are open, check it out.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
However there is one thing the article mentions that puts a flaw in this rather shaky logic, missions to the ISS are safer because the shuttle can be checked for problems and worked on there, unlike at Hubble.
Assuming that there are resources available to exam and repair the shuttle in orbit this might be an almost valid argument. Who exactly in orbit is qualified to fix the shuttle, and where to they get the tools and parts?