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Hubble Future Is Cloudier After Katrina
XorNand writes "The AP is reporting that Katrina has further jeopardized the already tenuous future of the Hubble space telescope. The hurricane damaged the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where the shuttle's fuel tanks are built, and the Mississippi-based Stennis Space Center, where shuttle engines are tested, NASA officials said."
Who really needs to see in space when we have to fund a meaningless war
"To be honest, we really don't know what the impact will be," said Preston M. Burch, Hubble program manager at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, which oversees Hubble's day-to-day operations.
In other news:
Effects of Katrina on children with learning disabilities in Australia still unknown!
I'm down on NASA a lot. I think they are an unfocused government agency that is spread too thin and doing things out of the realm of their league. In that criticism, I am very unsatisfied with the shuttle program. I think that sending people into space is a complete waste of time and money for NASA. They have ceased to learn anything except that they are more and more afraid of flying every time they go up. Space travel should be a private enterprise, possibly assisted by government funds, but essentially researched and implemented by private companies.
But NASA should be around doing research. They should be at the forefront of space science. Part of this is the establishment of space telescopes. And so Hubble falls right in line with this mission. The more information NASA can gather about the universe, the more all of us benefit. The more they spend on pure research, the faster everyone (including private enterprise) can benefit and that pushes space travel forward.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
It's sad that this may have to happen. Some of the most beautiful pictures ever taken were taken by Hubble. But, higher priorities have come up and Hubble must take a back seat to human life.
That the current administration is flat out against any technology that cannot be used for warfare or expansion of their personal corporate empires they will use any excuse to avoid repairing or upgrading the Hubble at all. Faith based government is directly inverse to scientific process unless some politically well connected buisiness needs the money.
NASA has long been considered a waste of money by the conservatives, HST is just another scientific boondoggle as far as these guys are concerned.
Count on them finding some fancy excuse to de-orbit HST within the next 6 months.
Stupid Humans.....
let's get private enterprise into the space race. Granted, Virgin Galactic are already there, but here's a revolutionary plan: scrap NASA and the federal space agnecy. Fulfill the obligations to the ISS and other programs, and then direct NASA's budget to federal subsidies for private enterprise. There must be thousands of businesses that want room on zero-gravity flights or orbital labs, and thousands of tourists who'd be willing to pay for an orbit round the earth. A subsidy to get things kick-started may be just what's needed.
$10/month: 120GB bw, SSH, CVS, Rails and 10 years' experience!
It's a shame that we put all of our eggs in one basket with the shuttle. Yes, it was a grand design in the 70's, but keeping something like this going, without designing something more economical as a replacement is a shame. Hubble, once fixed of it's poor eyesight, has unlocked a lot of the uknown universe to our eyes and imagination. It's just a shame that it will die without being upgraded. Maybe they can put it in "safe mode" before it dies out and perhaps a private company in the future can do the updates necessary to keep it alive until a hubble replacement is up and running. Personally, I'd like to see a 1,2 punch as far as space travel is done. Use a heavy lift vehicle like a "shuttle" system (SRB's and ET). Yes it is dangerous (going into space it very dangerous). Then, use a "spaceship one" type setup to get the people needed to do the work into space. We missed the boat I think by scrapping the Saturn V rocket. Big on power and reliable. Yes it was costly since "nothing came back", but at least it was realitively cheap to operate. Because of the complex nature of the shuttle, the cost per flight hours is just too expensive. NASA in my opinion is just like any government program. Good intensions, but too many "chiefs" which bog it down with paperwork and the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Get NASA out of the government, and put it into private industry, where they have to worry about the money they spend and you'll see a marked change in the way they work. But, I doubt that will happen. Once a government program starts, it's very difficult to ever end it. I grew up in the NASA heyday era of the 50's & 60's and was a HUGE fan of NASA, but, today, I wish it would just go away, for the most part. NASA had a "purpose" in the moon race....beat the USSR. After that was done, they didn't really have a purpose, plus, they lost favor with the congress, who controls the purse strings. We cannot afford to blindly spend money on a space program, that the bulk of the population sees no outcome that would benefit the population at large. Yes, a lot of technological benefits were derived from the space program, but, in this "instant" soceity we live in, and in the 5 minute attention span of our world, we don't have, or won't wait for good things to come out of spending so much money.
Hubble is about discovering how the universe is created and changing the way we view science and astronomy. Its pretty cost effect for what it has delivered and its one of the things that has had people looking at Space and going "WOW".
