NASA Preparing Manned Hubble Service Mission

danimrich writes "According to an article at Space.com, 'NASA's new Administrator Mike Griffin told reporters today [April 29] that he informed key members of Congress Thursday evening that he would direct engineers at Goddard Spaceflight center to start preparing for a space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope on the assumption that one ultimately will go forward.'"

Comments

Re:Handling too much?

[m4dd00d]

That wouldn't work. Russia is a communist country and the capitalist and communist economies are incompatible.

Safety Concerns

[bigtallmofo]

Griffin's predecessor, Sean O'Keefe, cancelled a planned Hubble mission in January 2004. O'Keefe cited safety concerns in the wake of the shuttle Columbia disaster.

There have been several successful shuttle missions that have serviced the Hubble in the past so there's no reason to think that this particular type of mission is more dangerous than any other.

I think anyone stating that a shuttle mission to service the Hubble is not safe has an agenda beyond safety.

Re:Safety Concerns

[Gallech]

I think a bigger issue is our society's overwhelming and ultimately hypocritical concern with "safety". We send men and women off to die in war ever year. Yet the expansion of human horizons through the exploration of space by willing people is "too dangerous". The men and women of the space program know the risks, and for the most part they embrace them. Yes, its sad when lives are lost. But human kind needs risk takers. And I'd rather see people "spending" their lives willingly on something the truly believe in for the betterment of all mankind, than for any squabble over territory or natural resources.

Re:Safety Concerns

[Sargent1]

The safety concern was that, if the shuttle had its tiles damaged by foam (or ice from the external tank) so that it couldn't come back to Earth, the shuttle couldn't transfer its orbit to the ISS for safe docking. Instead, NASA would have to send a second shuttle up and try an on-orbit shuttle-to-shuttle dock. That's why the Hubble mission was deemed "more dangerous than any other" -- the "other" missions are to the ISS, which can act as a safe harbor.

Re:Safety Concerns

[drinkypoo]

Kind of makes you laugh sarcastically and shake your head when you see a SUV with one of those magnetic "SAVE OUR TROOPS" ribbons on it. Every time I see that I want to stick one of those "miles per soldier" bumper stickers on the thing.

Re:Safety Concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it a little bit and you will understand. We have 3 or 4 shuttlecraft and how many thousand tanks, warplanes, and etc.? While the loss of life is tragic in either scenario, the loss of equipment in NASA is a big concern.

Re:Safety Concerns

[Overzeetop]

Thank god we didn't attempt any shuttle missions before there was an ISS. That would have been waaaaaaay to dangerous.

Re:Safety Concerns

[d474]

"And I'd rather see people "spending" their lives willingly on something the truly believe in for the betterment of all mankind, than for any squabble over territory or natural resources."

I agree 100% with your entire comment.

To go one further, I think it's about time this nation drops all the "Wars" on drugs, terrorism, etc., and start a new, single, all encompassing "War on Ignorance". The stated goal of such a war could be to educate the entire global population. To root out Ignorance and replace it with Truthful Knowledge would be the ongoing battle. As a side note, it would also help fight drug abuse and terrorism (religious fundamentalism) as well, since Ignorance lies at the root of those nasty human behaviors.

If we threaten to stop space exploration everytime one of our scientific soldiers goes down in a blazing rocket accident in search of knowledge, then Ignorance wins!

We must show resolve in our fight against Ignorance. To do otherwise only encourages the perpetuators of Ignorance.

Re:Safety Concerns

[Rirath.com]

"War on Ignorance". The stated goal of such a war could be to educate the entire global population. To root out Ignorance and replace it with Truthful Knowledge would be the ongoing battle. As a side note, it would also help fight drug abuse and terrorism (religious fundamentalism) as well, since Ignorance lies at the root of those nasty human behaviors.

Ha ha, I can think of oh so many ways that would go wrong. Come on... War on Ignorance? Who are WE to declare a War on Ignorance? Have you seen half the stupid laws we pass or things we do? Do you have any idea what our so called Turthful Knowledge would be? That sounds like "Trusted Computing" to me.

I love my country, but come on... we need to fix our own education system before we go proclaiming our Truthful Knowledge to everyone else... enforcing it via a "war" no less. I can just imagine what we'd do to folks who disagree with our knowledge. Our Truthful Knowledge as currently presented is a joke.

Re:Safety Concerns

[kosmicki]

Can't they boogie over to the ISS if there was a problem?

Re:Safety Concerns

[ScentCone]

We send men and women off to die in war ever year. Yet the expansion of human horizons through the exploration of space by willing people is "too dangerous".

First, no one (except the medievalist wack jobs preaching to the suicide bombers) sends soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen people off to die. If that's how you think of it, then sending police out on the street every day is "sending them do die," just like sending firefighters out to burning buildings is "sending them to die." That whole line of thinking is an empty bit of rhetorical nonsense designed to prick the emotions of people without any sort of critical thinking skills.

As for expanding our horizons as being "too dangerous" (as is rarely said, but often implied in media coverage), too dangerous to whom? The most common thing I hear in the news, especially following a loss of vehicle or crew on a NASA mission, is something along the lines of "What a waste! We could wipe out all of poverty if we took all that money and gave it to hungry people and made better schools."

I'm sure there are plenty of people here that will back NASA and wish them more funding, while also wishing more funding for schools. Saying it's either-or is a false dichotomy, just like saying that space research and defense are either-or (their typically very complementary, actually).

And I'd rather see people "spending" their lives willingly on something the truly believe in for the betterment of all mankind, than for any squabble over territory or natural resources.

Because I know some personally, and am comfortable conservatively extrapolating, I think we can say that there are plenty of people in the military that are indeed willing to risk their lives. And they don't see freeing people from theocratic tyranny and Stalinist thugs, or protecting fragile new democracies as a "squabbles." A more forward-looking world (as such because of fewer Saddams, or Talibans, as recent examples) is something that a lot of men and women (including some that volunteer to go into harm's way) consider just as worthy as a moon base. Personally, I think both are worth way more resources than either get. Doesn't mean that every bit of work done by NASA or DOD makes sense, but there are sound practical and idealogical motivations in both areas.

Re:Safety Concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Dancing is not allowed in space.

Re:Safety Concerns

[wideBlueSkies]

>>Every time I see that I want to stick one of those "miles per soldier" bumper stickers on the thing.

Amen brother.

wbs.

Re:Safety Concerns

[vsprintf]

To go one further, I think it's about time this nation drops all the "Wars" on drugs, terrorism, etc., and start a new, single, all encompassing "War on Ignorance".

That would require the detainment of all members of Congress who don't read proposed legislation (all of them) in some detention camp and effectively deprive the country of "leadership". . . Okay, let's do it.

Re:Safety Concerns

[OgGreeb]

How much would it cost, and would it be feaible, to plan to send up a couple of Soyuz capsules in the event that the shuttle can't de-orbit? I'm sure we could make a deal with the Russians. And it would seem do-able to find a way to link up and transfer over to Soyuz capsules. Could they squeeze four people in if they had to?

Re:Safety Concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Following the Columbia disaster NASA has decided that any shuttle mission must be able to reach the Space Station in case a wing gets holed during launch. The velocity change is too great for a shuttle to reach the space station from the hubble. It's a matter of orbit inclination and altitude. As it currently stands it's beginning to look as if the shuttle has become unlaunchable because NASA inspectors keep finding new sources of ice debris that could damage the ship's wings. Irregardless of that fact that 100 previous launches did not damage the shuttle, Columbia changed everything. NASA can't be safe enough. So while O'Keefe's decision against a manned Hubble Mission seems wrong and chuckleheaded, it was based on his idea of risk avoidance.

Re:Safety Concerns

[Smiffa2001]

Why hasn't this guys been modded up? I'd be the very first to say "lets get over to that Eagle Nebula and take a look" or similar but I think that parties on both sides in the parent post (astronauts and the military) these days generally get the chance to choose whether they want to risk their lives or otherwise.

I hate to see the guy presenting the (reasonable) opposite side of an argument not being heard...

Re:Safety Concerns

[ScentCone]

To root out Ignorance and replace it with Truthful Knowledge would be the ongoing battle

Now, how is it you're going to "root out" ignorance in places like Afghanistan, where the local monopoly on Truthful Knowledge was wholly owned and operated by the Taliban? You know, the people who would actually take women down to the former soccer field and shoot them at lunch time in front of an audience for: working and sending their daughters to secret classrooms. You know: the Taliban. The medievilist bunch of charming fellows that went out of their way to harbor training camps for that nice Mr. Bin Laden, and who, as a matter of doctrine, destroyed the local historical artifacts (some much older than Islam) in the name of their newly imported Truth.

So, these people were more than willing to kill in order to keep ignorance working as their tool of power. You'd like to educate in that setting, no doubt. There's only one mechanism by which a guy willing to kill women and children in cold blood to make a point about Allah is going to have his behavior changed, and that mechanism is force. In the most recent case, US special forces, Marines, and their associates.

You want to fight ignorance? Ask yourself how you'll fight it when the people actually preaching its perpetuation are willing to kill you to make sure it sticks? It's hard to reason with someone like that as they're shooting you, or running a plane full of jet fuel into your cubicle.

Armed containment of people like that is not mutually exclusive with education. But education cannot exist in a place where killers prop up ignorance and fear. The shortest path to an education-friendly environment is the prompt removal of thugs like that. And we have the ability. Just ask the working women and school kids in Afghanistan.

Re:Safety Concerns

[instarx]

There have been several successful shuttle missions that have serviced the Hubble in the past so there's no reason to think that this particular type of mission is more dangerous than any other.

I fully support using the STS to service Hubble, but the logic you use to support that position is faulty. Just because you may manage to jaywalk actoss a busy street a few times without getting killed is not evidence that doing so is just as safe as walking on the sidewalk. Another analogy would be that surviving three rounds of Russian-roulette does not mean it is just as safe as target shooting. Similarly, just because there have been a few successful Hubble servicing missions it does not follow that "there's no reason to think that this particular type of mission is more dangerous than any other."

My understanding of the safety considerations involved in deciding to cancel or keep the HST servicing mission is: 1) because a servicing mission requires several multi-astronaut EVAs and multiple STS maneuvers very close to a large object it is significantly more hazardous than a standard orbital mission, and 2) since all STS missions are hazardous on-the-face the decision to eliminate optional missions is valid from a safety perspective.

