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NASA - Robotic Repair Of Hubble 'Promising'
mykepredko writes "According to CNN, using a robot to repair/update the Hubble observatory is much more feasible than NASA originally believed. According to the article, the desires for keeping Hubble operational, while keeping shuttle astronauts safe seems to be the impeus for suggesting robotic repair of the satellite. The article goes on to discuss 'Robonaut' and 'Ranger robot', two machines which can approximate the capabilities of a space-suited astronaut. I'm wondering if these robots could be used for the ISS assembly/maintenance, minimizing crew EVAs while maximizing assembly time and hopefully reducing costs."
Cost probably wasn't their only constraint. Although the costs involved in developing such a system would be huge, an even tighter constraint would be time -- NASA (well, "the western world") seems to operate on the premise of "Sooner is better"; features may be minimised or cut completely in order to provide a quicker release date. This is fast becoming the trend in software engineering, with 'big players' such as Microsoft starting to cut features and release bug laden products in order to "please" their client with a quick release.
It would be nice to have a robotic ( or any ) rescue and refit of Hubble but NASA management will ( I predict ) be against it.
Sad to see NASA go down the tubes by playing it safe.
NASA is not a commercial airline and no one should expect it to have the saftey record of one. I sure as hell don't.
Fix Hubble, then get us back on the moon (just for the hell of it) before I die. OK NASA.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
Surely there will still be the cost of a shuttle launch to deliver the robot to Hubble, and to provide a base to control the robot from?
man, I love the advancements of NASA, but honestly, how does maintaining such an old telescope with expensive maintenance...reduce cost? Especially when cheaper alternatives might be more feasible...or when money is put into reasearching newer, cheaper technology.. Nostalgia shouldn't be an issue here.
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Of course robotic repair makes sense. In fact, it's a better option than the shuttle in any case. There ins't a lot you can't get a robot to do to hubble for the $1.2B a shuttle flight would cost you. NASA's made a science out of trying to prove manned spaceflight makes some kind of sense, and it just doesn't.
While $375 million is nothing to shake a stick at, it's worth noting that the Hubble was launched in April 1990 at a cost of $2 billion US. Robotics, communications, and short-term automated decision-making have progressed signficantly in the last 14 years to make this feasible.
At the end of the day, seeing into outer space is not absolutely necessary for keeping the nation/world running in the state it currently is.
Although not 100% necessary, it sure is convenient to have an excuse to have a large chunk of your military force in the region with a large chuink of the world's oil supplies. That and we just have to prove we're the biggest, baddest SOB's on the block.
This all begs the question - why wait until theres no alternative before coming up with the robot idea? If it saves money anyway, and reduces the need for the shuttle, surely they should have looking into this long ago as an alternative to humans on both hubble and the space station.
Assume this works. At least two further questions then need to be asked.
Firstly, if we have built robots that can do anything in space that humans can, what is the point of ISS? Why have a human who requires air, food, sleep, sanitary facilties if Robonaut can do the same thing.
Secondly, are there consequences for the James Webb telescope? This is going to lurk out at L2 and is currently going to be inaccessible for repair or, more significantly, refuel. It is currently being designed with a finite life because of a finite supply of coolant for the IR sensor. Surely the same technology that can repair Hubble can refuel Webb. And Webb is probably being designed with fastenings suitable only for earthside maintainance. Perhaps they should design fasteners to be undone in orbit, even if they don't have the technology to undo those fasteners now. By the time Webb starts running low, about 2016, they probably will have the technology. Wingnuts instead of welds - then Robbie can fix it.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Sorry, but I have to be nit-picky:
That doesn't matter when the issue you're having is surviving takeoff or landing.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Does it matter whether the universe is settled by biological von Neumann machines like us, or by mechanical von Neumann machines like our robots, as long as it actually does get settled by somebody? I for one wish our von Neumann successors the very best of luck in their explorations.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Oh, and I do look down on Lockheed, but not for the reasons you suggest. I look down on them for bungling the quite excellent L-1011 and subsequently getting out of the commercial airline business.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I just don't get this whole shuttle thing Nasa are going on about at the moment. It's been flying for decades with respectably few accidents, but now its suddenly too dangerous to go anywhere other then ISS.
At any rate if the only danger is that the heat proof tiles get damaged then why on earth don't they just pack enough supplies to let them hang around in orbit long enough to be rescued?
It just seems really stupid to waste the shuttles just because they're so image conscious that they have to avoid losing astronaughts at all cost, I mean they may as well not go anywhere near space if that's going to be their attitude
Ironically this means that currently, while the shuttle is grounded, the ISS can still be manned, as apposed to being abandoned. Should we thank our russian overlords :)
Information is the location of things. Computation is moving things around.
It wouldn't have made a different. Astronauts have already needed to make repairs that the Hubble wasn't designed for in the first place.
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The real answer here is that this was never a problem with NASA. This was a decision made from the top (Bush and O'Keefe) and then forced to be justified. Fortunately, most technical members of NASA are very opposed to stupidity. Losing a working system that does not cost much (comparitively speaking) is a horrible waste of taxpayer money and very short sighted.
Simple. The telescope needs to be isolated for it to work well. Optics of that sensitivity do not react well to nearby vibrations, nearby heat sources, nearby light sources, and nearby energy expenditures. The hubble is currently located in the world's biggest clean room.
Remember, back in the 1970's when it was designed there was this "Really Great" new technology called the "Space Shuttle" that was supposed to make the cost of getting things into orbit downright cheap. With 100 launches a year, completely reusable, and safe!
The dimensions of the cargo bay on the shuttle were more or less dictated by the hubble.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
One key difference between the two telescopes is that the new one will have better instruments for seeing infrared light, which has a longer wavelength and is seen at the far reaches of the universe. Meanwhile, Hubble is better at detecting the shorter wavelengths of light that can be seen with the human eye. Because of these differences between the two telescopes, the NASA panel recommended that the two telescopes' operations overlap so scientists can study both types of images from certain objects.
How are we supposed to send humans to the Moon and Mars if we are afraid to send them into Low Earth Orbit?
Easy, improve the developement of robots and launch vehicles, and allow private space launches.
People are willing to take risks for themselves and with their money, but politians in democratic societies are very risk-averse. Killing astronauts has much worse political ramifications than allowing the Hubble to possibly become junk. Bad things, that photograph well and happen to real people, put politicians' jobs at risk. Lost opportunities are generally too nebulous to lose a job over. It's one of the problems of living in a democracy.
(oh, we need to improve the developement of robots and launch vehicles because space exploration is currently too expensive for private ventures)
Build a bot FOR the Hubble, maybe even with its own solar charging station. After that, you just launch the repair parts needed at any particular time in a supply rocket...
The major premise that the Space Shuttle was built upon was how we could go into space and do all these wonderful things with it.
I seem to remember that being a big repair/utility truck was one of those premises.
Which leads me to wonder just exactly how much one could trust NASA in terms of defining a moon base or a mission to mars scenario?
This is understandable, when you understand NASA politics and funding - In NASA, getting stuff done as soon as possible is ideal because if you take another four years, you could end up with an unfunded hunk of half-working metal instead.
NASA is great, but its a bit difficult to run an agency with 20-year projects when everything changes every 4.
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