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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."
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.
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Safety concerns was the offical reason why they didn't want to service the Hubble, but this report most clearly is saying that's bunk.
But what about the finacial concerns? I don't think NASA has the funding to allocate to a Hubble Repair mission... could the safety claims just have been a smokescreen to cover when the real reason was because they can't get the funding to do this?
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.
Hasn't it discovered hundreds of new plants?
No.
KFG
And now what- we don't have the guts to fix Hubble? I think what this is really about is that we don't want to spend the money, that the head of NASA (O'Keefe is not even a scientist) is willing to bank on ground based telescopes under construction being able to fill in for what Hubble currently does (such as the almost burned observatory in Arizona). That is a dangerous, if not stupid, bet to be undertaking. Instead, we are going to throw our dollars at an improperly positioned space station that is doing trivial, not very important science and the search for life elsewhere in the solar system at a time when we are not technologically well equipped for such missions. We need to focus on near-Earth applications, going no further than the moon until we can bring down the costs and time needed to explore planets like Mars, Jupiter and Saturn for signs of life. I would rather obtain good astrophysics data than bad, inconclusive data about whether water existed in a crater on Mars many unspecified millions of years ago.
I could see them objecting to maintaining Hubble in favor of a better space telescope, or even "we haven't got enough money", but because there's a risk?
Is the idea at NASA that we should just not try something because there's a risk? I mean, is this the same agency that put men on the moon eleven years after being formed? Should I just not go to work tomorrow because I could get run down crossing the street?
What the hell happened to this country's can-do spirit?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
If its on, give it the time and funding it deserves. If its off, don't waste resources on it. This to and fro nonsense just wastes money that could be used elsewhere and increases the risks if a mission does eventually go ahead.
No one's willing to take risks or make a decision anymore. All we need is another damn shuttle disaster to slow everything down and have people screaming "its too dangerous to explore space - spend all your money down here".
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Yes, me too. I wholeheartedly support the future scientific discovery of cosmic shrubbery. /whoops
Well.. maybe a few new vegetables down here!
ahem. Well, one hundred anyway. In one fell swoop.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
I do not think that this would be a good idea. While it would be impressive if they could pull it off, the risk of failure outweighs the benefits even more greatly than that of a manned mission. Attempting to deploy "several bleeding edge technologies" on a "very short time scale" for a project like repairing the hubble space telescope is simply not a good idea. In all likelihood the technology used will not be adequately developed and it will be a unnecessary failure.
With the recent success of the Mars missions, NASA is starting to get its good name back, they need to see this continue and properly manage their risk, not spend money on projects they know will in all likelihood fail.
Aaron Bryden
abrydenREMOVETHIS@gmail.com
The problem with NASA is that it wants to be sexy rather than actually try and discover stuff. Looking for life on Mars is sexy. Looking into some obscure spectrum of something or other with a huge array of sensors located in Antarctica is not.
Despite the fact that every time we try and use a new way to look at stuff (some obscure spectrum of something or other, for example) we find a lot out there, NASA stopped building an array of sensors in Antarctica (which son of George H Bush that put the pressure on them to do this is left as an exercise to the reader). The reason is that the populace seems to like sending stuff somewhere. Seeing more just isn't cool anymore. The Hubble telescope will fall into disrepair because people don't like looking at stuff. They insist on touching it. Even if that means the stuff is more than a few orders of magnitude closer.
I guess I'll sum it up.
Going to Mars with a robat that touches stuff and messes around: SEXY
Looking at shit with a few big mirrors: NOT sexy
Help I'm a rock.
Sure, and no one would expect them to try this is the astronauts were likely to become injured. But just because there is _any_ significant risk isn't a good reason to cancel.
To use your story... every crane lift is dangerous, and a certain (small) percentage fail. Still, we are careful and take out timee. Had we not, the species would just be sitting around like Moongazer, afraid to leave the cave.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
And Hubble's second servicing mission cost $347 million plus another $448 million for the Shuttle flight - I believe that is in 1996 dollars.
So as a taxpayer, for all that dough, how 'bout some new satellite pictures of my house! ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
NASA did nearly the same thing towards the end of the Apollo program...They scrapped the last two lunar landings, even though ALL of the hardware was already built and ready to go, because they didn't want to staff the control room and fuel the rockets. It has been said that this was equivalent to crushing a brand new Rolls Royce which has never been driven simply because one does not want to pay for a tank of gas.