The question has really been whether the HST is a low-value property not worth the risk to shuttle and crew, or a high-value property worthy of the mission.

Re:Safety Concerns

[mbrother]

Not enough fuel to make the ISS orbit, apparently.

I think they know what to expect

[Tekime]

I have the distinct feeling most of these astronauts have a clue about the possible dangers. If any of them are that worried, maybe they should have gone to law school instead. Not to diminish the importance of their safety, I just don't see any clear reason why this would be more dangerous than any another manned mission??

Re:I think they know what to expect

[Phil246]

Agreed. Strapping yourself into a rocket composed of tons of highly explosive fuel carries with it a certain degree of risk.
After all, its nothing other then a carefully controlled explosion which gets them into space.
If an astronaut thinks its all of a sudden, dangerous work - then they really shouldnt be in the space program. Astronauts should be mentally competant as well as physically, and I would be extremely suprised if they were not.

Re:I think they know what to expect

[RealUlli]

Sitting down in a tin can, with several gallons of highliy flammable liquid, hurtling down a concrete strip, in close proximity with other, similarly configured tin cans is supposed to be dangerous, too.

Yet, we do it every day - it's called commute on a motorway...

Regards, Ulli

Re:I think they know what to expect

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the distinct feeling most of these astronauts have a clue about the possible dangers. If any of them are that worried, maybe they should have gone to law school instead. Not to diminish the importance of their safety, I just don't see any clear reason why this would be more dangerous than any another manned mission??

I bet it's the PR people who are afraid of a disaster, not the astronauts.

Re:I think they know what to expect

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there is more risk involved compared to simply blasting into space and orbitting the earth. After all, we are talking about having two crafts in close proximity to each other. Of course, that is no different than docking with the space station.

But you are right. ALL of the regular astronauts know the risks. And yet, most (if not all) want this mission to go forward in hopes of keeping the hubble going.

Re:I think they know what to expect

[kfg]

The whole issue brings to mind Alan Shepard's famous joke when asked what he was thinking while waiting for the Redstone to fire off:

"I was up there looking around, and suddenly I realized I was sitting on top of a rocket built by the lowest bidder."

They are certainly aware of the dangers and if they didn't accept them they wouldn't be astronauts.

On the other hand, before they climb to the top of the rocket they strap themselves into a car carrying a hundred pounds or so of highly explosive fuel and take it out on the road with thousands of complete idiots doing likewise, who are not concious of the dangers inherent in doing so. Familiarity breeds contempt, even though, on a passenger mile basis, an astronaut is far more likely to die accidentally in his/her car on his/her way to the space center than in the rocket.

And sitting on a rocket beats the hell out of coal mining, but you don't see many people running around shutting down the mines, because their houses would get cold and their TVs wouldn't work.

If it took manned space missions to keep TVs working people would be willing to "off" a few dozen astronauts a week without giving it half a thought.

So there's Hubble's problem right there. It isn't part of the vital "communications infrastructure." It merely informs us of what's going on in the universe, not what's going on in the trailer parks as does Jerry Springer.

If it were pointing into Cameron Daiz's bedroom window people would save the sucker right quick, no matter how many lives of other people it took to accomplish it. It has the misfortune of pointing at the wrong sort of star.

KFG

Re:I think they know what to expect

[pnewhook]

Sitting down in a tin can, with several gallons of highliy flammable liquid, hurtling down a concrete strip, in close proximity with other, similarly configured tin cans is supposed to be dangerous, too. Yet, we do it every day - it's called commute on a motorway...

Yes and in the US (this data is from 2001) there were 37,795 fatalities on the roads due to crashes. There were 16.35 million crashes that year, which gives and average of 2.6 crashes per Km of roadway in the US, and one fatality for every 168Km of roadway.

Driving a car is dangerous, and if these statistics were posted for any other type of transportation (trains, airplanes, space shuttles) they would be immediatly banned from use.

Re:I think they know what to expect

[Anonymous Coward]

A war on tailgating would save far more lives than the war on terror, but it wont get you elected president.

Re:I think they know what to expect

[Lally Singh]

Are dead tailgaters really counted as a loss?

Re:I think they know what to expect

[Unknown Lamer]

Maybe not, but the people they rear end and end up killing do.

Re:I think they know what to expect

[DerekLyons]

I have the distinct feeling most of these astronauts have a clue about the possible dangers. If any of them are that worried, maybe they should have gone to law school instead.

The problem isn't the astronauts lives. We could staff a dozen Shuttle flights just with the astronauts on roster, and for each of them, there are over a hundred qualified volunteers.

The problem is that there are only three Orbiters - essentially irreplaceable pieces of hardware.

Not to diminish the importance of their safety, I just don't see any clear reason why this would be more dangerous than any another manned mission??

Because flights to the ISS can use the ISS as a 'safe haven', giving NASA several months to figure out how to fly a rescue mission. Flights to Hubble have no such option. (Setting aside the classes of accidents and failures that would leave a Shuttle unable to reach ISS, or striking after departure.)

Re:Hmmm.

[jackb_guppy]

Are you messuring by passenger mile or trip count?

Becuase messuring by passenger mile, I believe you are very very wrong.

Re:Hmmm.

[QuantumG]

Huh? Are you using the "new math" or something?

Good

[Nicky G]

It's funny just how much of an issue safety has been made in many discussions of a manned service mission. The USA doesn't even give its troops armored vehicles in its war, and that doesn't seem to really rile people up (discussion of the ridiculousness of the war aside). You'd think a little risk to save what has IMO been one of the most profound scientific tools in all of human civilization would be deemed an acceptable risk.

Re:Good

[McGiraf]

How many terrorists can you kill with a space telescope?

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

losing is what Americans do best

This is really an oversimplification of the bureacratic ethic: if it ain't broke, fix it until itis.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

String.replace(/terrorists/g,"brown people");
String.replace(/2005/g, "1950");

same as it ever was

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

losing is what Americans do best

Except when it comes to losing weight.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

How many terrorists can you kill with a space telescope?

Sounds like a cool project, turn hubble to earth, put a flashlight "camera" in there, find a suspect terrorist, switch to the light, through all the optics, and set his towel on fire!

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I dunno, they are really big lenses... Get the right focal length set up, turn toward the sun... just like ants on the sidewalk. Uh oh, the black vans are pulling up, apparently I've jsut discovered the "real" reason for Hubble...

Re:Good

[Detritus]

The USA doesn't even give its troops armored vehicles in its war, and that doesn't seem to really rile people up (discussion of the ridiculousness of the war aside).

Every vehicle design is a compromise among cost, weight, armor, speed, fuel economy, maintenance requirements, power, cargo capacity, size, etc. The HMMWV replaced a group of unarmored vehicles, including the JEEP. There are lightly armored vehicles for mechanized infantry, like the APC and the Bradley. Their armor will stop small-arms fire and shell fragments, but not projectiles from heavier weapons or anti-tank mines. A modern RPG can penetrate over 500mm of steel. How do you protect a vehicle against that? With dismounted infantry, who are vulnerable to small-arms fire, to provide a protective screen for the vehicle. There are no easy solutions to the problem.

Re:Handling too much?

[silentrob]

except for bloggers and pundits

Right, because we all know that bloggers and pundits are all credible rocket scientists.

Just because you have an opinion, doesn't mean that it's worth anything. (I'm not referering to you. I'm refering to bloggers and pundits).

Anyway, flame on, and all that good shit.

Re:Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, but I'd rather be on a space shuttle than your boats, cars and planes!

To be honest, performing very complicated technical tasks and having the ability to diagnose an unpredicted problem, you need a human brain with human control.

A robot with a rather limited set of functions will not be able to pull any kind of Mcgyver moves...unless we send in a T1000.
-SJ53

Re:Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Are they going to be taking a Space Shuttle up there or a different craft? "

They're going to glue a bunch of feathers on some astronauts and tell them to flap their wings really hard...

What the hell else do you think they would take? The shuttle is the only craft that we have that can do anything like this.

"Manned missions have a surprisingly high rate of failure/death"

We've lost two shuttles on liftoff/re-entry and one craft on the ground out of hundreds of missions. Then you compare a shuttle with a car or a bus? Are you kidding me? Show me a bus that travels at thousands of times the speed of sound. They're not even in the same league.

Of five space shuttles...

[James A. Y. Joyce]

...two have been destroyed, both times resulting in deaths.

Re:Of five space shuttles...

[jackb_guppy]

OH you are using the worst stat yet... ITEM COUNTS!

Tell me sir, how many miles did each of the vehicles rackup? More than 747? your car? Compare the operating enviroments that each must function in.

You may want to take a class on messurements as it relates to safty.

Re:Of five space shuttles...

[Ziviyr]

Many more people have been killed in planes.

Most people on those planes were not flying to advance science for humanity.

Even more die daily in cars, mostly for reasons that could be achieved through telecommunication (which has an utterly negligible mortality rate AFAIK).

So I'm not sweating a couple shuttles blowing up over so many tens of years.

Re:Of five space shuttles...

[john82]

You can't pick the stats that support your contention and ignore any other (rather than dealing with it). Okay, you don't like an item count. When the items are human beings, I'd say that was a pretty damned important statistic.

You might also want to consider one of the main points of any manned mission: return the crew safely. There has never been a mission where the science part of the mission outweighed that.

And that would be safety.

Re:Of five space shuttles...

[jackb_guppy]

Then you are for removing all forms of transport. Since in every from that are deaths.

The question is using meaniful messures to compare safety. That was base post.

Using item counts, One person takes one trip and is killed, then all vehicals that type the person used in the trip is unsafe.

Using mailage counts we can compare the reality safety of each trip.

Which bring us to you second point. Safely returning the crew... you are right, that is goal. How do you messure safely? Is is every trip MUST return a person safely... IF so then no trips can be made. First is point of my first paragraph. Or is there a relative risk? 99.9999% of trips will end sucessfully.

That why you drive car and BUY Auto Insurance and Life Insurance. The first is for 99.9999% will end sucessfully/safely. The other two, you are betting that you will screw-up!

Re:Of five space shuttles...

[dgatwood]

That argument is crap. More people have been killed on planes and in cars, but there are millions of times more airplane flights and car trips than shuttle missions.

Let's look at the percentages. Two flights out of 113 have exploded. That's just under 2%. I guarantee if you knew that every time you got into a car, you would have a 1 in 56 chance of not making it back home, you would think twice before getting into the car.

