Slashdot Mirror
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."
I guess it would be poetic justice if it fell down to Earth and landed on Fred Gregory.
...then as NASAs competence ramps down, may be private space entrepreneurs' ramp up.
Perhaps like an abandoned sailing ship the Hubble will be salvaged--and rescued--by private a private space craft.
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.
When you are dealing with Red Tape, you cannot just say "We want a new telescope" because the answer is "What is wrong with your current telescope? It sees the universe just fine, right?"
So, you say your current telescope is old and you need a budget for something new and bigger and better, technology progresses, right?
What we can infer is that NASA has something else they want to put up that, if they "rescued" the Hubble, would cut into the budget for their new thing they want to put up.
Don't go throught the regular contractors because they want billions of dollars.
Contract small companies that are willing to build one for peanuts.
Find some other material other than glass to construct it from to save on weight. Maybe a thin ceramic that can be slightly bent with heat or electricity.
some facts:
# How big is it? This mirror measures 2.5 meters (98 inches) across and weighs 748 kilograms (1,650 pounds). The useable surface of the mirror in the Hubble was slightly smaller-about 2.4 meters (94 inches)-because the mirror mounting covered the outer edge.
# Why doesn't it look like a mirror? This mirror was never used, so it never received a reflective coating. The mirror in the Hubble was coated with a thin layer of aluminum and also overcoated with magnesium fluoride, so it could better reflect ultraviolet light.
# What is it made of? The mirror is made of Corning ultra-low expansion glass. The front and back surfaces are fused to a lattice core and to the inner and outer bands, creating a sturdy but lightweight structure.
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
I don't know if this is what you are trying to say-- I can't quite tell. So please don't take this as an attack.
But just because public space development is good does not mean that NASA is bad, or that bad things happening to NASA are good.
I see a lot of people on slashdot, seemingly mostly libertarians, who seem to be cheering anything bad that happens to NASA on the theory this is somehow a victory for private space development. It isn't. This is not a zero sum game. NASA's loss is not private space development's gain. A gain for private space development is a gain for humanity's involvement in space; a loss for public space development is a loss for humanity's involvement in space, but nothing else.
The things NASA does in space don't supplant what private enterprise would be doing, they supplement it. NASA's goals in space are-- or should be-- to do the things that benefit humanity but which no clear profit model exists from. Meanwhile the advancements NASA creates in space can-- or should be-- models for private enterprise. NASA could and should do more to explicitly encourage private space development and explicitly see themselves as to some extent partners with private space enterprise (I don't know who owns the technology NASA uses in space, I assume the aerospace contractors who built everything do, but I think that technology should be publicly documented and the patents available to the public for use by private operators, since after all the public paid for it) but even as it is private space development can and will benefit from NASA and its presence, and vice versa. Private space development and NASA aren't enemies, this isn't football.
Meanwhile even in the areas where the actions of NASA and private space operators overlap, private space operators simply aren't ready to replace NASA even if they should. Private space development shows great promise but it is truly at an infant stage.
Aside from the above, I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying; you may well be right about salvaging or reclaiming Hubble. looks like Hubble will be entering the atmosphere sometime between 2010 and 2032. They're not there now, but it seems likely private space enterprise may get to the point where they can rescue it before it is lost forever even if NASA isn't interested...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Basically, there are two sides to this story. First of all, any kind of talk about risks is complete bullshit. The risks are no greater than in all previous Shuttle missions, and flying within docking distance of ISS is not a magical solution that somehow makes the risks becaom significantly smaller. It's just that NASA became so politicized, that they routinely use purely political tricks, and this talk of risk is exactly that. They are just repeating their routine after the Challenger accident: back then it turned out that the Shuttle's lack of emergency escape system proved to be a bad idea. So, their solution was to invent a bogus, unuseable escape system to make everybody shut up. The only thing this system is good for, is torturing the crue very creatively for PR purposes. And now they came up with the "if it breaks, we'll dock at ISS" solution. A complete garbage. On the other hand, NASA is right in one thing: Hubble IS NOT WORTH REVIVING YET AGAIN. It's better to let it die gracefully and replace it with a new and better telescope. A Shuttle mision to repair Hubble is, at this point, a complete waste of resources and a tremendous hinderence to the NGST program. In short - NASA became a purely political organization, one that is incapable of telling people the hard truth, and consistenyly choosing to replace it with sweet lies. And this certainly didn't happen just yesterday. :(
It might have been an interesting idea if we were to discuss a decade ago. There are a number of problems:
(1) ISS is not equipped to "park" a trailer sized telescope,
(2) to make it possible, NASA will have to design a module for parking the HST and then redesign the ISS as a whole (it is not very flexible in design...which is why I hate this space station).
(3) this would cost NASA more shuttle visits and R&D for the new parking module,
(4) even if you achieve all of these, then there is no guarantee that the HST is repairable in future.
I am a user of the Hubble Space Telescope. I've used it over 100 orbits in the last seven years. And I say this: let it die. The HST has been a great telescope, but would I spend every penny we have to keep it up? No. I'd rather prefer building new space telescopes for the money.
My work requires both high spatial resolution and spectral resolution from the UV through NIR (esp. in UV and blue wavelengths); the HST was undoubtedly most suitable for achieving my objectives. However, it no longer carries the working spectroscopic instrument and hence the HST is no longer a viable asset for my need.
Today, it is probably more cost-effective to go back to expendable space missions. It's not at all hard to build a 2-m class space telescope. It's not servicable, but for the cost of servicing, we can build another telescope with a similar specification. So if one breaks, we can launch another.
The only retarded thinking I have is that I don't want to feed the STScI to create the monopoly in the space-based astronomy. The HST is costing a lot more than other missions (x2 FTE is what I heard, compared to other major missions) for little return in terms of the telescope operation and calibration. This is the institution that produces very crappy software to handle the HST data (I've written my own code to process and done my own calibration to improve its science return...why was the STScI not doing that?). They allocate their budgest lucratively toward the support for scientists (not operator or calibration staffs) while other missions suffer from severe budget cuts and RIF'ing their science staffs.