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NASA Urged to Reconsider Shuttle Mission to HST
LMCBoy writes "Space.com reports today that the National Academies of Science has released its recommendation to NASA on the future of the Hubble Space Telescope. They conclude that 'NASA should take no actions that would preclude a space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.' They also say that none of the safety requirements of the CAIB report preclude a manned servicing mission to HST." Read on for more.
"The NAS recommendation would reverse NASA's previous position that a shuttle repair mission is ruled out for safety reasons. In the wake of strong criticisms of this decision, NASA has also been considering a robotic repair mission. The robotic mission would not risk human lives, but it relies on a number of bleeding-edge technologies that would have to be deployed on a very short timescale. HST's remaining gyroscopes are not expected to last beyond 2007."
I think the problem is that they threw all their budget away on that damnable ISS (which if it were unmanned, would cost waaaay less), leaving no funding for real projects.
I mean, what's the point of throwing people up in space station compared to what you can get with an orbital telescope? The price of reparing this has got to be a tiny slice of what the ISS gets every year.
I've already voiced my opinion to my representatives, in unambiguous terms. IMO its criminal to allow a national treasure like that to die for lack of a few million to service it.
They've done it twice before, and I don't see any reason they couldn't do it again as long as the shuttle they use is equipt the same as the one they used twice before. That might take some extra funds doing the retrofit.
Tell ya how to take a vote folks, have the irs add a 50 dollar checkoff line to the 1040, where 50 bucks of your refund would go instead to nasa.
I'd bet nasa would hear a get off your butts and doit message loud and clear cause I know I'd sure do the checkmark.
I use 2 of its deep field images, totalling about 70 megs, as backgrounds for 2 of my 8 screens. Everytime I switch to one of those screens I'm reminded of just how usefull that the hubble has been even if it was in need of a set of glasses to clear it up. The last one, showing stuff as far out as 13 billion light years, is a truely impressive image since we are seeing the universe as it was when it was less than a billion years old when that light was sent on its way here.
Properly maintained, that scope can and will be making new discoveries, adding to our knowledge of the universe and physics in general, stuff that cannot be done thru the haze of our atmosphere here on the ground, a hundred years from now.
I'd like to see them add an RPG powered ion engine to it, not a very big one of course, just enough to give it a few ounces of push so that its orbit could be maintained over an extended period as one of the things the shuttle must do each time its there is to give it a push to correct for the decaying orbit. That pushing we are told, over-extends the shuttles available fuel, possibly endangering the ability to steer at landing time. The shuttle that goes there must have the robot arm, and it must be stripped a bit in order to lighten it to even reach the hubbles altitude which is about 50 miles above the design envelope of the shuttle.
But the point is, it CAN be done. Dangerous, maybe. But I don't recall that any of the crews who have been there regretted doing it.
Cheers, Gene
During the proceedings (thanks C-SPAN!), it was quite evident that NASA was not giving a coherent reason for abandoning Hubble. NASA claimed that a mission to Hubble was unacceptably risky, while missions to ISS were not. The board pressed them on just how and why, and the increased risk seemed negligible for such a servicing mission.
However NASA was excited about sending an unmanned robotic mission to service Hubble, and they claimed that there were companies working on proposals to provide that robot.
My take was that this is the result of putting a non-scientist bean-counter (O'Keefe) in charge of NASA, coupled with an administration keen on cutting social funding while simultaneously funding private contractors as though there was no tomorrow.
The HST's data archive is currently about 12TB. That data lone is going to provide grounds for scientific papers well into the future. This data archive grows by about 2TB every year. That is a lot of data out of one instrument. There's a lot of good science left in that data. Letting that tremendous data source fall prematurly into the ocean because the HST was abandoned would be monumentally stupid.
There's also quite a bit of money and resources already devoted to the HST. Instruments and components have been built and paid for and the work is already done. Letting it sit on a shelf indefinitely would be a magnificent waste. Besides the money already spent a mission will have to be sent up, automated or not, to de-orbit the HST.