It would be like what would happen if every road in the world were CA Hwy 17, every car were either a Ford Pinto or a gasoline tanker, and Dateline NBC installed small exploding rockets under all the fuel tanks, replacing them for free with every tank of gas....

Re:Of five space shuttles...

[Ziviyr]

My argument is NOT CRAP.

Many people would leap into that death car of yours if it advanced science to some useful end.

If people were using the car to get some eggs and a loaf of bread from a walkable distance, then they'd be right to think twice about taking their expensive death-car on a trip.

This is why you're not an effin' astronaut!

Now if NASA had no science behind their missions and ran a public betting site (yeah, I'll throw down 20 bucks that they blow up on the launch pad) then you might be pointful.

They don't, you aren't. EOF

Re:Of five space shuttles...

[dgatwood]

The whole "in the name of science" thing is really beside the point, or at least it should be. The main reason I'm not an astronaut is that if I'm going to put my life on the line, whether in the name of science or not, I expect that the organization that's putting me out there will be doing everything possible to ensure my safety. I don't consider one in 56 chance of dying to be anywhere close to "doing everything possible"....

I could accept those sorts of odds if we had just figured out how to launch people into space... but that isn't the case. What we have is NASA, a thriving bureaucracy, with all the problems that this entails. In the history of the space program, there have been three fatal accidents. All three have been directly attributable to officials at NASA ignoring what the engineers at the bottom told them.

• The designers of the Apollo capsule wanted to use explosive bolts on the door, a door that opened outwards, and a mixed Nitrogen atmosphere. Any one of those three things would have saved the lives of those astronauts, but NASA didn't listen.
• The manufacturer of the fuel tanks used in the Challenger warned NASA that the o-rings could fail at low temperatures. NASA didn't listen.
• The Pentagon suggested that NASA should use their satellites to look at the bottom of Columbia's wing. The NASA engineers themselves said it could be potentially catastrophic damage... but the NASA officials didn't listen.

The fact is, the reason that every road isn't CA 17, every car isn't a Pinto, and we don't have bottle rockets strapped under the fuel tank is that we have serious oversight by various organizations that ensure that vehicles with major safety problems are immediately recalled, that poorly designed roads are rethought (where possible), and so on. We don't have to worry about somebody at Ford not listening. If they don't listen, they know that there are very serious consequences even if no one gets hurt. Therein lies the key.

What we need is the same sort of oversight over NASA that the NTSB has over commercial flight. And I don't just mean throw more bureaucrats under NASA's budget. I mean an outside government agency doing routine audits and inspections. I mean having government observers from that organization present during all missions, with an open-door policy and a red phone so that when a serious safety concern is raised, the right people will find out about it in a hurry, etc.

The same agency should also have people working as safety monitors at EVERY contractor used in the manufacture of shuttle parts. If the engineers get worried, there should be an IMMEDIATE red flag. And unlike current policy (assume it is safe unless the engineers can prove otherwise), the assumption should be that if there are safety concerns, something bad will happen. The burden of proof should be on NASA to prove that adequate safety precautions have been taken to eliminate the cause for concern. Anything short of these sorts of safeguards is a copout. It's an affront to the safety of every person who puts their lives at risk in the name of science.

I don't buy your argument, not because a one in fifty-six chance isn't worth it in the name of science, but because it shouldn't have to be.

Shuttle

[Anonymous Coward]

That piece of garbage.

I wish we had a stargate, instead. A stargate with which we'd find some Ancient technology and fly around in these cool spaceships. And then I would get to meet this hot chick in uniform, Samantha Carter, and she'd dig me. And we'd have hot sex for hours and hours. She would also make me wear a leash.

Oh well, man can dream... man can dream.

Re:Shuttle

[ebvwfbw]

She would tell you to "get lost buster". If you even though about saying something else she would hit you with the extra burn mace. Then a small bully would ride by on a bike and go "ha ha"

Re:Shuttle

[WWWWolf]

I wish we had a stargate, instead.

Too high-tech for now. A space elevator would be a far more reasonable short-term goal.

Re:Handling too much?

[Richard_at_work]

The Russians cannot budget enough for much more than they do now, which is why the Russians are asking NASA to get on with getting the Shuttle back up so they can resume some of the supply missions. NASA did look into funding the Russian program to a certain extent, but its forbidden from doing so because of legislation forbidding funding of states which provide support to Iran.

rather disconcerting

[Anonymous Coward]

Griffin said today that a final decision on any possible crewed servicing mission is still pending NASA's successful return to flight with the launch of the shuttle Discovery. However, with that launch now delayed nearly two more months, Griffin said the Goddard team has to get started now to preserve the option of saving Hubble before the popular telescope is scheduled to go dark.

now mod me down if you must , but thats a rather worrying development

Re:rather disconcerting

[YrWrstNtmr]

Why is this 'worrying'? Planning for a maintenance mission can start before Discovery launches. And the actual mission does depend on return to operational status of the shuttle. But there's no reason they can't get a lot of mission planning done now.

Re:rather disconcerting

[Anonymous Coward]

its worrying that some people can get karma by copy and pasting a paragraph of the article then with a simple addition of "mod me down if you must" and a suitable eyecatching subject line and karma is granted even when there is no additional insight

Re:rather disconcerting

[bechthros]

Except he posted anonymously.

Re:Hmmm.

[James A. Y. Joyce]

Uh, any craft that travels extremely fast is inherently unstable and dangerous, no matter how well engineered. Case in point: the JATO Chevy.

To All Those Citing Safety Concerns

[colonslashslash]

It's been said many times before here, but we have to take risks if we want to explore and expand in new areas. We are still relatively new to space travel, even getting people into orbit is something that we don't have a great deal of experience with, so of course there are risks and dangers to overcome.

As a poster above me said, these astronauts are fully aware of what can go wrong, yet they still volunteer themeselves for the job. They have a choice over risking their lives to further the human race, and bravely, they take it. If we, as a species, never took on tasks that involved risks and dangers, we would have progressed nowhere.

I'm not saying safety issues should be overlooked, or brushed to one side here, it's important we get these people back to Earth safely, but it's also important that we don't let ourselves be held back by fear of what _might_ or _could_ happen.

The Hubble is arguably one of NASA's greatest missions, and to let it wither and die in space because a previous shuttle mission ended in disaster, would just be foolish in my eyes. I really do hope they do send up a maintanence mission so the Hubble may continue operation, and I wish all those involved the best of luck, you are truely the pioneers of our age.

Re:Hmmm.

[YrWrstNtmr]

It might be a little tough to take Amtrak or Greyhound to go fix Hubble.

Re:Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Manned missions have a surprisingly high rate of failure/death, even more so than any other form of transport

Oh yeah, what about missile transport? I bet you never even thought of that, did you?

Re:Hmmm.

[McGiraf]

Lost one on the ground? Which one, what happened?

Yeah vs Huh?

[jackb_guppy]

It is about time that leadership is showing at NASA.

We shutdown a system over safty concerns, if that was really true, then get the guys off the space station and shut it all down!

NASA is about science and the need to know. That is a very human need. NASA is tech that makes up our very jobs. YES, even the check out clerk at your supermarket is using products in the job and life daily that came from NASA fund research and neededs.

Now we some at the head again that is thinking about "ruuning NASA the science group" not "how to keep his job". Before you shutdown a rescue mission to Hubble (or projects) what are real issues? That is science! Knowing the facts and THEN and ONY THEN MAKING A DISCEDION!

Re:Yeah vs Huh?

[antifoidulus]

Was NASA repsonsible for the spell checker?

Re:Yeah vs Huh?

[jackb_guppy]

No, MS

Re:Yeah vs Huh?

[john82]

Hopefully, they will make a decision.

Spell checker? We don't need no stinkin' spell checker!

Re:Yeah vs Huh?

[pnewhook]

This is gotta be candidate for worst decision ever.

We would develop a lot more technology and knowhow by doing the repair robotically, and it would be cheaper as well.

The next telescopes on the drawing board are all at L2 LaGrangian. They HAVE to be assembed robotically, so we might as well develop the technology on a target close to Earth. That way we know how to do it when the more difficult tasks come up.

Re:Yeah vs Huh?

[JayBat]

We would develop a lot more technology and knowhow by doing the repair robotically,

I agree, except that Hubble is not likely to survive long enough to fund/design/build a robotic repair mission (not to mention the practice robotic missions that would precede the actual repair if the thing is done properly).

The astronauts all know they've got a 1-in-50 chance of having a bad day on any given mission, and that the ISS strategy doesn't improve those odds all that much. We're overdue for a catastrophic main engine failure, for example.

A Hubble repair mission is about the best use of a shuttle mission that I can think of.

Re:Yeah vs Huh?

[pnewhook]

Re:Yeah vs Huh? (Score:1) by JayBat (617968) on Saturday April 30, @06:51PM (#12394452) We would develop a lot more technology and knowhow by doing the repair robotically, I agree, except that Hubble is not likely to survive long enough to fund/design/build a robotic repair mission (not to mention the practice robotic missions that would precede the actual repair if the thing is done properly).

Well most of the money has already been spent, the robotics have already been designed and partially built, and the entire mission has been practiced several times over on the Hubble mockup facility at Goddard.

This decision is entirely political - they need a high publicity stunt to show the shuttle is still useful.

Re:Yeah vs Huh?

[JayBat]

Well most of the money has already been spent, the robotics have already been designed and partially built, and the entire mission has been practiced several times over on the Hubble mockup facility at Goddard.

I must have missed the part where we've already flown successful autonomous rendevous/docking flights...

Re:Yeah vs Huh?

[pnewhook]

I must have missed the part where we've already flown successful autonomous rendevous/docking flights...

I guess you did.

The Russians have been doing this for years with their Soyuz and Progress vehicles.

The Americans will demonstrate autonomous rendezvous and docking this summer on the XSS-11 microsatellite.

Is it worth it?

[LordoftheLemmings]

Is it really worth sending a shuttle up to fix it? It costs so much to send a shuttle up to do it wouldn't it be cheaper to send up a new one? It seems to me that were going to spend entirely to much money on something that is old obsolete. Why not replace it with something new and better?

Re:Is it worth it?

[9Nails]

Perhaps the risk of deploying something new and better with the gamble that it would survive launch are just as bad as if they go up to service the Hubble? Or maybe NASA thinks that they can be successful at the Hubble mission, and they need some positive karma.

Re:Is it worth it?

[andyh1978]

Is it really worth sending a shuttle up to fix it? It costs so much to send a shuttle up to do it wouldn't it be cheaper to send up a new one? It seems to me that were going to spend entirely to much money on something that is old obsolete. Why not replace it with something new and better?

