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NASA Seeks Proposals For Hubble Robotic Servicing
hcg50a writes "SpaceFlight Now has an article about NASA asking for proposals to mount a robotic mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Such a Hubble-servicing mission would occur toward the end of calendar year 2007. If you like politics mixed with your spaceflight, you can read NASA Administrator O'Keefe's speech in which the announcement was made."
The great part of this plan is that it gives NASA a specific goal for implementing robotic repair/servicing. They get to use the project as a testing ground for new technologies, some of which will surely make their way into other future missions. Costs will go down for "routine" orbital missions that can be automated, allowing us to do more in near space and saving the money for other missions demanding astronauts.
This is getting fucking RIDICULOUS. The astronauts who go up into space do so with full knowledge of the fact that they might not return alive. Yet despite the danger, there are many who are willing to risk their necks. Just send a fucking shuttle! I'd like to know what mental midget suggested that we shouldn't send humans into space in the shuttle any more, since it's "risky". (And was this individual formerly an insurance adjuster, a lawyer, or some other sort of simple-minded human scum?)
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
They definetly should continue to maintain hubble, the amazing pictures it sends back are well worth it. If a robot can do it just as well as a human then there is no point in risking astronauts lives for no reason. If however it can't be then I think it is worth a small risk to send a few astronauts up there. If NASA are too concerned with risks and tiny chances of things going wrong then they will never be able to do anything worthwhile with people in space.
...are the politics in O'keefe's speech? I didn't see any, save the following:
"Finally, NASA's space astronomy activities are integral to the President's vision of extending humanity's exploration and discovery horizons. As we pursue this vision, we will continue to build space-based telescopes to expand our capabilities."
does that make it political?
Build another Hubble, you've just compounded the problem. The new Hubble will require servicing, planned and unplanned.
Build/develope a robotic servicing system, you've opened up hundreds of servicing opportunities in space.
Hubble cost about 1.5 billion and has a yearly cost of about 250 million.
People die driving race cars each year to what end? Dale Earnhart is practially a saint. We're willing to pour our hearts out and spend billions each year to shove more people into the breach in order to turn left for four hours. So manned space flight is hardly the most risky endeavor we undertake with arguably more return. Where does NASCAR or CART get us? Cars that can do even more speed than is legally allowed? No - they push the envelope of car technology. Ditto all spaceflight. Swap out the Tallageda with RC cars and tell me how many people will show up... Race car drivers are brave and passionate and accept the risks. Ditto astronauts.
It's not about ratings. What the networks think about space missions is moot - there's NASA TV, so the networks are out of the picture. 90% of what NSF and NIH funds is boring and tedious to the general public - but there are people alive today because of it.
As far as robotics is concerned, it's be nice to know what they're aiming for - remember the Solar Max and both Hubble missions? Lots of human decision making involved, improvisation and creativity - if they're talking telerobotics (as in telerobotic surgery) then they've got a prayer. But if anyone has in their mind that they're going to line up autonomous robots to give the Hubble a new lease, then they need to go back to the DARPA challenge and remember that Apollo 11 would have been just another crater on the moon with a robot at the helm instead of human pilots who could avert the near disaster. Robots are better at some things - humans are better at some things. Use them both appropriately, drop the prejudices and accept the risks of exploration.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Latency to LEO isn't more than about 300ms (I remember that Sattelite internet access has at least a 250ms latency, and IIRC the sats for that are higher up.
Regardless, while playing around with that much latency isn't fun, it's also not too hard to beam signals up that far... Why don't we just use a "robot" in the battle-bot sense for this, and have an R/C fixer go up there?
I mean, it's not nearly as nifty, but it's also pretty fool-proof compared to sending up an AI. Maybe a mix approach would work, like our Mars Rovers, or maybe after the gyros & whatnot are fixed on hubble, we let it go AI on other less-critical repairs?
Sound logical to anyone else?
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
At the AAS meeting, someone said to me that -- having seen the cost estimates on the robotic repair mission -- it would, in fact, be cheaper to build and launch a new HST. We could use the spare parts, including Kodak's backup mirror (the one that DIDN'T have the flaw) and the good gyros. Hell, sending astronauts there would be cheaper than the robotic mission. (A typical shuttle flight costs about $200 million, as I recall.)
On the one had, I applaude NASA's attempt to get the robotic technology to this point. On the other, this is NOT the mission. We have a deadline that has to be met and an instrument that will be lost if we screw it up. It would be better to pick a nontime-critical project with fewer worries about breaking something valuable if something goes wrong. Worse, this is about the most tricky project you could try for a beginning. HST was designed to be serviced by astronauts, that's true. But it doesn't make it easy to do. As I recall, the astronauts had great difficulty manuvering stuff in and out, not to mention getting the door on HST closed afterward. A robot doesn't stand a chance.
