Slashdot Mirror
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."
The question is why didn't the design hubble to be repaired in this way in the first place? The cost launching the space shuttle is around 375 million dollars.. Probably more for a space walk..
I don't accept that you can't design a repair bot for under that launch cost?
Simon
Aside from being used to reduce costs by limiting the number of astronaut EVA's on the ISS, I wonder if these robots could be sent to the moon/mars? I am not exactly sure of their entire ability, but surely semi-intelligent robots could be built on their framework that could be subsequently used to build bases and buildings on celestial bodies? It would be much cheaper than sending a human crew to do it, that's for sure.
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?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
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.
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.
How are we supposed to send humans to the Moon and Mars if we are afraid to send them into Low Earth Orbit?
There is evidence that it is actually safer to send astronauts to the Hubble than it is to send them to the International Space Station.
I am sure a robot could do the job, but where does it leave humans in the long run if we don't take risks ourselves. Will we leave exploration of the universe to the Von Neumann Machines and maroon ourselves on Earth?
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.
The plan was to construct a simple network of small mining robots that ran on tracks that they themselves laid down. Minerals mined would initially go to the construction of more tracks, track-riding robots, micro-smelters, and power sources (solar or otherwise). In this way, you could construct a self-sufficient mining operation with minimal initial investment that would grow at an almost exponential rate, given sufficient local resources. Land on an asteroid, send minerals and metals out of it a year or two later - avoid the gravity well entirely.
At the time, though, it was just an idea and we didn't have the tech to pull it off. You need some relatively sophisticated AI decision techniques to deal with the nitty-gritty details of such an operation, as we're finding from even such comparatively simple things as the mars rovers today, and it's hard to reproduce the robot-critters on the spot. It's for reasons like the first, though, that I originally got interested in CS and majored in it, and I think we're getting close. Depending on this Hubble work and similar projects, robotics may have finally caught up too.
Instead of worrying about how to get the materials into orbit to build in space, we should start using what's already there. Here's to hoping.
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
What's wrong with manually controlled repair machines ? they would not have to automate anything, it would be dead cheap and it could be launched now.
"how does maintaining such an old telescope with expensive maintenance...reduce cost?"
It doesn't. When Hubble was designed, NASA were claiming that the shuttle would fly fifty times a year and launch payloads for $250 a pound, so repair made sense. Now that it actually flies four or five times a year and payload costs $25,000 a pound, it doesn't make much sense... launching new Hubbles every few years on expendable boosters would probably have been a lot cheaper.
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.
I worked at the Univrsity of maryland's Space Systems Lab, where the Ranger Robot has been developed. They basically have been working on this robot for the last 13 years, and they have a working prototype in the lab. The prototype is designed to work underwater, since the SSL has a Neutral Bouancy facility, so the difference between the prototype and the actual ranger is that it has no rocket thrusters, only fans. But other than that, the robot is fully functional, and very capable. Back when I workedthere I helped design a test where it would put together parts of the James Webb Space telescope, and it worked perfectly. If any robot is qualified to fix hubble, ranger is.