Rather than send up a Shuttle to fix the existing telescope, because launching a Shuttle is expensive, you want to build an entirely new telescope and then send a Shuttle up to launch it?

Could an equivalent space telescope be deployed by an unmanned rocket? The mass of Hubble seems to be in the range that an Ariane could carry from a quick Google, but wouldn't it need to be deployed a bit more carefully than could be done through a rocket, i.e. that's why they used a Shuttle for Hubble itself?

Re:Is it worth it?

[jackb_guppy]

What is really broke?

Needs fuel, a few stearing peices of equipment, maybe add a new option or two.

If that was your car... would you just buy a build a new one becuase it was out of gas and needed new shocks and you wanted to add a new a satilite radio?

Re:Is it worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are replacing it with a new one. the NGST (james webb space telescope or next generation space telescope) will be on line around 2011. But it will not monitor the visible light range. In addition, who is to say that it will be produced? There could be future budget cuts, problems with production, problems with launch. In addition, it will be a long ways away from earth (between the sun and earth). If it fails, then game over. We have a working telescope that simply needs maintenance. The risk and costs of going up there is not that high. In addition, we need to learn how to work in space, so this is simply a step.

Re:Is it worth it?

[grozzie2]

If that was your car... would you just buy a build a new one becuase it was out of gas and needed new shocks and you wanted to add a new a satilite radio?

That would depend entirely on your location. If you car was in the back yard, in the middle of a densly populated area, just down the street from <insert major chain store name here>, probably not. It would be very cost effective to walk to the store, buy the parts, then fix the car.

OTOH, if your car is located at a research camp, on the icecap at one of the poles, far enough away from 'civilization' that the _only_ way to bring in those spare parts is to fly a ski equipped C-130 3000 miles to deliver the parts, you will rethink the whole thing. The cost of transportation far exceeds the cost of the equipment being transported, by a couple of orders of magnitude. If the C-130 is going to be sent anyways, it may well be more efficient to just load up a new car in the back, and deliver that.

If one goes on the assumption there is budget for a shuttle trip, then the real question _should be_, what is the appropriate payload to carry? Should it be carrying spare parts for the existing old hubble, or should it be carrying a brand new telescope of some kind. In either case, the 500 million launch budget will be used.

In the case of hubble, pork politics, and budget line items get in the way. It's really silly, because the arguement to decide if the old one is fixed, or a new one is launched, has nothing to do with final cost, and everything to do with 'which budget does it come from?'. Launching a new modern replacement would entail creating a new mission line item in the budget, a process that's not likely to happen. Fixing the old one would shift funds into an existing line item, a process that may well be able to be pushed thru. The amount of funds in each case doesn't even enter the equation, it's all about what can be achieved politically.

Dropping 500 million into an existing line item is possible, but creating a new line item instead, with a value of 300 million, not gonna happen. That's how the 'efficiency' of a beaurocracy works, in particular one that's designed to entice voters with financial mumbo-jumbo. Joe congress-critter knows it's cheaper to fix an old car, than to buy a new one, so it's _gotta_ be cheaper to fix hubble than to launch a new telescope.

The real problem with a system that works this way, it's so damn full of pork. When you sit back and ask 'wheres the beef?', you'll discover, the politicians live an a diet of pork. The congress critters have become so adept at slicing and dicing pork for serving to the constituents, dont think they even remember how to throw some beef on the grille and serve up a steak.

Re:Is it worth it?

[dmaxwell]

There is only the small detail of coming up with the main mirror and other optics. It only takes a minimum of 5 years to cast and grind the necessary mirror.

Re:Is it worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which, after it is put into orbit we will realize was not ground correctly (again) and will need to send up the shuttle with humans on it to fix it (again).

Re:Is it worth it?

[TheKidWho]

Actually launching the shuttle isn't THAT Expensive. Would it surprise you to know that if NASA wanted to add another Shuttle flight for FY 06, it only costs an extra $120million to add to the flight manifest?

Re:Is it worth it?

[Soldrinero]

It is absolutely worth fixing it.

First off, we can't send up another Hubble for cheap - it has to be designed, built, and launched, all of which is expensive. To maintain the current telescope, all we have to do is launch, and as a fraction of what NASA is already planning to spend on launches, it's pretty cheap.

Secondly, Hubble is not "obsolete". Every single time it has been serviced, its capabilities have been upgraded with new instrumentation, vastly increasing its sensitivity and usefulness. Hubble has quite modern CCDs with exquisite sensitivity, and a servicing mission will install even better equipment. Here are the first images that were taken with the ACS camera installed in 2002. Compare those with this early WFPC2 image (an earlier camera). The servicing missions have increased Hubble's sensitivity by literally orders of magnitude, resulting in many incredible new discoveries.

We should absolutely fix this telescope.

Re:Is it worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. All this political talk and not much of science clue.

1) designing and building a new space telescope takes many, many years and is a unique process. In the mean time Hubble would be dead and we would be without a space telescope. You *cant* "just build a new Hubble" or better: maybe you can and then you launch, and it turns out not to work.

2) the James Web Space Telescope, currently under design, is an INFRARED telescope with COMPLEMENTARY capabilities to OPTICAL Hubble telescope; it is not a replacement.

3) Hubble is not an old piece of junk: it is a mature, proven, battle-hardened platform. We know what it can do, and it works extremely well. Even after so many years, its capabilities are unique; unparalleled by any groundbased observatory (dont even start about AO unless you know what your talking about).

There is no doubt that several break-through fields in astronomy depend on Hubble. Measurements of Dark Matter, Dark Energy, supermassive Black Holes, extremely distant galaxies, the chemical composition of nearby stars: all rely strongly on Hubble.

The fact is that with brand new instruments Hubble will rock for many years to come, producing bleeding edge science, and images that will capture the imagination of generations. Whether it is "worth" the cost is not a scientific question. People tend to spend much more money on things that are much less sensible.

Re:Hmmm.

[john82]

Try measuring the TOTAL number of astronauts that have gone into space vs. the number that have died (including instances such as Apollo 1). To be fair, consider the Russian missions as well. It's a little harder to track them because the Russian/Soviet government has not always been forthcoming about their own losses. Now as China works on their own manned missions, one hopes that they learn from American and Russian mishaps.

Re:Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lost one on the ground? Which one, what happened?"

He's probably thinking of Apollo 1. Which wasn't a shuttle.

Finally, some common sense

[localroger]

You know, we used to understand that space travel was dangerous and that astronauts are not just special because of their training, but because any time you sit atop a thirty meter tall bomb and light it there is a chance you're not gonna make it back in one piece. Props to the guys and gals who are willing to take that chance and all.

One of the many things I have always disliked about the Shuttle space-car fantasy is the illusion that this risk has somehow gone away and "shuttling off" to space is now no different than catching the subway to work in the morning. It's not that way, and it's never going to be that way with the technology at hand. It takes a massive amount of energy to get into space, and controlling large amounts of energy is always risky whether it's getting into orbit or an ordinary domestic chemical plant.

Let us understand that space travel is risky as well as expensive. Let us do what we can to minimize those risks. And then give the men and women who are willing to take those risks the tools they need and the opportunity do their damn jobs. Let us mourn when they pay the ultimate price, and let us celebrate when they give us things we never could have had without their sacrifice.

Re:Finally, some common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

...a massive amount of energy...

Not really. 1/2 million kg of solid rocket fuel leaving each solid rocket booster at 2570 m/s requires about 1/50 of a gram of energy. Of course, this doesn't count the enormous waste heat, or the additional energy of the main engine, but it's safe to say the total energy required to put the shuttle in space is much less than one gram. (In contrast, the Sun liberates 4 million tonnes of energy per second.)

Re:Finally, some common sense

[petermgreen]

seems to be a troll but i'll reply anyway

whilst albert equated mass and energy the fact is that in normal life the vast majority of mass has no chance whatsoever of becoming energy.

the fact is that getting into orbit (i say orbit and not space because i'm not counting efforts such as rutans that just scrape space only those that can stay there) is right on the edge of what chemical rockets can do. We only manage it by such techniques as discarding parts (staged rockets shuttle boosters shuttle external tanks etc) and by reducing the non-fuel mass of the craft to an absoloute minimum.

so we are trying to control a lot (by normal human standards anyway) of energy in one place whilst keeping the mass of the systems that control it to an absoloute minium. sooner or later something is going to go wrong and blow with such systems.

then you have to get back and you have to do the trip back using stuff you carried into orbit at great expense so most breaking is done using the atnosphere. This however creates massive heat that needs special shielding which must deal with insane amounts of heat whilst being as lightwight as possible. That can fail too.

basically the overriding problem is that weight is at a premium on chemical rockets going to orbit and when weight it at a premium you simply can't make everything multiple times redundant.

Re:Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I regularly pop to the ISS in my fiat

Re:Hmmm.

[igny]

Becuase messuring by passenger mile, I believe you are very very wrong

Yes, measuring by passenger-mile, unmanned missions have much higher rate of failure.

Astronauts vs. Marines

[Anonymous Coward]

The sum-bitch govt sends out Marines to be killed in Iraq with inadequate armor and worries that the *Shuttle* isn't safe???

WTF? Oh yeah, killing a dozen astronauts is a national PR disaster while hundreds of Marines deaths are just... grunticide.

Re:Astronauts vs. Marines

[izomiac]

Last time I checked the military didn't send people on suicide missions. I'd venture to guess that there's a much smaller risk of being killed in Iraq than being killed on a shuttle mission.

Re:Astronauts vs. Marines

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd venture to guess that there's a much smaller risk of being killed in Iraq than being killed on a shuttle mission.

For that matter, being President of the US is even less survivable. Out of 43 presidents, ten so far have died in office, four of these due to assassination.

I'd rather take two weeks in space with a 3% chance of dying than eight years in the White House with a 9% chance of successful assassination. But really that's because I'd rather go to space.

awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Just goes to show the difference between a engineer and an accountant. The engineer will do a real risk assessment, rather than have BS made up and then force his underlings to go along and to take the heat for their lies.

The way to fix it

[lheal]

Why don't they get a more powerful telescope on the ground and point it at the Hubble?

They could fix it from here!

I'm surprised nobody's thought of this. Maybe those "rocket scientists" aren't so smart after all.

