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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.'"
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.
I'm a big tall mofo.
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??
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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.
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.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
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!
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.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
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.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
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.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
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.
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...
They will never stop until somebody makes the
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.
$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.
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