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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."
A lighter Hubble-like probe may be fine to take up in Atlantis, Discovery, or Endeavour.
Plus, the main reason Columbia would have been the most likely candidate for Hubble servicing was because it was too heavy to dock safely with ISS, thus the other three had to stay on ISS duty to make sure it got built on time (or eventually, as is the case now, since "on time" keeps changing).
That, though, may still be the biggest obstacle. There's very little chance of using a shuttle in the next five years for anything but ISS missions. The best chance for this telescope would be to design it to be launched on something else, like a D-4 Heavy, but that would make it that much more difficult to build because of volume limitations.
The willingness of private investors to put up capital to service such markets shouldn't be underestimated. This is an exciting area of endeavour, just as is space transportation as witnessed by the recent investments in that field by adventurous angel investors.
Indeed, historically there has been a pattern of private financing of cutting edge telescopes without even a promise of any return at all. We can expect the private sector to step up to the plate if the government will stop pretending it is the source of innovation in technology and instead the source of funding for public-domain scientific research.
From a brief history of private endowment of telescopes:
In this stage, which lasted (roughly speaking) from the late 1800's to the middle of the 1900's, rich benefactors donated the money to establish observatories although they themselves were not practising astronomers. I gave some examples and anecdotal histories in class. For instance:
(i) James Lick made his fortune by funding "gold rush" hopefuls in San Francisco. He provided them a grubstake by buying up their land cheaply, and wound up owning most of what is now downtown San Francisco. He wanted to build an enormous pyramid in the city to commemorate himself, but was persuaded by the Regents of the University of California to build an observatory instead: Lick Observatory, just east of San Jose.
(ii) A man named Yerkes made his fortune building street car systems, and donated the money for the Yerkes 40-inch refractor, still the largest such telescope in the world. It is at Williams Bay, north of Chicago, and is operated by the University of Chicago. Yerkes was apparently quite an unscrupulous businessmen, by all accounts, and was never favoured with the respect which he hoped his endowment might buy for him.
(iii) David Dunlap made his fortune in Ontario silver mines, and was interested in astronomy. After his death, his widow donated a lot of money to the University of Toronto, who built the David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill. When it opened in 1935, it was the second-largest telescope in the world.
(iv) The Carnegie Foundation, established by the Scotsman Andrew Carnegie, funds many philanthropic endeavours, including public libraries. It provided the money for the famous 200-inch telescope on Mount Palomar, which saw first light in 1950.
Amazingly, the days of such generosity are not completely gone: the new Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea are being provided by a Mr. Keck, the head of Standard Oil (I believe). The total cost is in the region of 200 million dollars; the telescopes are operated by the University of California.
Seastead this.