Re:The way to fix it

[SWTP_OS9]

Well ther are some new telescope concepts that could on paper equal Hubble using ways to detect and componsate for the turblents and distorsion in the air. Basiaclly a laser is shined up and computer "induce a destortion" in the mirrors.

But my real question is why all of a sudden for NASA orginally was kicking and screaming NO WAY Hubble mission under NO condition to need to do it right now super quick? It need some gyros, battries and some of the replacement parts sitting in a warehouse but is good for a few years right now.

1) Is it they want to look like they are really doing something.

2) Wants the goverment to cough up more bucks. Since they lost a bit last go around.

3) Want to pull heat off of them due to a delay for the same problem that destroyed the last shuttle that went up. Ice falling and destroying the wing.

Re:The way to fix it

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA was not screaming it. GWB's appointee (o,keefe) was doing this. He, like his boss, lied about doing risk assessments, and even lieing about the commission's statements. Then he had the top employees (non-political appointees), back him up. Griffin has a science and engineering background. He knows the risks, and the value. This will almost certainly go through, unless pressure is brought from above.

Re:The way to fix it

[Anonymous Coward]

It's in orbit.

That means that it is hooning around the earth with a period of 100 minutes per revolution. So your telescope would only view it for ~30 min as it raced across the sky and observing the operation of a robot on this object would be difficult because:

1. thats pretty fast to move a telescope while you are trying to focus on small details.
2. you perspective would keep changing, making it difficult to see the position of the robot relative to whatever it is working on.
3. while these issues can be overcome, it significantly increases the risk of making a critical error and NASA are unlikely to take such risks of failure.

Thinking about it though, it would be worth considering as the technology developed would make future robotic maintenance missions far cheaper (if we could make it work) and for robotic missions on the lunar surface.

Easily explainable

[Raul654]

You have to remember that Sean O'Keefe was a bean counter, who gave top priority to saving his own skin. His statement makes perfect sense when you bear that in mind.

Misread Title

[quantaman]

I glanced at the title and read

NASA Preparing Manned Hubble Service Mission
as
NASA Preparing Manned Hubble Secret Mission

and thought, "gee if they're trying to keep it secret then why are they announcing it on /.?!"

Re:Misread Title

[Dr. GeneMachine]

gee if they're trying to keep it secret then why are they announcing it on /.?!"

Easy. Everyone will think it is a dupe of a five year old article. Or simply bullshit.

The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[True Grit]

From the article:

There is no replacement for Hubble's visible-light acuity even in the serious planning stages.

Sigh. That's because we want to move *beyond* visible light to see farther into the past!

Its like this: You've got an old Ford Escort, but you've ordered a new supercharged Ford Mustang GT. Since its a custom order, it'll be a few months before it gets to you. Between now and then, does it make any sense to spend money keeping up the Escort, especially when money is tight?

I'm all for the fascinating pictures we get from Hubble, but the *really* interesting stuff lies in the infrared spectrum, beyond Hubble's sight. That's why IMO, if we can't do both, then we should stop wasting money to keep the Hubble up, and use that money to accelerate its replacement.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[Slack3r78]

If the Escort is your only transportation in the meantime, absolutely. That's the situation we're in with Hubble.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[drinkypoo]

no, that doesn't make any sense. you should have bought a chevy :)

There's no reason we "can't" do both, except the short-sightedness of the average american taxpayer or politician. Kind of ironic considering we're talking about telescopes.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[helioquake]

First, the James Webb Space Telescope is not a replacement for the Hubble. The JWST is designed for IR astronomy; the HST is primarily for UV astronomy. They are complementary, but by no means the JWST is a replacement for the HST.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[zippthorne]

To further butcher your analogy, Imagine that your awesome new ford mustang GT is only capable of driving in cities and on highways. It is incapable of driving on rural roads for some reason or another (clearance?) Your old escort did fine in the rural areas, but wasn't as fast as your new car could be under ideal circumstances.

The question to ask is: Is deorbit significantly cheaper than reboost and repair. In other words, do not consider the whole cost of the mission to hubble, only the difference between deorbiting and upgrade/reboost is relevant, since the base cost of deorbit would have to be spent either way. Unless you're willing to take the (admittedly small) chance of hubble landing in a populated area.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[True Grit]

If the Escort is your only transportation in the meantime, absolutely.

Except that it isn't our only "transportation" now.

From Hubble's Wikipedia entry:

What complicates the question are the breathtaking advances in Earth-based astronomy since the Hubble was conceived. During the 1970s when Hubble was designed, the conventional wisdom was that ground based telescopes would never have the resolution of space telescopes because the atmospheric seeing limited the resolution of ground telescopes. In fact, optical imaging observations of bright sources using speckle interferometry or optical interferometry in the 1980s had far higher resolution than Hubble ever achieved, and microcomputer technology starting in the 1990s allowed for adaptive optics imaging of faint objects.

This means that there is not any need to replace the Hubble to obtain better astronomical imagery in the visible range. The new ground-based telescopes can do the job, and even the most ambitious of them, like the Keck in Hawaii and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, are much less expensive than the Hubble and much more sensitive to near infrared light (although Hubble still has by far the highest sensitivity in the visible regime, and existing ground-based telescopes will never compete with the Hubble deep fields in the visible due to the effects of atmospheric airglow). This naturally is much easier to service and update. For example, the VLT cost was roughly 1/7 of the HST cost, and gave the astronomical community four 8.2 meter telescopes, each with a resolution almost as high as the Hubble, and almost certainly representing better value for money in terms of the science returned.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[True Grit]

JWST is for IR, although part of the HST's range does go into the UV, it primarily goal was always the visible light spectrum. The Europeans will (or already have?) be putting up a UV ST to handle that spectrum better than the HST can now.

JWST is designed for IR, because we can see farther into the past in that spectrum. In that sense the JWST was always treated as NASA's follow-on to the HST (always considered by NASA itself as Hubble's replacement, regardless of the scopes working in different spectra), because the driving force for space telescopes has always been the desire to see deeper into the past. If it weren't for delays because of lack of money, the JWST would have been guaranteed to be in orbit before the HST went dark, but alas, our government always treats science as an after-thought, so NASA is always under-funded, and a pawn, or football, in frequent political scrimmages.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[danimrich]

You need to mention that the James Webb Space Telescope will be stationed at a Lagrange point, out of reach for manned service missions. Considering that Hubble needed to be serviced in order to function properly, the JWST is a great if it works, but it's not guaranteed to work. If I were NASA, I'd rather risk having to sustain two working space telescopes than having none and no budget for another try.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[True Grit]

To further butcher your analogy

Please, just let my poor analogy Rest In Peace, its taken enough abuse already. :)

the whole cost of the mission to hubble, only the difference between deorbiting and upgrade/reboost is relevant,

Its my understanding that NASA is thinking about an unmanned mission to attach external thrusters to provide a controlled reentry. Such a mission would be a lot cheaper than the 500 million it would cost for a manned repair mission, as it wouldn't involve humans or a shuttle, and its those 2 things which constitute most of the expense. Instead, a smaller robotic payload would be boosted up on a conventional (cheap) rocket.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[True Grit]

Repair missions were always part of Hubble's plan from the beginning. What complicated everything were the 2 shuttle tragedies, and the subsequent escalation of cost in operating the remaining shuttles (and the first repair mission occurring much earlier than planned because of the mirror fubar).

The JWST, like the Spitzer Telescope(*) that's already up there (and producing fantastic images - search for its website) will be designed with redundancy in mind as its now obvious that repair missions can't be counted on. All STs now have to be designed with long-term, hands-off operation in mind.

(*) The Spitzer is IR too, and in a deep Earth-trailing orbit that would make servicing it very difficult too. Its working like a charm, though.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[helioquake]

although part of the HST's range does go into the UV, it primarily goal was always the visible light spectrum.

Sigh. If Lyman Spitzer heard you say something like that, he'd ripped your head out of your body...

Run the optical tracing based on the specification of the HST. You'll notice that the best optical image of the HST is attained at 2800AA. The original concept of a space telescope was to have a high-spatial/spectral resolution imager/spectrograph in UV and visible light. At least that's what I thought when working with the HST instrument!

You've got the concept of the JWST more or less correct. But the JWST was treated as a followup of the HST by the scientists and engineers at the Space Telescope Institute. Not many other professionals would agree with your view. I certainly do not.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[True Grit]

If Lyman Spitzer heard you say something like that, he'd ripped your head out of your body...

If he's still alive, maybe we should ask him. Given the changes in scope technology since the HST was designed, perhaps his answer would surprise you more than me?

Not many other professionals would agree with your view

I understand some professionals don't agree, but as I said earlier, the primary push for space-based scopes was always about seeing distant objects (looking back into time), and since the HST was designed, the state-of-the-art for seeing distant objects has moved to the infrared, because the "light" of the most distant objects is only reaching us in the infrared.

I realize there are many astronomers who aren't cosmologists and/or aren't necessarily interested in seeing the most distant objects, but are interested in seeing visible light objects in greater detail. The problem is money and technology. NASA doesn't have the money to maintain Hubble and put up the newer scopes that are in the pipeline, and the technology is rapidly allowing ground based scopes to achieve the same results of HST which was designed in the '70s. In other words, for the visible light range, its far more cost effective now to spend money on ground-based scopes and continue to advance the technology that's allowing ground-based scopes to overcome atmospheric interference and detect weak signals, than it is to spend $500 million on a risky repair mission for the HST, which has just about reached its expected end-of-operational-life anyway.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[helioquake]

If he's still alive, maybe we should ask him. Given the changes in scope technology since the HST was designed, perhaps his answer would surprise you more than me?

Not a chance (and he's passed away). But Lyman would agree with me. Or at least his students have.

Furthermore, you need to check the details of your information more accurately. Ground telescopes with adoptive optics (VLT, Gemini, and Subaru, etc.) do well in the NIR/MIR regime. It's because atmospheric disturbance is more manageable / relatively simpler to characterize and to compensate for at these wavebands. But they can't do that in visual that well. There, the HST has no competition at today's technology [*]

[*] There is a speckle method, however, to beat the disturbance. Not trivial, though.

That said, if you are going for IR, ground telescopes are often the right kind of place. Here I don't mean to negate the justification for the JWST. In space, there is no atmosphere; hence the background noise (no air to emit IR) is low and also there is no IR bandpass that is obscured by air, either. In short, the JWST benefits from the excellent sensitivity (super plus for cosmological studies).

