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Hubble Sees Stars As They're Born
Artful Yankee writes "Space.com is reporting that the Hubble telescope revealed stars as they were being born. The article explains, 'The stars have yet to condense into small enough packages to trigger thermonuclear fusion, which is what powers stars, but they appear to be on the verge, astronomers said today.' All these amazing discoveries from Hubble and people still talk about abandoning it."
People just aren't willing to spend money purely in the name of Science. There needs to be a concrete reason for it. Personally, as a space buff, I find things like this mind boggling. But to the average american, this means nothing.
When politicians talk about funding for the Hubble, or for the ISS, or any other project, it's typically because the funding would directly profit their constituents. In the rare case, they believe in the science of the project, but if it doesn't garner them votes, there's no point in voicing their opinion.
Basically, if something doesn't have military signifigance, there's little interest in the government for funding it. If something doesn't have commercial value, there's little interest in the commercial sector for funding it. It all comes down to dollars, and pure science typically comes last.
Government's view of the economy: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving,regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.
uh huh. But here's the problem. Hubble has four gyros. They are absolutely vital to its operation. Without them, you can't point at the star you want to see, but more importantly, you can't point the solar panels at the sun when it's time to recharge.
Two of the gyroscopes have already broken. If the other two break, hubble will be space junk - and we just don't allow that to happen anymore. It's better to de-orbit something than to allow it to stay up there, risk having peices fall off, and just generally adding to the clutter that already makes low earth orbit dangerous. With me so far? You cannot allow a broken HST to remain in orbit. You have to clean up your trash.
Well guess what. You need a gyro in order to align the thrusters retrograde in order to deorbit. You *cannot* keep using the telescope until that last gyro goes bad, because then it will be stranded up there and pose yet another hazard to future missions to LEO. Guess what that means... it means that when the third gyro breaks, when you are down to only one gyro left, you have to deorbit the HST right then and there.
So... there are two gyros left. The third one could break today or tomorrow or next year. But when it does, that's it. Do you understand? That's why there is talk of getting rid of the HST.
We could use the shuttle to replace the gyros, but after the columbia accident the public is just too much of a collective pussy to allow a manned mission for something like that. I don't agree with it either, but basically the only two options for hubble are, 1. a manned mission. 2. throw it away.
You can say, "I'd like to adopt it" if you want to. That's fine. But unless you have a space shuttle in your garage, you cannot extend the life of the thing.
Here is a better plan: take the $500 million that we would have to spend on a shuttle mission, and spend that on a newer, better telescope. Doesn't that sound like a good idea?
I think you're underestimating that 1% -- both in size and in tenacity.