The astronauts have already said that they are willing to accept the very reasonable level of risk to fly the mission and repair the Hubble. It is terribly ironic that one of the few worthwhile shuttle missions of the last decade is scrapped because something MIGHT go wrong. They seemed perfectly willing to risk human lives to fly loads of fairly useless experiments just a couple of years ago. Nobody would argue that the shuttle has lived up to the lofty promises that NASA administrators made to Congress in order to get the funding for all of this in the first place. The shuttle, despite that fact the shuttle itself is reusable, has cost billions more dollars than equivalent rocket missions would have. In fact, one of the main selling points of the shuttle, that it could carry 20 tons into low earth orbit, is moot because the shuttle almost never flies with the maximum payload for safety reasons. The decision not to save one of the best scientific investments ever made is a slap in the face after all of the money which NASA has sunk into the shuttle program. The Hubble Space telescope has added tremendously to our knowledge of the universe and inspired a generation of young scientists and engineers. If any further proof was needed of the impotence and wrong headed thinking at NASA then this is surely among the most damning pieces of evidence. Let us hope that they make the right decision before it is too late.
Hubble is really super, and don't go spouting off on how it sucks, or is impaired, or how it should be replaced...It is the best thing going for now, and the last 14 years, and it won't be replaced for several more years. I've still got a few Hubble projects I still want to do, and preamture failure might mean I won't get to do them, and I *can't* do them from the ground. It was never clear that a Hubble servicing mission was all that dangerous in the first place, probably not as dangerous as two ISS missions, for instance. I hate to see a new administrator come in and make the sort of unilateral decison(at least he didn't solicit astronomers!) especially someone who isn't a real scientist.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
No, StealthX20, we DON'T have ground-based telescopes that can do the things that Hubble can do. The no brainer is the ultraviolet, which cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere. There are more tasks, that depend on high-spatial resolution, that some ground-based telescopes can approach, but not match, at least not in all respects. The astronomical community would like to keep Hubble operating until its replacement is launched, but without a servicing mission that is unlikely, and hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent on new instruments to increase Hubble's capacity. That money will be wasted.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
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.
The hubble space telescope uses a CCD equivalent to a less-than-consumer-level digi-cam.
This site says: "The Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 has four CCDs, each containing 640,000 pixels." so that's a 2.5 mega-pixel camera.
Let's all keep this in mind....
I made the mistake of opening up one of Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels as a soaking-in-tub read the other week, and I've gotten re-hooked on the series. While the books don't play this up (excepting a few of the later ones), the fact is that these books actually, to me at least, provide a surprising amount of insight into why NASA is falling apart and no longer inspiring like it once did.
The books are about a lost Terran colony (that's us) that has been out of touch with the rest of the universe by accident (a series of natural disasters shortly after the colony was formed destroyed much of the colony infrastructure) and design (frustration with wars, politics, etc. elsewhere meant the colonists were isolationists in search of a simpler life).
In the Pern series, all of the colonists were volunteers. So too are all astronauts (and, presumably, all cosmonauts and taikonauts; so far, the sole civilian astronaut was also a volunteer). They know the risks they take, and it's within their rights, I think, to want to take them. Right now we have the bureaucrats running scared, and they're losing sight of that fact. Too bad, too, because Senator Jake Garn flew on the shuttle once and knows the risks involved. (Is he still a senator?)
So that's strike one against NASA -- they've gotten scared.
What's important to think about here is this: anyone who's read the series knows that there's absolutely no sign of any Terran involvement anywhere. Why might that be?
While the initial planetary exploration efforts were government-funded (see Dragonsdawn for more about the intial survey, and some of the associated short stories like Rescue Run), the actual settling of the planet was carried out by private interests. And that's because the government doesn't really have an interest in supporting long, involved work like that (because of the costs, relatively low return, and so on) beyond adding to its territory ("we have a colony there; we'll defend it; we can say we have a bigger empire now, and the people can pay taxes"). But if it eventually becomes generally accepted that the surrounding area is part of a nation's territory and no trouble ever is stirred up there, it'll just sort of quietly be forgotten except for boundaries on some maps gathering dust in some library somewhere, which (while never explained in the books) is quite a likely scenario.
Why should the government continue to care, when private interests in the form of corporations or non-profit organizations will arise spontaneously to do the job once it's been proven possible by all that government research collectively supported by our tax dollars (remember, NASA gets 1-2% of the federal budget, if even that)? The focus shifts from government sponsorship to private over time. (This transition is in progress now for spaceflight in the form of the X-Prize.) Once private industry figures out how to make a profit out of it the way it did with the "empty" Americas, I'm betting that all kinds of private-industry spacecraft will be built (hotels, asteroid mining are just two of the most common conjectures) and will eventually vastly outnumber government craft, as is already the case with communications satellites. The government doesn't have to deal with managing and funding all that -- it just issues regulations and collects taxes and fees. Just like it issues Charters to proposed colonies, licenses spacecraft, and collects application fees as well as (presumably) taxes from the colony itself once it's formed. Politicians are, after all, inherently lazy.