I sense you may be a fellow in my field (probably a student). You really need to get some facts streighten out before you get out there and try to impress someone else to give you a job.

ps. I don't necessarily support the HST servicing missions (except for the one which needs for deorbit). I'm all for in support of developping other space missions with the money saved for a SMOV.

Re:The Hubble is dead, long live The James Webb!

[True Grit]

But they can't do that in visual that well. There, the HST has no competition at today's technology [*]

Any links for this info? Its my understanding that several ground scopes are already exceeding HST's resolution in visible light using interferometry. The problem was difficulty in detecting faint objects, and adaptive optics is now starting to solve that problem. Yes, the Hubble is the only thing out there that can produce those Deep Field images at the moment, but its only a matter of time before numerous ground-based VLT Arrays surpass the HST even in that area, and those ground-based scopes are *vastly* cheaper to build and maintain than the HST.

You seem to be directing contradicting HST's Wikipedia entry.

That said, if you are going for IR, ground telescopes are often the right kind of place.

There are no ground-based IR scopes, AFAIK, at least not useful ones. The Earth's own heat interferes with an IR scope, even the scope's own heat can do that. Initially a similar problem existed for visible light scopes (atmospheric interference), which was why the HST was designed in the first place. Technology is now overcoming those problems however, allowing for ground-based VL scopes to surpass the HST. The same can't be said for the heat interference problem from the Earth (and the atmosphere) on IR scopes, no one has yet figured out how to solve that problem, which is why there aren't any ground-based IR scopes, and spaced-based IR scopes are placed some distance from Earth and coolant is used to get their own temperature down. Good IR scopes *have* to be away from the Earth or any large hot body, and kept cold, before they can even "see" the infrared spectrum at all.

I sense you may be a fellow in my field (probably a student).

Nope, just a guy who reads a lot. :)

You really need to get some facts streighten out before you

Well, maybe you should start out by straightening out the authors of the HST Wikipedia entry since they apparently have got it all wrong just as I supposedly do. :)

No one is arguing that the Hubble is utterly useless now, it obviously isn't. However, every estimate for a servicing mission is well over $1 billion, and that is an extraordinary amount of money to spend on a spacecraft that has ALREADY reached its expected operational lifespan. Even worse, the 2 shuttle disasters that have occurred since the HST was put up have drastically altered the situation (the Hubble was designed with the idea of frequent servicing missions in mind - so it wasn't designed to maximize its hands-off lifespan), in fact, if NASA is to abide by the recommendations of the Investigative Board after the Columbia tragedy, they literally CAN'T help the Hubble, because its too far away from the ISS, and NASA has said that from now on, the shuttle will dock at the ISS for inspection before returning to Earth.

Its not that the Hubble has lost value, its that its cost/value ratio has gone far higher than 1:1, and is no longer in Hubble's favor, and I don't see losing Hubble's capability for about 10 years or so (or less) before the James Webb gets up and ground-based scopes continue to improve, as a disaster. Its certainly not the kind of disaster I believe warrants spending more than a billion dollars and putting our astronauts at unnecessary risk to avoid. We've already got the Spitzer up there, and the Europeans are putting up other scopes of their own, its not like we're going be utterly blind for a whole decade.

This argument sucks

[bechthros]

I've had it before. It's boring and the two sides really should just agree to disagree. That said here's my $.02:

a) manned space missions have a higher risk. they also have a higher reward.

b) every shuttle pilot/astronaut ever (except for Krista McAuliffe) were trained test pilots. They had taken risks much greater than this in the course of being test pilots.

c) Every person ever lost in a space accident was well aware of the risks and chose to accept them. To say that they are not capable of making that decision, and that we should just terminate any and all manned spaceflight based on what YOU consider an unacceptable level of risk, not only disgracefully dishonors their service and sacrifice, but also their decision making ability. And for anybody to question the decision making ability of test pilots and astronauts from their slashdot armchair makes me physically nauseous.

d) when we've made anywhere near the quantity of manned spaceflights as we have commercial airline flights, you'll have a right to bitch about shuttles not being as safe as airplanes. Practice makes perfect, and we haven't had anywhere near as much practice at manned spaceflight as we have commercial air travel.

e) unmanned spaceflight, whenever it would serve the needs of the mission and the needs of science just as well as a manned mission, is an alternative that should be pursued. This alternative should be immediately abandoned if it ever impacts mission viability.

f) should we likewise abolish all fire departments and tell firemen they don't have the right to take a dangerous job that they believe needs to be done just because that job is risky? Fighting fires is a job that needs doing. So is scientific research and superatmospheric astronomy.

g) We're very overdue for a major impact disaster from an asteroid or comet. When, not if, this occurs, the only warning we'll have to all move to Kansas won't come from ground-based telescopes - it will come from space-based ones, which need to be serviced by manned spaceflight.

h) america, from the cotton gin to the internal combustion engine to the atomic bomb to the polio vaccine to the microchip, has been ever based on scientific evidence and rational thought. Our superiority in the marketplace of world governments has not been maintained by our security staff alone, but mainly by our incredibly effective R&D department. This is one of many things that make me fiercely proud to be American. And for self-proclaimed "conservatives" to toe this knee-jerk anti-science line is about as clear a declaration of intent to sacrifice everything that's ever made America great as one could ever hope to see (or dread seeing, in my case). Next you'll be trying to dismantle checks and balances... oh wait...

Re:This argument sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that, man. There are some people (astronauts, soldiers, sailors, cops, firemen) who are ready, willing and able to take risks most of us could not.

Telling them WE thing THEY should not be running risk would be like going to an ER medic and asking him/her "Why didn't you become a lawyer? You'd work less and earn more."

Re:This argument sucks

[helioquake]

One correction: not all of astronauts are test pilots, though many take up flying before or after becoming an astronaut. It is true that the flying experience is a definite plus to become an astronaut.

Re:This argument sucks

[True Grit]

g) We're very overdue for a major impact disaster from an asteroid or comet. When, not if, this occurs, the only warning we'll have to all move to Kansas won't come from ground-based telescopes - it will come from space-based ones, which need to be serviced by manned spaceflight.

There is nothing inherently better about a space-based scope for spotting asteroids. We now have the tech to use ground scopes to spot an asteroid sized objects in our solar system, and those are cheaper to operate.

The even scarier truth is that the only way to have any *useful* warning is to spot the asteroid *decades* before it reaches us, and that requires a painstaking, tedious, never-ending survey of the solar system looking for objects on an intersecting course with Earth, something which many governments still haven't taken seriously.

Re:This argument sucks

[bechthros]

"There is nothing inherently better about a space-based scope for spotting asteroids."

Sure there is, it doesn't have to squint up through a bunch of atmosphere.

There was just a thing on the Science channel last night about this. They're systematically cataloging threat-sized objects in order of biggest to smallest. And the better (and higher) the telescope, the easier it is to see smaller and smaller asteroids at a distance. They specifically mentioned the Hubble and it's proposed replacement as being invaluble for this task.

It must be true, it was on TV! :)

"something which many governments still haven't taken seriously."

And never will until it's too late, I'm afraid.

Re:This argument sucks

[True Grit]

Sure there is, it doesn't have to squint up through a bunch of atmosphere.

That advantage is rapidly being overcome by new technology being used on ground-based scopes, which I've already referred to several times elsewhere. Those new developments are precisely why there is now a dispute over whether keeping the HST going at this point is cost effective. Read the other posts, and read the "Future" section of HST's entry on Wikipedia.

And never will until it's too late, I'm afraid.

Me too. :(

I just hope I'm long gone to my grave before The Big One finally shows up on our scopes. :)

Re:This argument sucks

[shanen]

I was going to buy the "insightful" ranking except for the glaring error in point b). Even though I agree with most of it, one of my principles is that "insightful" must begin by being "true", and that is a counterfactual statement. The astronauts have many backgrounds, and these days very few of them ever worked as test pilots, and flying on the space shuttle is the most dangerous thing they have ever done in their lives.

Poing e) is also highly debatable, since "viability" is such a mutable concept. Actually, there's nothing alive in "mission", and it's already a metaphorical usage, and I think it's basically impossible to set any concrete criteria of "mission viability". The main advantage of robotic missions is precisely their lack of life. It doesn't matter what goes wrong--we can just try again.

In conclusion, I think manned space flight is a wonderful idea, but fundamentally flawed because of the support overhead. In terms of acquiring scientific data, you simply don't need tons of food and oxygen. More importantly, for most of the trip, you don't need anything at all--and a robot can go into a standby mode where it also needs nothing.

Re:This argument sucks

[bechthros]

"The astronauts have many backgrounds, and these days very few of them ever worked as test pilots"

I was getting the shuttle confused with Apollo, I think.

That doesnt't change the fact that they were aware of the risk going in and chose to accept it.

"and flying on the space shuttle is the most dangerous thing they have ever done in their lives."

Actually that would probably be driving while talking on a cell phone, which is statistically indistinguishable from driving drunk. I have a hard time accepting that somebody who's qualified to decide for themselves that they'd like to, say, go to McMurdo for a year or two, a situation which involves a considerable amount of risk everytime they go outside, isn't qualified to decide to be a shuttle astronaut.

"and I think it's basically impossible to set any concrete criteria of "mission viability"

Well, NASA seems to disagree with you. I suggest you take it up with them.

"It doesn't matter what goes wrong--we can just try again."

And pay for the robot again, which is exactly what the anti-science neocons will bitch about.

"fundamentally flawed because of the support overhead."

Funny you should mention support overhead. 7.4 million dollars per hour. That's some support overhead. Not a one-time expenditure of one billion to fix something that would otherwise continue functioning for another 15 years. Not to mention that in the mission of preserving humanity's existence against the threat of asteroid or comet collision, superatmospheric astronomy is a mission-critical tool.

I support the use of unmanned spaceflight whenever it would meet the exact same set of goals as manned. But if the mission requires flexibility, quick response time, or creative problem solving, then that mission is a bad one to be completely automated. I think machines could be very very useful in space, just not in all place or for all purposes. Man is still the best machine there is.

"In terms of acquiring scientific data, you simply don't need tons of food and oxygen."

Right, which is why Hubble doesn't have any, nor did Voyager, nor any other strictly information gathering tool. But there are some things you need humans for, and there are humans ready, able, and willing to fill these roles, and to balk at a task because it is difficult is not only counter-productive to the point of obstructionism, it's simply un-American.