NASA ought to bite the bullet and push the envelope a little bit. It doesn't matter that they would be using untested technologies. Fixing the HST would be the test. I have little doubt that it would be feasible to robotically service the HST. A small cadre of tool laden AIBOs with rocket packs should be able to do the trick. If NASA is too scared to send people into space they could at least send a few cute robot dogs.
The technology and techniques learned with the HST could be applied later with the ISS' construction or even an in-orbit repair of a Shuttle or other craft. Maybe we could even start designing satellites that are meant to be services by robots to extend their useful lifetimes. Companies would be much more likely to invest in satellites if its potential operational life of 20+ years instead of 12 if everything goes alright.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
If NASA is not sure that shuttle can fly safely,
they should by one Soyuz from us, Russians.
Of course, Soyuz is technology of early 70'th,
but it would be newly manufactured, when shuttles are PRODUCTION of eithties. It is also order of magnitude cheaper. We fly space tourishs to ISS for $20millions or so.
The worst thing of all is what the US government spent the money on, when they'd cut it from NASA's budget.
Vietnam.
I wonder... in a hundred years, will historians point to this decision and say that this is the moment when the American dream died?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
What a shame it would be to spend all that money putting Hubble up there and then not servicing it because of budget cuts. That would be like spending $20,000 on a new car and then deciding a few years later that you can't afford to take it in for an oil change. It's already up there, they might as well service it.
The Hubble was built in 1985. So, your analogy is a bit off base. It would be more like repairing that old 128k MacIntosh you bought back then. There's a time to repair, and there's a time to move on to newer technology. Otherwise, you're only hanging on for sentimental reasons, not for science.
Just another day in Paradise
Shame isn't the half of it. HST was designed to be lofted to orbit, lifted when its orbit has decayed, and brought home when its mission is over by the Shuttle. It was designed to be serviced, upgraded, and maintained by astronauts. It was assumed that the Shuttle would bring the astronaut/wrench-benders to the job site with their tools and parts.
OK, I'll buy the idea that robots could bring the HST to a safe re-entry and destruction. I won't buy the idea that what we have available today and what we can get completed, checked out, and space-rated by December 2007 can do the gyro, battery, and two telescope change-outs. Sorry, geeks, it isn't going to happen any more than nine women are going to make one baby in one month. OTOH, if a robot could crash HST by slowing it down along its present track, couldn't one push it the other way and raise its orbit? Where does this leave us?
How to get astronauts to Low Earth Orbit (LOE) at about a 23 degree inclination...can't do it with a Soyuz-TMA on a Soyuz-U or -M launch vehicle ("Carrier rocket" if you're Russian) out of Baikonur because the lattitude of the launch site makes their Equator-crossing-angle too steep (in case you wondered why the International Space Station has such a high inclination, now you know.) Will they be able to launch a manned mission out of Kourou by December 2007? Unlikely. Could the do it out of Canaveral by then? Probably. There's infrastructure here that doesn't exist in French Guyana and there's even an operating spaceport here with launch pads to spare. Facilities would have to be built, but have you noticed what they are? Butler buildings and steel trestles, railroad lines, and lots of space. Not much of a problem at the Canaveral Spaceport. NASA already owns all of the stuff they were going to put into the HST and has the training facilities already built for the mission.
Hm. U.S. astronauts aboard a Soyuz-TMA. Radical idea or common practice today? You know the answer to that.
OK, let's say we do it. We get away from the present program, which looks to me like a cross between the Credit Mobiliere and the Revenge of the Nerds, and get a commercial contract - just like you buy IT hardware, software, and services - and let U.S. and Russian companies do this job with minimal NASA and other Government involvement: no success, no pay. Now, does that sound like what Congress is telling NASA to start doing anyway? OK, why not start here?
What do the Russians say about this? It amounts to: "Sure, let's do it. Cash up front."