So that's strike two -- the loss of government incentive to become involved, because there's nothing in it for them anymore and because private interests have arisen that can do the job for less and with greater efficiency (Arianespace, Energia RSC).
There's a real-life parallel here: the exploration of the Americas, what we now call the New World. The original 1492 Columbus expedition was government-funded and was originally intended to open up trade routes (back to
i am a soviet space shuttle
3.1415926535897932384629
In case you're not aware: s/9$/6/
And don't ask why I know that off the top of my head . . .
I suspect Hubble's CCD's can't really be compared to the ones in a digital camera.
From that same page: "They can see objects that are 1,000 million times fainter than the naked eye can see. "
For one thing, Hubble's cameras are cooled (can't find their temperature, but IIRC it's far below zero) to reduce noise. Also, the CCD design is bound to be different. This gives an idea of what's involved.
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 HST provides the best telescope data, period.
The bean counter idiots in charge of NASA intend
to replace HST with an inferior IR space-based
telescope. The same contractors that have been
working on HST are working on the "replacement".
There is far more money to be made developing a
new telescope than there is for "maintenence" on
the HST. The development of a bleeding edge
robotic servicing mission also is more profitable
for the contractors than a manned mission.
It all boils down to money, and where that money
would be spent. Space robotics have a huge
potential in military applications, so the R&D
money spent by NASA can be parlayed into bigger
profits for these same contractors. The best
hope for the continued survival of HST would be
to farm out the repairs to China or India, but
the political costs would be too great.
The money misspent on the ISS has drained the
NASA budget at a time when pure science is
being sacrificed for dual-use applied science
and political expediency. The ISS has become
a fiscal "black hole", with budget overruns
that make the original projected costs of the
shuttle program look like kindergarten.
When real scientists running NASA were replaced
with politically "inspired" professional bean
counters is when NASA started going downhill.
And the Bush "back to the moon" initiative is
pure BS, as there is no valid scientific value,
nor the money to waste, for such a mission
directive.
Even if it could be shown that a shuttle mission (with a crew who are willing to accept all the risks) was cheaper and easier than a robotic mission, NASA would still push for the robotic mission.
Because if something goes wrong, NASA are out one expensive irreplacable shuttle and only have 2 left.
Which isnt that much of a margin for error when it comes to sending shuttles up to finish the ISS.
The "interstellar polaroids" and "fuzzy blobs" that you speak of form an enormous data set that is "the tangible return on investment" for science, I am assuming taxpayer funded science is the investor right? You see in science theories are free but raw emprical data on this scale is what is needed to test said theories. Collecting that data costs megabucks for any serious science to be performed. By your standards the mapping of the human genome was a waste of money because it tells us "nothing" and I'm pretty sure it also has some "crap we'll never be able to confirm in our lifetimes" hidden in it. How would you measure the return on the investment in weather recording over the last 100 years?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Maybe they can pay someone like Burt Rutan...hushed silence...ten....million...dollars! to send a space ship up there to fix it.
Oh wait...
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
You know nothing about astronomy, cosmology, or even first grade science if you can make such a statement. Hubble has provided more return for the money than any other government funded science effort. Hubble's return has been in the form of pure knowledge however, not in the form of anything practible on earth. Someone who hasn't ever opened an encyclopedia wouldn't care about the kind of research conducted by the scientists using Hubble.
Crawl back under your rock.
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."
Why does a mission to repair the HST cost so much ? - I mean if companies like Scaled Composites can fly a mission into near space for around $20,000,000 why does a mission to HST have to cost almost 20 times that ?
Well you know
56,000 miles is pretty impressive, but 160k miles it is not. So the Shuttle still has a couple of magnitudes advantage over our x-prize favorites.
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"
And the WFPC2 was installed in 1993, and was built about 1991. How many kilopixles did your digital camera have back then.
The Advanced Camera for Surveys, built between 1996 and 1999, was installed in 2000. It has a 4096x4096 pixel detector.
Where was your 16 megapixel camera in 1999?
The replacement for the WFPC2, the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC), will also have a 4096x4096 detector, along with a 10Mpix IR detector. Both of these sensors are of much higher quality than a consumer CCD.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
O'Keefe is facing a grim reality - he can't fund all the projects he's got running. I'm not voting for Bush this year because he's run up a huge budget deficit - a deficit so large that us boomers won't live long enough to see retired. You younger ones will be paying for it long after we're gone. Since I'm pissed about the budget deficit, I can't very well say Nasa should get more money or fault O'Keefe for saying "you gotta choose and this is what my choices are..."