Unfortunately this clearly doesn't sit well with the US leadership as it doesn't give them people to shake hands with. Its so much better to build a $231m bridge in Alaska named after a senator than fund something that is considered a success by the global scientific community.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Wow. I wish we could mod posts "jingoistic".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Since this is basically already how NASA works, giving money to private companies to supply goods and services, then giving a larger proportion of that cash direct to private enterprise is going to result in still bigger abuse.
The reason there is not a private spaceflight industry is because it does not make business sense. If it did,it would already have happened. As it is, the gains are purely speculative, the insurance risks enormous, and the cashflow projections laughable.
On the other hand the costs of Hubble are negligible compared to many wasteful government programs, and this is one case where a referendum might be a good idea. Ask taxpayers the simple question - do you think that a dollar a year of your taxes (or whatever minute amount it is) should go to improving our understanding of the universe by maintaining the Hubble space telescope.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Because they have money?
Unfortunately the 'business community' in general aren't going to want to help Hubble because it is largely irrelevant to their greater cause of maximising shareholder value.
Companies that would reap a benefit from helping are those already with interests in space systems (It could boost their value). However, most of these companies are simply interested in 'fire-and-forget' sattelite launches and do not have (or have the means to aquire) the complex systems needed to perform on-orbit servicing.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
How could it's future be cloudy? I thought Hubble was a space telescope. You know? Above the clouds?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The hubble issue really saddens me. I really enjoy going to the daily space picture page that nasa has, and a lot of the pictures there come from the hubble hertidge. Hubble has made so many great breakthoughs that if it cant be repaired, then replace it with something that is easier to maintain and is better.
Space picture of the day:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
New Jersey.
--
make install -not war
Yeah, war is usually a very bad thing.
Yeah, the military-industrial complex profits, in essence, from death.
Yeah, the US propaganda machine is working pretty well (but beginning to falter a bit).
But the line about having no enemies? That's just wrong. We do have enemies, very real and very capable ones that will exploit any chink in our armor.
We may have brought ourselves to this point through an imperialistic world attitude, but whatever the case, it is unrealistic to assume that we do not need a strong armed force at this juncture.
Iraq, I agree (as in IMHO), was a bad idea, but I really don't know all the inside reasons for it, do you? (although Michael Moore seems to think he does...)
And in the US' defense, we generally use our overwhelming military might pretty damned carefully and with a pretty good deal of reservation compared to the historical military powers that have existed. We seem, for the most part, to want to do the right global thing as a world power, but we are certainly not perfect and the world is a very, very complex place these days.
Riiiiiiight. Look, there are some very unrealistic ideas about what private enterprise will and will not do. While private individuals are motivated by more than money (thrill of exploration, I did it first, I'm doing it better than my rival over there, etc.), the reality is most private individuals who HAVE the money to burn on something this expensive probably have focused on ACQUIRING money for a large portion of their lives. To expect a large subset of money-minded entrepreneurs to suddenly give up their business-like ways and focus on something with little or no fiscal return (like the Hubble) is unrealistic.
In addition, if there is so much potential to private space exploration, why hasn't it been done before? Rocket technology really hasn't changed much since the 60's, and sufficent cheap computing power to figure trajectories has been around since the 80's. The answer? It's hard and expensive, with a very high failure cost, and a small to nonexistent return potential. This is not the kind of thing that draws in money.
I dearly wish that we would focus on basic science (i.e. does not need to be driven by a possible marketable product in 5 years) in the U.S.A. again - the era of Big Science was inaugurated with the Manhattan Project (when those funny talking European immigrants with thier scribbles on a blackboard built the most powerful bomb in the world), has been strong for many years as the link between U.S. world supremacy and science leadership was not questioned, but perhaps is beginning to close. The tone set by the present leadership (sneering at "reality-based" media, desiring "equal-time" for creation research, bragging about how a "C" student can become the president, etc.) does not bode well for the long term future of scientifc research here.
I guess when you know how the Universe was created according to the Bible, you don't need a Hubble to figure it out.
Sigh.
Let's get real here. They had already been put in an indefinate hold over the foam issue before Katrina. And, a 6 month delay for that was just as fatal for any shuttle flight to Hubble. They won't even be able to finish ISS in the remaining timeframe. Now, NASA can point at something outside its control and say "This is why Hubble was scrapped".
The odds of a Hubble mission before Katrina: 0.01%
The odds of a Hubble mission after Katrina: 0.005%
Yeah.. you're right.. it is half as likely now..
Gerry Pournelle wants a billion dollars and three years to put this all back on track. Personally, I think he'd do better than the bureaucrats. http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/view372.html#NA SA
In times of trouble, the smell of frying onions usually gives confidence and comfort.