Hubble's Advanced Camera Suspends Operations

helio writes "The Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) went offline on June 19, 2006. The cause is yet undetermined, although engineers suspect that the culprit may be a bad transistor in the ACS's electronic control board or possibly a memory corruption event due to energetic particle bombardment. Since a backup electronic controller is available for service, this incident is not very likely to lead to the end of the Hubble's Advanced Camera in any event. But, before any attempt to reactivate the camera, engineers are cautiously evaluating and isolating the probable cause of this incident in order to avoid any further incident."

Comments

Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[BWJones]

Gee, too bad the Bush administration cancelled all maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope, dooming it to a slow death. Of course this whole science thing is overrated, right? In all honesty though, there simply is not enough money to take care of all of the costs given that the Bush administration wants to send men to Mars to the detriment of many, many science missions at NASA.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[54mc]

It seems were killing all the easy ways to learn/discover our universe. I can see why the president wants to put men on Mars. It creates a buzz. No one talks about the pictures the Hubble just took, but a man standing on another planet, now that's news!

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[amabbi]

Gee, too bad the Bush administration cancelled all maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope, dooming it to a slow death.

Hubble servicing project (tentatively STS-125) scheduled for 2008, as per Wikipedia.

But don't let that get in the way of your ignorant, uninformed, nonsensical political rant.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[McBainLives]

Don't take me wrong- I'm just as disappointed about the potential end of the Hubble as anyone else. But you might want to take manned exploration of the local neighborhood a bit more seriously. It's more than just hype (which in retrospect, was too big a part of Kennedy's proposal in the 1960's). A serious, long-term plan for returning to the Moon, then moving on to Mars, will do us a lot more good than studying events hundreds or thousands of light-years away (think survival- it never hurts to have a backup plan).

Besides- once we have a permanent presence on the Moon, we'll be able to set up telescopes much more powerful and easy to maintain than Hubble ever was.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[BWJones]

Hubble servicing project (tentatively STS-125) scheduled for 2008, as per Wikipedia.

That reference came from a Washington Post article in April, 2005. Since that time, NASA has had their budget cut for almost all science missions that have nothing to do with putting man on Mars.

But don't let that get in the way of your ignorant, uninformed, nonsensical political rant.

There was nothing in my post that was not factually based. The reality is that given the budget management of the nation, there is simply not enough money to do basic science missions if we send people to Mars.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[KDR_11k]

A schedule carefully chosen to make sure you have a new president in office by the time it happens?

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[McBainLives]

But don't let that get in the way of your ignorant, uninformed, nonsensical political rant.

Hey- this place wouldn't be the same without uninformed, nonsensical political rants! Don't scare him off! I need this place- I can't bring myself to go back to Doonesbury...

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[Anonymous Coward]

But don't let that get in the way of your ignorant, uninformed, nonsensical political rant.

When an ignorant, uninformed, nonsensical president is elected to run the country, these things tend to happen.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[cyclone96]

NASA has been reallocating a lot of funding from science and aeronautics to "exploration". The official goal is a manned moon landing (by 2018).

That being said, the Hubble servicing mission is still in the cards and long lead work is being performed to support it. It's almost certain it will be flown. In fact, the NASA web page for servicing mission 4 was updated just a little over a week ago.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I think you're absolutely right, about the value of manned space exploration, but I also think that right now NASA is dithering; they're not spending enough time and money on either the things that already work (e.g., Hubble) or on things that will only work if we put a ton of effort into them (e.g., a human return to the Moon, and then on to Mars.) Without a massive increase in their budget -- which I'd love to see, but I'm not holding my breath -- the current situation boils down to "jack of all trades, master of none."

And yes, I think the White House is largely responsible for this situation. When Bush first started talking big about manned space flight, I honestly thought that this was the one thing he might do to turn his administration from an unqualified disaster into a major success; long after stupidities like the Iraq war have faded into history, a thriving human presence in space would be a great legacy. But nope, it was just election-year hype. As usual.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[east coast]

A schedule carefully chosen to make sure you have a new president in office by the time it happens?

