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No Formal Risk Analysis of Hubble Rescue by NASA
Somegeek writes "
SpaceDaily.com is running a story that
NASA never performed a formal risk analysis of a shuttle mission to rescue the Hubble Space Telescope before they decided to cancel the mission on grounds of risk. The story quotes Fred Gregory, the current acting NASA administrator, as stating that previous NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe made the decision "based on what he perceived was the risk". This perceived risk is in performing a manned shuttle mission that is out of range of using the International Space Station as an emergency refuge. The Hubble's current batteries and gyroscopes will probably fail in a few years, leaving the dead telescope to crash back to earth around year 2020."
NASA really knew what they were doing. they spent quite a bit of money, but we did Apollo, we did Skylab, we did Hubble, and they managed to maintain public support. Then they just somehow fucked it up. I get the feeling it had something to do with the ISS, because that's around when the problems really began. The ISS is not a sustainable or viable presence in space. What we really need to look toward is 1) commercial development in space, which will lead to 2) a continued stay there for humanity. I usually don't like privatisation of government programs, but in this case, I think there may be companies that can construct and launch, for example, inflatable habitats as mentioned in previous slashdot articles, at a low cost. NASA hasn't even really seriously considered something like this, and now look at what we have. A space station that is important for scientific research, yes, but the actual value we're getting out of it for the money we spent is HIGHLY questionable.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Also, like an abandoned sailing ship, the Hubble would be claimed as government property.
The last eight years of NASA history have been a basic running thing of massive administrative incompetence and poor oversight at NASA resulting in consistent disaster and the only results being that since "NASA isn't working" we're cutting science out of NASA and putting more power in the hands of the administrators that failed to provide appropriate oversight in the first place.
People keep questioning whether NASA should continue, given the disaster it's been. Man, NASA's fine. It's people like Sean O'Keefe that have to go. Thank God he's retiring. Unfortunately I'm afraid of who his replacement will be, especially since his replacement seems to be coming in as part of a program to cut out what little science is left in NASA's programs in order to dump all the budget to a vague "let's go to mars!" plan that seems about as well-conceived and likely to turn out as planned as any of those five unsuccessful shuttle replacement programs NASA blew its budget on at the end of the 90s.
O'Keefe's decision was right on.
NASA has determinetd that ISS is a higher priority (as it should be -- there are international committments). There's more risk in servicing the Hubble than not -- and any additional risk makes finishing the ISS less likely.
Risk analysis complete.
So many people are making so much fuss about the decision to let the Hubble die, when there are ALREADY better telescopes in operation, and MUCH better telescopes planned. If NASA has to go fix the old one, not only are they just delaying the inevitable, but they're also delaying other, more useful missions.
I hate to see something like Hubble just fall to Earth. There are EXPLORERS willing to risk their lives, and people will to risk their equipment. From what I understand NASA astronauts are WELL AWARE of the risks presented by doing such missions. What is sad to me is that we use spin-off and related knowledge and technologies from things like the Hubble launch, but that the actual results of it seem to just be icing. It's the process of doing it that seems more important than the "End Result". Strangely, you would think in-orbit manned repairs would really take priority (considering the amount of pricey objects up there: in life and in money). But I guess if you don't once, why would you bother to do it again? Outer space and inner space are two of the most important human agendas. To see them back-seated to political and financial concern are reflective of our state as a people.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
Now, I'm admitting I know little about this, so forgive my ignorance.
They say it will eventually fail and start to fall back to earth, could they wait for it to get closer then send out a rescue mission when it it close enough to the ISS, Or would the then gyroless Hubble be too much of a risk to attempt to grab from space?
Fair enough. But then maybe like HavenCo at Sealand--a property claimed by the UK--squatters will turn it into a vastly more powerful data have / forwarding center.
Will the US send up space marines to evict them? Not likely! Arrrrh.
Loose consensus at sci.space.tech is that O'Keefe's decision has virtually nothing to do with safety and everything to do with the extremely tight schedule necessary to complete ISS (International Space Station).
O'Keefe stated that he would abide by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) report. My understanding is that board did not insist that the Shuttle be able to seek refuge at ISS.
It's interesting that the article speaks of "risk" but doesn't explicitly use the term " safety risk" which is assumed. Indeed, the risks of any extra Shuttle flights go beyond the safety of the crew. Consider that the Shutle's only mission is ISS assembly after which the fleet will be retired -- and rightfully so. If a Shuttle were even to be reparably damaged with no injuries to the crew, the ISS program would be seriously threatened.