Frankly, I don't think O'Keefe is out to save HST. I think he only hopes to de-orbit it. That's the way he prioritized it (rightly) and I suspect that at the end of the summer we're going to hear something like, "Oh, dear. While we can deorbit Hubble, the repair looks too difficult/expensive. Oh, well." Meanwhile, the dogs have been called off of O'Keefe and when he makes the final decision there will be less of a chance to reverse it.
This is a very important opportunity to demonstrate robotic servicing. Satellite lifetimes are usually limited by running out of fuel. Many satellites are in geostationary orbit where the shuttle cannot reach them for servicing. Some satellites are launched into the wrong orbits or fail in simple ways. The current approach to these problems is to replace the satellite. Many of them cost hundreds of millions of dollars to replace. A space based satellite servicing craft could refuel, repair, upgrade, and move satellites to different orbits for a lower cost than replacing them. This concept reduces the cost and risk for operating in space - the cost of a new robotic system is recouped in the near future through the lower cost of new satellite development and the longer lifetime of new sats. Why hasn't this been done before? Because no one has demonstrated it. Hubble is the perfect opportunity.
I would suggest testing this robotic repair vehicle on a "safe" satelite that needs maintanence that a normal human shuttle mission would do.
Uh, there is no such thing as a "normal shuttle mission" anymore. Shuttle missions are almost completely over. Maybe a few more trips to the ISS, but you will never again see a shuttle sent to service a satellite. (Servicing satellites is nearly worthless anyhow. The Hubble is the only satellite in history with a replacement cost greater than a traditional shuttle mission)
(though I don't know the feasability of this and docking with the ISS)
The feasibility is: None. The ISS is just too far away from the Hubble. You can't reasonably visit them both in a single trip (without a huge, huge expense of carrying extra fuel "just in case").
There's just no reason to think about bringing a robot to the ISS. If the robot fails somehow, tough. Let it drift or fall or whatever, it's no matter to us. The price of the robot body itself is trivial next to the retrieval cost.
Oddly enough we are a throw away society, we still use booster rockets that are disposible.(I know that part of the booster rocket system is reusable but I don't remember which of the top of my head. is it the small ones?)
It's not "Oddly", it's a small island of sanity in a wasteful space program. The shuttle's boosters are disposable because it's just cheaper that way. For some things, refilling and refurbishing is more expensive (and far more risky) than building a new one. If more of the shuttle had been disposable, then the whole 30-year project budget would've been much less. (Except that then it wouldn't be called a "shuttle", because shuttles are by definition reused)
Please NASA do not make this a one use robot, I bet over time it would cost more money.
You bet wrong. The expensive thing about a robot isn't building the actual machine- those guys from Monster Garage could handle that in a few weeks. The real hard work is the design, for both hardware and "AI" software.
You don't have any real reason to critizise Bush so you call him a draft dodger for joining the National Guard.
No, that's what Bush called it. He has admitted publically that he joined the Guard to avoid the draft.
That is funny, so he dodged the military draft by joining the military.
It's complicated, you'll have to think hard. But being drafted for Vietnam and volunteering to defend Texas are actually very different things. (Bush almost got 500 flight hours, which would've let him rotate to Vietnam... but whoops, he was disqualified from flying!)
Hmmm, yeah somehow his father is going to get him off the hook for dereliction,
Yep, that's exactly it. Military commanders are not willing to risk irritating Congressmen by getting their sons either killed or court martialed. Especially not if that father was a famous veteran. (That's the same reason Al Gore got a noncombat assignment)
Any other pilot who skipped out on his physical to get disqualified from his only useful job would've been at best a dishon.
I guess his old commander that a few months back said he remembered seing Bush there is part of this hugh Right-Wing Conspiricy cover up too, huh?
Or he just doesn't want to admit to failing to control his unit back then. It's more interesting that NO National Guardmen who served with Bush remember him there. It's tough to be on a base for 8 months without making at least one friend- that George must've been really shy!
My point was that Clinton downsized the military drastically.
And who created that downsizing plan, back before Clinton even took office? Rumsfeld...
Secondly, it isn't the saluting, but the fact that you can just tell Bush has respect for the military, where as Clinton didn't.
You can "just tell", huh? Ok, trusting your instincts... but I can just tell that Bush is an idiot, where as Clinton wasn't. Why, just yesterday, Bush claimed that WWII started with a sneak attack on the USA...
And hey, when Bush fired Shinseki for explaining that more troops would be needed to safely hold Iraq- that was really respectful, you think?