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Instead of Revamping Hubble, Replace It
Neil Halelamien writes "Astronomy Magazine reports that an international team of astronomers has proposed an alternative to sending a robotic or human repair mission to the ailing Hubble Space Telescope. Their proposal is to build a new Hubble Origins Probe, reusing the Hubble design but using lighter and more cost-effective technologies. The probe would include instruments currently waiting to be installed on Hubble, as well as a Japanese-built imager which 'will allow scientists to map the heavens more than 20 times faster than even a refurbished Hubble Space Telescope could.' It would take an estimated 65 months and under $1 billion to build, less than the estimated cost of a service mission."
.. than the hubble. And scientists would get more bang for the buck to replace the hubble than to send up a robot which would have a likelihood of failure.
But, if you build a new one instead of repairing the old telescope, you get:
1) New technology, which will help you take more pictures faster and observe more.
2) Ability to send the satellite back to earth after it's life has passed, reducing the amount of junk orbiting earth
3) Don't have to pay for a shuttle mission ($500 million), it is planned to use a cheaper Atlas 521 rocket to send it into orbit
4) Don't have to risk human life to fix the telescope
The plan to fix the telescope estimated cost is 1.5 billion. With the new telescope designed and built for less than a billion, an Atlas 521 launch costs much less than half a billion to launch.
This is cheaper, and will provide better science.
Don't count your messages before they ACK.
There are still shuttles and shuttles are not the only way to send something into space. Shuttles are usually the very last option since they are far from being the most cost-effective solution. There is no problem with a new satelite.
Qui ne va pas à la chasse n'a pas de gibier
PHP Queb
Bah. The hubble had to be hacked in the first place because they made the lens wrong and no one noticed before launch. Because of the initial screwups, the hubble has never been able to achieve its full potential anyway. It'd be better to have one that was built right from the start. Anyway, by your reasoning no one would ever build a new house, we'd all still be living in caves. "We've got this cave now, there's no guarantee your hut will get built, let's concentrate on this cave we've got already."
No sane person would buy the Hubble.
(1) Unless you have the means to "service" it, it will end up to be a short-lived investiment.
(2) To download raw data gathered with the Hubble, you have to use governmental communication facilities such as TDRS, etc. Check out how expensive its bandwidth usage is.
(3) It will eventually tumble down onto the earth one day. You will be held responsible to bring it down to the safe place (e.g., ocean). To do so you have to possess technology and skill for a controled re-entry.
(4) what the hell would the private entity do with a space telescope?
I could go on and on and on...
Let's think about this logically for a second. Building a new version of the hubble will give us a better telescope, create extra jobs for 65 months AND be less expensive than the mission to repair our existing telescope. Now, you say it's a bad thing that this is being considered?
I understand and agree that americans tend to throw out more than they should, especially in the realm of automobiles, but you've picked the wrong example to illustrate that.
I wondered whether the Bush administration's willingness to junk Hubble was a symptom of the same American retreat from Science as th pressure to give "Scientific Cretionism" equal support and prestige in America's schools.
That retreat from knowledge is a crying shame.
I had a buddy who always referred to it as "Scientific Cretinism -- I'm sorry Creationism".
Here are his instructions to Abram, who was renamed Abraham: "Look attentively, I pray thee, towards the heavens, and count the stars, if thou art able to count them". (-;
On a more serious note, yes, the rise of the Religious Right presents a steadily increasing problem. Did you know that "religious nuts" are responsible for the separation-of-church-and-state provisions in both the US and Australian Constitutions? A chap by the name of Alonzo T Jones dunnit. The Powers That Were wanted to enact blue laws, so Mr Jones and crew first directed them to a literal reading of Exodus 20, and then when the politicians switched to walling off Saturdays instead of Sundays, convinced them to - if there is such a word - deshrine religious holidays in the law: make sure that none were enforced, all were permitted.
From your tone, you would like to outlaw what you see as religion, which would in reality be outlawing every religion but one: Atheism. Let's put this another way: you would make Atheism the State Religion as the Religious Right would make a concensus "Christianity" the State Religion.
Not only is Atheism a social disaster (France tried it, along with China and the USSR, North Korea and numerous others; go read the dismal record if you want to get depressed), but it's actually being done by stealth all across Western society as we type, using the exact same Constitutional provision intended to prevent it. The Religious Right is both a reaction to this and an excuse for it. If they get their way, we'll be living in a Puritan state, re-living the Dark Ages. If they don't, we'll be reliving Lenin's purges. The end of both their actions or yours will be a disaster, either way.
What we really need is to properly enforce the Constitution. To do this, simply formally recognise Atheism as a religion and enforce the existing no-religious-preferences rules rigorously. That would both starve the Religious Right of fuel by removing an excuse to react, and begin to remove the existing shackles from science. Scientists today are forced to ensure that their work fits within Materialist (Atheist) dogma, or face systematic attack from powerful religious forces. Without that handicap, they'd be free to explore a lot more options.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Crap should be shouted down, always. Evolution, no matter what you or 44% of Americans think about it, isn't religous or a bad scientific theory.
Those who do not accept the basic tenets of evolution are usually not well educated about what it is and isn't, or are not careful thinkers. Such people will not succeed in science, except for perhaps in some minor way, so no great loss.
I submit that if 44% of the US population do no accept evolution, science and science educators need MORE SUPPORT, not less, and that perhaps the largest degree of blame falls with extreme popogandists (e.g. pathlights.com, not exactly the NAS is it?).
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)