"Where's my other sock?" - A. Einstein
It's really sad how far NASA has plummeted down the priority list since it wasn't being pushed to 'defeat' communism. The decline in NASA's quality and quantity of work are inevitable given how their budget seems to be the sacrificial lamb in Washington so often. I, for one, will continue to be interested in the heavens. As was said in my favorite commercial: "We've always watched the stars. If you look at the sky you can see the beginning of time."
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Just letting Hubble crash into some random spot on the Earth in a decade or two would be a bit risky.
NASA has some of the brightest scientists around, but is headed by a bureaucratic mess, and especially given that Bush selected chairs who would loyally cut programs to push whatever Bush wanted.
I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone about the Hubble Origins Probe, a proposal to replace Hubble with a cheaper and better (and, dare I say, faster) craft:
An international team led by Johns Hopkins University astronomers have proposed an alternative to sending a robotic or manned 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 $1 billion to build and launch, approximately the same cost as a robotic service mission.
Here's the official web site, with slideshows and posters explaining the planned scientific instruments:
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/hop/
In my opinion the original Hubble is mostly valuable for sentimental/historical reasons. From a pure cost/benefit analysis, replacing it seems the best solution in pretty much every possible way.
Most libertarians I know don't think NASA is somehow inherently bad -- there are far worse examples of federal money being wastefully expended. As for myself, I really like a lot of the things NASA has done, especially with the Mars Rovers and Cassini.
The problem many libertarians have with NASA is that they've completely destroyed the spaceflight market, so it isn't like anything remotely resembling a thriving free market. When NASA needs to get a person into space, they don't do it by simply buying a ticket from a rocket launch company which offers the best combination of reliability, quality, and cost. Such a solution would be highly favored by libertarians, as it would operate within the market and would help ensure a steady decrease in launch costs and an increase in reliability.
Rather, what NASA does is give a cost-plus contract to one of the aerospace giants (Boeing, Lockheed, etc.) to develop a launch vehicle. With a cost-plus contract the aerospace giant has absolutely no incentive to decrease launch costs or exercise any sort of fiscal restraint; it's actually quite the opposite, as the more money the contractor uses up the more money pads their pockets. The fact that the launch market has been so distorted by contracts like this prevents private spaceflight companies from effectively competing and keeps launch costs absurdly high.
The only reason a private space market is starting to emerge nowadays is because NASA has pretty much no interest or influence on the suborbital tourism market. This will allow market forces to actually come into effect.
Personally, what I'd like to see is for NASA to stop with cost-plus contracts and act as more of a customer within the market. Things like the Centennial Challenges are great, where companies are paid a flat amount based on results, rather than however much they say they need to develop a solution.
parent suggested waiting until hubble falls enough to be relatively close to ISS's orbit. (by relatively i mean close enough to transfer to ISS orbit and dock with ISS in the event of trouble)
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I don't think this is possible even if they were at the same level orbit.
Hubble's inclination is about as low as you can get (launching from kennedy that is), about 28.5 degrees. ISS's orbit was optimized for revinue (passing over as many countries as possible so as to get funding) and is about 51.6 degrees.
http://www.spacetelescope.org/about/general/orbit
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast01dec_
The delta-V required for an inclination change is much greater than that required for a transfer (from high low orbit).
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But a friend of mine (and a robotics engineer) made a good point: Hubble sure kicks ass, but we've got bigger and better technology now. Maybe we can spend all the "Hubble Rescue" money on something even more impressive, which would yield even better imagery than our good ol' HST.
Sure, I'll be very sad when (not if, apparently) NASA de-orbits the instrument, but as long as we can get something better up there beforehand, we're not going to be losing all that much, except the memories. (Well, that, and all the shared time astronomers could be logging on the HST in the future.)
Though it would be kind of cool to bring the HST back to Earth in a shuttle hold, and analyze the surfaces and instruments. Then we could put the sucker in the Air and Space museum, which would be totally awsome.
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This guy in Space Daily a year and a half ago wrote an interesting article that proposed the idea of using an ESA hosted launch of a Soyuz (or two) to service Hubble. I have no idea if its feasible, but I wonder if anyone in NASA is considering ideas like this.
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One "problem" with saving Hubble is that now, image processing techniques have made it possible to merge observations from multiple ground-based telescope and achieve better-than-Hubble resolution.