We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting man on the moon was NASA's greatest mission. Getting into space was one of NASA's greatest mission. Getting Voyagers into true outer space (30 year life cycles) is certainly a great mission. putting sats at all the planets that we have is part of the great missions.

The Hubble is simply a tool. WRT to telescopes, I would rate the invention of first couple of telescopes as being great. But Hubble is simply the next step in telescope history. But it is one of our best tools at this point in time.

Re:Commuter Jets versus Orbital Shuttles

[uberdave]

Where did you pull commuter flight from? He was talking about driving in a car.

+5 Pedantic

[FlynnMP3]

Right...

You are the sole IP owner of this new miraculous source of zero point energy and expenditure. Going to make billions upon billions of dollars. Be the next BG! I sir|madamn and honored to have read you and basked in the considerable faux light you cast.

Leave it to the AC to point out unworldly solutions to physical problems. Sheese.

-FlynnMP3

Re:Handling too much?

[pnewhook]

Uhh ... Russians Communist? Sorry to hear about your 20 year coma. Welcome to the 21st century.

Re:Commuter Jets versus Orbital Shuttles

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, driving a car. Adapt your thinking.

How does it relate to the point made concerning the risks of everyday transport as opposed to orbital flight?

Convince me that driving a car or flying a jet is anywhere near as hazardous as spaceflight, or is as recent a development as spaceflight.

Re:Hmmm.

[grozzie2]

That depends on which statistic you are measuring.

For 'mission failures per passenger mile' they will look atrocious.

For 'crew deaths per mission mile' they will look pretty damn good.

The beauty of statistics, they always hold the answer you want to press your cause, just gotta know how to manipulate them.

The hubble has generated more science than the....

[voss]

$100 billion dollar space station.

While Infrared light may generate alternate avenues of science, humans dont see in infrared. Hubble produces space results that Joe Sixpack can actually see or have his kids download for their school projects. Thats how NASA can get funding, produce results people can see and can benefit from.

The hubble telescope fires the imagination and inspires future generations of scientists. Hubble cost $2 billion to put up and only cost $500 million to service. Why not make the most of your investment.

Someone has sold us a myth that average people dont care about space exploration. This is bullcrap. They care when they feel like they are a part
of it. When they feel like NASA is just another government agency squandering money on stuff they dont understand, thats when NASA gets hacked.

Robo servicing vs. Shuttle servicing vs. Deorbit

[SaveHubble]

I've posted about this topic before (here: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=146007 &cid=12230905, and here: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=146007 &cid=12232506)

There are several important factors in deciding between them. Lets look at the pros and cons.

Cost:

1. Shuttle servicing will cost about $300M to fly the mission plus ~$1.5B-2B to keep the shuttle program and staff going for an extra 4-6 months. Total cost then is conservatively $2.3B.

2. Robotic Deorbit Only is estimated to cost about $850M, for development, launch, and operation of the vehicle.

3. Robotic servicing is expected to cost $1.4B for dev, launch, and operation through splashdown.

However(!) if we take option 1 or 2, we'll have to fly a 'robotic proving' mission around 2015 or so to enable missions to Moon and Mars. This could cost anywhere from $500-800M (likely closer to 800 if it's to be at all ambitious). So lets look at the total score-card:

Shuttle: $2.3B + $800M = $3.1 Billion
Deorbit: $850M + $800M = $1.65 Billion
Robotic: $1.4B - ~250M already spent = $1.15 Billion

So that was cost. Now lets look at education:

Doing another shuttle servicing mission will teach us very little. Sure, we'd learn some EVA techniques, management techniques, things like that. But nothing significant. That's why we'd need to launch a robotic proving mission in 2015.

Robotic Deorbit would teach us a lot about autonomous rendezvous (since my last post it's apparent that we need to work a little harder on that; DART bumped into its target, I hear). Bear in mind that craft had no forward-link commanding from the ground... it was entirely autonomous. It cost only $100-something million to dev, launch and "operate". These are lessons we need to learn to go to the Moon, and Mars.

Robotic Servicing would teach us a lot about the autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations (see above) since it's the same problem here as the robotic deorbit. It will also teach us a HUGE amount about ground-to-space tele-robotic operations. So much so that if it works we could be confident enough not to need an expensive proving mission later on. We'll be doing complex robotic tasks on things that were designed for humans (on space-station, everything's designed to be robot-friendly). We'll be pushing the envelope of our knowledge.

Don't let that put you off though. We're pushing the envelope on the ground here, right now. We've pushed it so far now that most tasks on the Hubble robotic mission will be trivial. We aim to push it far enough that ALL tasks will be trivial (or at most 'complex') by the time we launch. We have a robust capacity to re-plan and re-approach a problem on orbit. We have the advantage of time (see next pro/con) on our side. And we have contingency in case some more critical item fails before we launch. I believe that up to 30 days before launch we have the ability to re-manifest the cargo. Don't quote me on that figure though.

Now lets look at perhaps the most important feature of each mission: The quality of the result:

Some say a shuttle servicing mission will do a better job at servicing Hubble. This used to be the case. In looking at the robotic mission we had to give up some things. The STIS failed last summer, as some of you may remember. The robotics guys evaluated that task, and decided it would be too difficult. Many bolts in hard-to-reach places, etc. So that was dropped. However, I've recently heard on the wind that a Shuttle mission will only have a few days of EVA available between tile inspection and prep for landing. The shuttle mission will be forced to leave things out too, and the result is that the priorities we identified for the robotic mission are pretty much the same priorities we'd have for the sh

Re:Robo servicing vs. Shuttle servicing vs. Deorbi

[RubberDogBone]

3. Robotic servicing is expected to cost $1.4B for dev, launch, and operation through splashdown.

Splashdown?

My understanding was that the robot would either stay with the Hubble (although the mass would probably mess up the telescope's gyros) or it would be simply dumped overboard and eventually burn up.

Preliminary robot designs have all been spindly. I doubt any part of it would survive to actually splashdown and there's no need to recover the thing intact. Just make another one later.

As a gal, I've got to ask

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is it with male geeks and their obsession with Stargate and the Samantha Carter character?

She isn't that great looking and the character is just, well, a fucking annoying know-it-all.

Deploying next scope with unmanned rocket

[Myrmidon]

wouldn't it need to be deployed a bit more carefully than could be done through a rocket, i.e. that's why they used a Shuttle for Hubble itself?

No. My understanding is that the Hubble was designed to be launched and serviced with the Shuttle because the Shuttle was what there was, not because it was a particularly good idea. The United States had already made the political/management decision to retire its heavy launch vehicles, like the Saturn V, in favor of the Shuttle.

According to the all-powerful Google, the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope will launch with an expendable vehicle.

Re:Hmmm.

[johnny cashed]

Maybe he is referring to the shuttle Enterprise. I don't think it should count, seeing as though it has never flew in space. It did fly for some approch and landing tests, launched from a 747.

Samantha Carter

[Anonymous Coward]

She is, quite frankly, a geek guy's dream girl. She's smart, she can handle weapons and she could kick my ass in hand-to-hand combat.

Re:Robo servicing vs. Shuttle servicing vs. Deorbi

[TheKidWho]

"1. Shuttle servicing will cost about $300M to fly the mission plus ~$1.5B-2B to keep the shuttle program and staff going for an extra 4-6 months. Total cost then is conservatively $2.3B."

Wrong, it costs them about $120million to add another shuttle flight to the launch manifest(this was pre columbia though :/)

Also, about 1/4 of the shuttle programs costs are from Astronaut training.

Re:The hubble has generated more science than the.

[True Grit]

While Infrared light may generate alternate avenues of science, humans dont see in infrared.

Did you really think all those Hubble images were raw images fresh from the scope? No they were all computer enhanced, just like the IR images from IR scopes are.

HUMANS DON'T NEED TO SEE IN INFRARED, ONLY THE SCOPE DOES. jeesh.

PS: It's not an "alternative avenue", its the primary avenue where most scientists want to go anyway.

Re:Handling too much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid N00b...

This is how it works: To get karma say "Mod me down for saying this, but...".

Asking to not be modded down loses karma.

Re:Robo servicing vs. Shuttle servicing vs. Deorbi

[True Grit]

this was pre columbia though

Bingo. The last estimate I saw when searching earlier says the cost for a manned repair mission is $500 million now.

NASA doesn't intend to bring any shuttle down again without an external inspection of their wing surfaces before reentry. From now on their intent is to dock with the ISS, inspect the shuttle exterior then undock and deorbit. Servicing the Hubble now requires a trip to the ISS and unfortunately those two are too far apart for that to happen (unless NASA changes its new rules, which is unlikely, but possible). Thus the dilemma, and the talk of a robotic mission. A robotic repair mission would be difficult, but a robotic deorbit mission, where the robot simply grabs Hubble then takes a swan dive to the atmosphere would be relatively cheap because of the simple requirements of the robot.

Re:The hubble has generated more science than the.

[voss]

How many kids have an infrared scope at home? I bet not many. Now how many kids have visible light telescopes at home? Maybe they dont get as good an image as the hubble, but people can relate to the hubble telescope in a way they cant relate to infrared telescopes.

Re:Robo servicing vs. Shuttle servicing vs. Deorbi

[SaveHubble]

It'll get dumped overboard along with the large spacecraft that brought it there. Together they'll likely make it to ground (water in this case). All that's left behind is the relatively small propulsion module to later de-orbit Hubble.

Re:Commuter Jets versus Orbital Shuttles

[uberdave]

People don't give a thought to hopping into a car that hasn't had a safety inspection in years and hurtling down the freeway at breakneck speeds with other vehicles that also haven't had safety inspections in years. Other drivers could be drunk, high, incompetent, distracted by in-car DVDs or cell phones, dripping ice-cream, or a thousand other things. There are numerous other hazzards, insecure cargo, people and animals crossing the roads, rain, snow, hail, sleet, etc. All of these things combine to make driving hazzardous.

Space travel is hazzardous as well. However, the big difference is that every possible safety precaution is taken. Shuttlecraft systems are checked and rechecked. Air traffic is cleard away. A shuttle launch is probably a lot safer than your typical road trip. The big difference is that on the shuttle, when something fails non-trivially, it fails catastrophically.

Re:The hubble has generated more science than the.

[Bad D.N.A.]

Exactly and MOD PARENT UP!!!

There are many pictures that are taken at a lot of frequencies from a number of different platforms. SOHO takes awsome pictures of the Sun that the human eye cannot see. Kids could care less what frequency of light creates the immage. If a pic is cool then a pic is cool.

