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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."
Would be funny if some of the Battlebot teams got together and made a proposal. The robotic module gets closer and closer....then suddenly, a huge blade whips out and slices the Hubble in half! PWN3D!!!
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
BBC is also following the story... IMHO if we have the means, then Hubble should be saved.
Batman: "Slake your thirst. You'll have worse than a parched sensation when we're through with you!"
Or they could just pay the Russians to launch all their astronauts...
Stick Men
Another article I read mentioned decomissioning a lot. NASA needs to attach some sort of engine to hubble to be able to crash it safely where it wont kill anyone.
I hope they are able to service it, but I think they might be more concerned with how its going to fall.
ls
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.
has already volunteered. He says he wants to make Hubble the cleanest telescope in space.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Finally, NASA's space astronomy activities are integral to the President's vision of extending humanity's exploration and discovery horizons.
I hate how everything has to be stated as if it was Bush's ideas and vision that pushes the country. Why couldn't he say "NASA's space astronomy activities are integral to our vision of extending humanity's exploration and discovery horizons." Bush is neither scientist nor visionary.
It's like the joke that Bush is supreme commander of American troops -- a man who has no real military experience. If I was in the armed services I would find that insulting.
The article leaves the possibilitys open for unmanned launch and repair/upgrade systems to be developed. I can see some of the teams from the autonomous challange, as covered to death here on /. in recent months, being quite interested in developing this technology.
I am all for sending people into space as being there is part of the point, but I am very interested in the technology that will come out of these proposals over the next 20 years.
If we look at some of the things that have made their way into our homes thanks to r+d from NASA, I can see a time when not only is may car built a la Minority report Lexus, but it can be repaired just as easily in the same fashion.
Here, in Japan, we have these great car washes that you park your car under and they move from the front to the back cleaning and then drying. I don't know if they are around the US, I have not seen any in Canada, but it would be nice , when my car breaks down, or that crazy useless check engine light comes on, if I can just pull into one of these things, pop in my warranty card, and have the machine fix whatever is wrong with it.
granted lots of hard working people, as we see the workforce right now, would lose their jobs if it were to all of a sudden come into being, but given time and reclasification of jobs, I think that in the same way typesetters became typests become data entry clerks, assembly line workers will become robotic assembly line technitions.
On another note... I started to fully understand 'whither' about three quarters of the way through his speech...
flinging poop since 1969
While a custom robot designed to repair the Hubble sounds cool, how much is something like that really going to cost, compared to ... say... a new Hubble?
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.
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.