Farewell To Eyes Above And Below

LMCBoy writes "SpaceRef is reporting that the STIS Instrument on board HST has failed. The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph was HST's only spectrometer, and was responsible for several important discoveries, including the first detection of an exoplanet's atmosphere. The loss is believed to have been caused by a failure in the instrument's main electronics box, which led to a rapid increase in the input current of about 1 ampere, which caused the instrument to enter a "suspend" state. It is believed that this failure is not recoverable." No_Weak_Heart writes "Perhaps the world's most renowned submersible, Alvin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is slated for retirement. Alvin has helped scientists explore deep sea, find a lost Hydrogen bomb(oops!) and discover more than 300 new animal species, will be replaced by a newer version in 2008. Also available this audio clip from NPR." (Here's a glance at Alvin's replacement.) Update: 08/07 17:29 GMT by T : Note: "HST"="Hubble Space Telescope." Thanks to Chris Johansen for pointing out the overloaded acryonym.

Comments

Hopefully this....

[ProudClod]

won't put an end to the planned rejuvenation of the Hubble Telescope.

A friend of mine's dad has been pulled out of semi-retirement to help design a light receptor to be fitted to the hubble, which would be able to detect accurately induvidual photons of light.

So if this failure leads to the collapse of the Hubble Reborn project, he'll be out of a job, and more importantly out of a damn interesting project.

It's time to let the Hubble go

[HMA2000]

You don't spend $1000/year on maintaining an old lawnmower you buy a new one that is cheaper and requires less maintence. Likewise it's time to let the Hubble go.

Re:It's time to let the Hubble go

[WindBourne]

Yes, but until you have the replacement in place, you do not get rid of the old one. Once there is a good replacement for, and not just more empty promises, then you let it go.

Re:It's time to let the Hubble go

[Capt'n Hector]

No, it's not and yes you do. Repairing hubble is much cheaper than designing/building/launching a new telescope. Hubble has a failure rate, yes, but so will any other space based telescope. Tell that to those people planning the next generation space telescope at earth-moon l3, an orbit which is NOT servicable. Your new telescope better require NO maintenence.

Additionally, how exactly do you "let the Hubble go"? Ever wonder what an enormous 2.4 meter, aerodynamic chunk of glass will do if you let its orbit decay? SOMEONE is going to get hurt, because many parts of hubble will not burn up in re-entry. To "let the Hubble go" would require another servicing mission. Might as well fix the STIS anyway, eh?

Re:It's time to let the Hubble go

[WindBourne]

X-33 was about 90-95 % done. Now presumably shelved (I am not convinced that it is).
Since W. came into office, we have stepped down the construction of the Space station that we had commited to for 20 years. Given the choice of local space or far space, I will take far space, but it does not change the fact that W. turned Reagan/Poppa Bush/Clinton's promise into being worthless (At this point, I would love to see us turn it over to Russia/Europe/China/etc and make the move for Mars/Moon). And that was before he ran up the deficit.
I do not recall the name of it, but many just called it Gore's satellite. But it was shelved shortly after W. came into office.

So what does this prove? That you do not trust any politician or their promises.

As to Science vs. Religion, yes, I agree. I am speaking about science. Not religion (or more appropiately politics). Until we have something better to replace it with, better to take a trip up there, fix it, and keep the awesome science coming.

Could the extra power distort what hubble saw?

[displague]

Maybe those extrasolar bodies were just electronic blur from the over powering. Is this possible? Does HST focus in on some spectographically known object as a periodic test?

There's still one off the coast of Georgia!

[RogL]

There's still one off the coast of Georgia!

Heard about this only recently. Google for "Georgia coast bomb", you'll find some stories, such as http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/05/02/a5.bo mb.0502.html.

It's considered more risky to retrieve than to let it lie. Might spread contamination. I'm in Jacksonville, Florida; if it went off, I might hear the boom!

Re:There's still one off the coast of Georgia!

[ikeleib]

There's a big differnence between the one of the coast of Georgia and the one that was off the coast of Spain. The bomb is in US territorial waters, and the Navy can effectively guard that position. However, it was not certain that the bomb off the coast of Spain was in their territorial waters. By the international laws of the sea, the first person to tie a line to salvage is entitled to it. Both the US and the Soviets were desperately looking for that bomb. It represented an intelligence goldmine. The Soviets were relegated to looking outside Spanish territorial waters, whereas the US had the run of both. The US Navy salvage team was able to secure and grab the bomb from the bottom of the ocean. It was just inside Spanish territorial waters. It is exactly for this reason that the US Navy salvage team is one of the elite parts of the Navy. They could very easily be called on to find and recover a sunken ballistic missile submarine in international waters.

Likewise, those who think that Navy deep diving vessels, such as Alvin, are purely for research are kidding themselves.

Re:There's still one off the coast of Georgia!

[chimpo13]

You said you RTFA. It says the bombs' not armed. Some random guy found the bomb and offered to bring it back up without the Navy coming by and saying "get lost". What's to stop someone else from finding it?

The Navy does a great job keeping out foreign vessels. There's hardly any drugs brought in that way.

I think the panicked people in Georgia have a right be be panicky about a nuke sitting in the nearby ocean. They're not worried about the Russians learning anything from it. They're worried about bomb grade uranium ready for the taking. The feds need to spend the money and bring it back up.

Alvin and the romance of oceanography

[Animats]

It's hard to believe it now, but there was a period in the 1960s when the ocean was talked about as a great frontier, as important as space. Undersea habitats were built, and undersea cities were discussed. Men went to the deepest place in the ocean and came back.

Today, the romance of the ocean is dead. You can work on a containership or an oil rig, but nobody dreams of a career as an "aquanaut". Jacques Costeau seems dated.

Re:Alvin and the romance of oceanography

[argStyopa]

It's hard to believe it now, but there was a period in the 1960s when space was talked about as a great frontier, as important as the ocean. Space stations (Skylab, Mir) were built, and space colonies were discussed. Men went to the MOON and came back.
Today, the romance of space is dead. You can work the shuttle or in NASA, but almost nobody dreams of a career as an "astronaut".

Unfortunately, after the edits it's still pretty much true.

Mod +1 tragic.

Re:Aren't there other instruments on board Hubble?

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

RTFA...

"The highly probable consequence of this scenario is the total failure of the MEB/Support Electronics +5V power converter. Since this component is essential to the operation of all of the 8 mechanisms within the instrument (including shutters), its demise renders those mechanisms inoperable. A re-configuration to the Side 1 electronics (current operations are on Side 2) is not possible. (The Side 1 electronics failed in May 2001.)"

my enphasis.