With Hubble rendered nearly obsolete by ground-based computing and sensing advances, repairing Hubble is most likely not worth it unless it is also upgraded. Assembling Hubble on ground took months, upgrading would require significant (possibly delicate) disassembly and subsequent re-assembly which probably are not reasonably feasible in open space.
The Atlas and Delta that are the prime candidates to launch the CEV? Developed by commercial enterprises, for commercial enterprises, with their own money. The problem however is that launch rates aren't really price sensitive. Boeing or Lockmart could spend millions cutting launch costs by 25%, and only get a 5-10% (if any) increase in launch rates. That's a net loss for them. And commercial enterprises don't generally lose money on that scale on purpose.
Boeing, Lockmart, and others (all private companies) have been competing in a free and open market for thirty years. It looks to many as if it's not effective competition as they don't understand how a limited demand, price insensitive market works - it's not like hamburgers or cars.You mean the way they've bought the majority of their launches (I.E. expendables) for thirty years? You mean the way they are planning to for the CEV?All I can conclude is Libertarians don't understand economics.
...if they can send a robot mission to attach some rockets to it, to make it *come down*, seems like they could just re-aim it for a higher orbit and park the thing so it stays up longer, and eventually space flight will be cheaper/easier and etc and it can be rebuilt and reused. I mean what's the diff? so they got to use a scosh more powerful rocket propulsion dealie, again, so what? still cheap enough to do most likely. It's not like there are thousands of advanced space telescopes to go around for all the researchers who would like to use one. It's built, launched, up there,paid for, still at least half way working and cost a bundle already, seems sorta nutso to just trash it on purpose when they can park it until such a time as they can get to it.
Actually if you remember Bush kicked off his campaing with a new mission for Nasa on mars exploration and congress introduced bills making Nasa do this.
They are now servely cash stripped and its impossible with a mere 8 billion dollar budget to put man on mars. The figure could be ten times that.
But yes this killed Hubble since it would make it expensive and distract for Nasa's new mission.
Nasa does risk assesments for everything. Its odd nasa would make such a quick decision if it were not political.
http://saveie6.com/
OK, first of all, the white house doesn't make budget choices. They gin up a budget request, but all the decisions get made by congress. That's in the document. In fact, congress can completely ignore the president in budgetary matters, provided they're willing to override a veto. I real life that doesn't happen, but the truth is GWB can't do squat on his own.
the "other places" are the comparatively pointless mars and dangerous militarization of orbital space missions, which are both bush pet projects.
This displays a stunning lack of understanding of how things really work. NASA's budget has nothing to do with the military budget or even what NASA does. The whole reason NASA isn't a fraction of its current size is it creates jobs in key congressional districts, and since the manned space program generates the most publicity that's what gets fully funded. Politics and NASA are absolutely inseperable. I'm sure we could all find a more efficient way to spend that money, but the reality is the taxpayers are less interested in the kind of basic science you get from hubble and more in tune with Buck Rogers and Captain Kirk. It was once said of Carl Sagan (I wish I could find the attribution) "every time he convinces someone we don't need manned spaceflight where robots will suffice we lose an advocate for the space program." NASA has taken that to heart.
The mars missions were campaign fluff that will never get funded at all, never mind fully. Anytime a politician promises a program that'll be funded after he leaves office you can pretty much assume it's not serious.
no war would equal billions more a month for other purposes, like scientifically useful space missions.
Not really. They're borrowing money for the war, so the real impact of not having a war is taxes would be a little lower in ten years or so. The idea that the overall budget is a fixed size and funding one program means cutting another is naive to say the least. The only way to get "scientifically useful space missions" funded is to get the public interested in them.
i'm tired of wasting my time on you, so futher responses from you will be ignored. and as Mr. Malda apparently doesn't really care about mismoderation, i probably won't be bothering to respond to comments on mismoderated posts at all, since nobody will see them. fark off. and that goes double for the biased mismoderators, wtf you are.
In other words, "I can't make a cogent argument or back up anything I say, so I'm going to ignore you when you pick apart my incoherent ramblings." That about right? And are you really so foolish as to think Rob Malda reads every post and weighs it carefully to decide if the moderation is correct?
Also, you still never provided a link for all that "militarization of space" poppycock. The reality is space has been militarized from day one in the form of spy satellites. As far as I know, there aren't any plans to put actual weapons in space, and I'd appreciate a link from anyone who has other information. My search for space weapons came up with this link, which describes programs which are either white-paper pipe dreams or technology demonstrators. The ground-based ASAT programs have been around for decades.