Re:Handling too much?

[The One and Only]

NASA did look into funding the Russian program to a certain extent, but its forbidden from doing so because of legislation forbidding funding of states which provide support to Iran.

Bah! Supporting Iran never stopped Reagan!

Simple fact...

[Colourspace]

We *must* get of this planet and colonize otherwise we are toast as a race - I applaud every single person that has ever risked their life to learn more about what is out there for humankind - beyond the atmosphere we are current;y enjoying. As many of the posters have already said we need exploration, and if anyone is prepared to take the risks (ie the astronauts) they have my full respect and my absolute support. All here on earth should be doing the same. Ok, so peace man ..but..

NASA's gyros must be broken

[noidentity]

They keep changing their attitude towards Hubble's fate.

Bring Back Go Fever

[tjstork]

Instead of spending billions of dollars on hardware to try and eliminate the risk of manned space flight, bring back go fever and pay astronauts ten million dollars a flight. Yes, safety might even drop - you might to get a 1-50 margin. But, astronauts would be paid for work commensurate with the risk. Accept that some astronauts can and will be killed and pay them to take that risk. Instead of trying to engineer to prevent every conceivable disaster - there are just too many, engineer to the best you can to make a deadline. Then, fix only the problem that caused the accident, when it happens, and move on from there.

List of people who've already done this...

[leonbrooks]

Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili (AKA Zakhar Grigoryan Melikyants AKA Joseph Stalin)
Idi Amin Dada
[I'm trying not to get this thread canned so I won't mention Eva Braun's husband lest it invoke G------'s Law]
Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde (AKA Ignatius Loyola)
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Mao Zedong
Demoiselle Candeille's worshippers
(append your favourites here)

Not hard to see why the framers of the US Constitution acted as they did.

Sorry, forgot to mention...

[leonbrooks]

...that of the thousand or so people killed by starvation and disease every hour, day and night, the vast majority were put in this position by regimes which follow the same religion as you do.

You almost certainly do not think of it as or call it a religion and would probably argue that neither Materialism nor Naturalism were religious positions, because of this bizarre idea that a certain amount of stained glass or chanting has to be involved for it to qualify as a religion - or at least a priest (think Richard Dawkins) - but that doesn't stop the underlying philosophy from being, hah, fundamentally religious.

The end result of all such pogroms has so far been death and destruction, the bankrupting and degrading of the societies involved - yes, including the nominal winners.

Deism per se isn't the problem; even the relatively bad deists (think Inquisition or ritual sacrifices atop Mayan step-pyramids) can't hold a candle to the twin evils of "might makes right" (AKA "survival of the fittest") and "the end justifies the means". The means are the end.

Back on topic, despite massive technical and financial shortfalls in many disciplines, the Russians have kept within hailing distance of the USA in the space race by accepting greater risk levels; imagine what would happen if the West also had the courage to do a few things without insurance in quadruplicate. I'm not talking about the kind of administrative insanity which led to Chernobyl, but the willingness to potentially add 0.0001% to the world's death toll in order to flood the place with the kind of cheap energy and materials which would end starvation and disease within a decade (and, en passant, the population explosion: the way to stop people from overbreeding is to make them rich).

If I was going to space, I'd rather not die trying, but I'd rather die than not try. The resources to eliminate much pollution, clearfelling and other general crapping-in-our-own-nest are within reach and the only reason we aren't already tapped into them is our immediate fear and greed short-circuiting any serious long-term investment.

How good is your steering?

[leonbrooks]

A decent 50m reflector (big piece of light foil alloy with platinum-wire structure, Bucky Fuller would love it) ought to make a dandy weapon. Not much chance of dodging and if you collated all of that sunlight down to a beam 0.5m across you would be putting about ten megawatts per square meter into your target. For up to several hours at a time.

The same distributed electronics needed to focus such a disc for astronomy would work just as well for walking it through a terrorist camp or turning a cave hideout into a pressure-cooker.

If someone explains this to Dubya, Hubble's replacement will be up by 2007, and giving us unbelievable resolution.

Or "that was totally wicked!" (obTIref)

[leonbrooks]

/ME reads a +3 Scroll of Get Sucked Into Jet Engine to the AC loser.

Hubble Origins Probe: replace instead of repair

[FleaPlus]

It seems to me that were going to spend entirely to much money on something that is old obsolete. Why not replace it with something new and better?

IMHO, we should. A copy from an old post of mine:

Hubble Origins Probe: replace instead of repair?

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 and launch, less than the estimated cost of a service mission.

Amen to that, brother

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, Hathor on the other hand... I sure wouldn't mind being her Jaffa!

Re:The hubble has generated more science than the.

[True Grit]

Huh? Amateur telescopes can't get ANY of the images that the major ground or space-based telescopes can. And of course they can relate to computer-enhanced IR images, just like computer-enhanced VL images, did you *look* at any of the images I linked to?

Re:The hubble has generated more science than the.

[DerekLyons]

The hubble has generated more science than the $100 billion dollar space station.

This should surprise no one who actually stops and thinks for a few moments. Hubble is complete and (more or less) operational. (And has itself cost a fair number of billions.) Three-quarters of the ISS is still here on the ground. Nobody claims that a new particle accelerator has produced no science when the tunnel is complete but the accelerator itself has yet to be installed. Why is the ISS a source of complaints when it's equally unfinished?

Re:Robo servicing vs. Shuttle servicing vs. Deorbi

[DerekLyons]

I've posted about this topic before.

Yes, you did. And in the meantime one of your most important steps (DART) has failed.

Don't let that put you off though. We're pushing the envelope [of robotic technology] on the ground here, right now. We've pushed it so far now that most tasks on the Hubble robotic mission will be trivial.

It's fascinating that NASA has developed robotic technology decades ahead of everyone else, and have managed to keep it completely under wraps.

Some say a shuttle servicing mission will do a better job at servicing Hubble. This used to be the case. In looking at the robotic mission we had to give up some things. The STIS failed last summer, as some of you may remember. The robotics guys evaluated that task, and decided it would be too difficult. Many bolts in hard-to-reach places, etc. So that was dropped.

In other words the robotic mission 'looked better' because it wasn't actually accomplishing the same thing as a manned mission.

However, I've recently heard on the wind that a Shuttle mission will only have a few days of EVA available between tile inspection and prep for landing. The shuttle mission will be forced to leave things out too, and the result is that the priorities we identified for the robotic mission are pretty much the same priorities we'd have for the shuttle mission.

'Pretty much the same' huh? I wonder how much you are hiding under that trite phrase. As much as you did in the portion quouted just before?

With all respect, the job they have to do is monumental and it has to be done at lightning speed (due to EVA time limitations). The robot can take weeks or even months to do it.

Assuming your instruments can spend weeks or months with the thermal doors open, or powered down, etc...

Any other opinions?

Just like the last time you posted, you impress in me no confidence. The positions noted in your posts fail to coincide completely with reality, and assume an awful lot.

Another space vision down the drain

[heroine]

So much for massively overhauling NASA after an accident to focus on lofty goals. Now they're back to taking unnecessary risks on projects which have extremely small value. Never mind it would cost less and be less risky to put a brand new telescope in orbit or that their ambivalence to disasters has grown as their disasters have increased in number.

Re:Robo servicing vs. Shuttle servicing vs. Deorbi

[SaveHubble]

I'll address your points in order... I know you'll probably be the only one to read this, but that's fine.

First, DART was not a failure. Sure, it didn't do what it was supposed to, but already some lessons have been learned from it. Bear in mind, I'm not a part of that mission, so I don't know details. The craft managed to adjust its orbit autonomously to rendezvous with its target. It registered and recognized the target with its cameras, computed required changes in orbit, and successfully rendezvou'd with it... too successfully, in fact. As I understand it, noisy GPS signals resulted in excessive thruster firing, and in the end it collided with the target. Fuel spent, it retreated to a final graveyard orbit. Not the dismal failure you implied.

Regarding superior robotic technology, I'm guessing you don't understand the heritage of technology we're using. The servicing robotics have been fully developed and are sitting in a clean-room in Canada. The hardware was developed over the past couple decades in preparation for use on ISS. We've taken actual flight-ready hardware from that project with the promise of building replacements. The HST capture robotics draw upon many components, systems, and assemblies common to the dexterous robot for ISS, the Canadarm on ISS, and the SRMS on Shuttle. Nothing new in the robotics. All heritage hardware. Further to that, all operations needed to fully service Hubble are being proven on the ground with a validated dexterous robot 1G simulator. Advanced robotics development was not a requirement for this mission. In fact there was no time for that, so we've gone with what we know works.

You sound eager to jump on my turns of phrase. There's not room in a /. post to be fully descriptive. When I say "pretty much the same" I mean this:

The batteries and rate gyros MUST be changed out. Both robotic and shuttle missions will do this. How they do it is different. The shuttle mission will bring new batteries, take out the old ones, and put in the new ones. The robotic mission will bring new batteries and patch the connectors over to them, leaving the old batteries in place. The shuttle mission will bring up new gyros, take out the old ones, and put in the new ones. The robotic mission will bring up new gyros attached to the new WFC3 instrument, and patch them into the 486 computer, leaving the old gyros in place. The COSTAR instrument is to be changed out and replaced with COS. This is not a critical operation, but is highly desired. Both the Shuttle and robotic mission will do this. The tasks are effectively identical for human and robot, with several aspects better performed by robot (inserting COS, closing aft-shroud doors). 4 connectors and 1 ground strap must be transfered from the old instrument to the new. This is easy for humans, and hard for the robot. The FGS (fine guidance sensor) instrument is to be replaced with an upgraded version of the same. Again, not critical, but highly desired. Like COS, several aspects of the operation are better performed by robot. Again, 8 connectors and 1 ground-strap must be transfered. This is hard for the robot, easy for humans.

These are Hubble servicing priorities, regardless of how the mission is done. It's possible the shuttle mission would add the ability to fix the power regulator for STIS. This is unlikely however, as access to the many many bolts required to be loosened is tough for both humans and robots, and requires much time.

Reaction wheel changeout is a contingency task for the robotic mission. It might be added to the human. If a need arises, this task could be added to the robotic mission up to 30days pre-launch.

Anyway, there you have it... priorities are priorities, irrespective of the way you carry them out. Not much will change from robotic to human mission, as time constraints prevent the shuttle mission from adding everything they want.

The instruments are housed inside the HRV in a thermally controlled keep-alive state. Bay doors are left closed