OK, how do you think having a different president in office at the time of this mission is going to benefit Bush? You make cute little statement as if someone has something to seriously lose or gain by who's in office at the time of the mission. Now it would be interesting if you could back this up with more than just blind bashing lip service.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[UnrefinedLayman]

Comments like this always blow my mind. It makes my brain throb like I just drank a milkshake. No one ever stops to hear themselves actually speak them and so apparently don't realize how mind-numbingly dumb they are (the words, not the people). I'm talking, of course, about this line:

"Mars--the backup planet, the backup plan."

Mars is one of the least hospitable and most difficult to reach places you could hope to find. Sure, Mars is probably the Club Med of all the other planets and satellites in the solar system but to believe truly that it is a sensible safe place to escape is nonsense. The least hospitable places on Earth are still way, way less lethal than Mars. That's right--lethal. Mars is not kind to even microbial life. We've come up with a lot of creative ways to peek around Mars looking for signs of it and the best we've found is the possibility that it was there but died a really, really long time ago. That's a nice big "No Trespassing" sign. Violators are killed on sight.

Contrast with Earth, on whose worst day life still flourished. Believe it or not, there have been some pretty shitty days down here, like the Cambrian-Ordovician extinction, the Ordovician-Silurian extinction, the Permian-Triassic extinction (80+% extinction in a million years, not bad), our favorite the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, and our own Holocene extinction. When the shit goes down on Earth it is still far, far more habitable than any extra-terrestrial location. Animal life requires other life if it wants to survive. Starting from scratch on a lifeless planet is much harder (and strikes me as much less sensible) than sticking around where life has clung with tenacity for the last 3.5 billion years.

The exception to this would be a planetary catastrophe that left no room for doubt that Earth would be less habitable than Mars is now--that would result in the total loss of liquid water, the burn up of all atmospheric oxygen, the loss of the Earth's magnetic field, the death and extinction of all life (from microbes on up), and the tipping point of sunlight being blocked from reaching the ground. Following this it would have to be more difficult to use resources available to eke out survival on Earth than it would be to use resources to reach another planet and start anew there.

One point that's often brought up is that if we start now we can have people living sustainably on Mars who could carry on without the need for Earth, thus preserving our human legacy. I'm of the belief that when we are sufficiently technologically advanced to achieve such a result that a planet-wide catastrophe will be easily weathered right here using that same technology.

It's like the guy saying string theory is eating up valuable resources that could be used elsewhere and everyone else saying it's too fun to give up. Dreams of colonizing Mars and living out our Ray Bradbury fantasies are too fun to give up, but don't bandy about the idea that it's anything remotely serious. At least string theory has some sensible math to back it up; there's little that's sensible about martian life as the human-kind "backup plan."

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[students]

For an immediate hubble replacement, the moon is not a better option. Until the moon has facilities to manufacture big mirrors, reliable computers, and delicate cameras, it is easier to launch a telescope from earth into a low orbit. Probably an entire university on the moon would be needed to provide training for the astronauts who would do the repairs. Only so much can be explained over radio. Particularly with a 3 second latency enforced by the speed of light. But in the long run, I agree that the moon is a good place to do astronomy.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[wolfponddelta]

Hubble servicing project (tentatively STS-125) scheduled for 2008, as per Wikipedia.
But don't let that get in the way of your ignorant, uninformed, nonsensical political rant.

Budget cuts and safety concerns were the reasons given for cancellation of the 2006 repair mission, and any future such missions are currently speculative possibilities "under consideration." http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/future/ has more on this, as does http://hubble.nasa.gov/.

But don't let actual facts get in the way of your ignorant, uninformed and nonsensical attacking of someone else for actually knowing them.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[KDR_11k]

OK, how do you think having a different president in office at the time of this mission is going to benefit Bush?

We're not talkiing about benefitting Bush.

Different people in power = different spending priorities. Perhaps the next president will spend more on Hubble. If not, well, a mission can still be cancelled.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[nwbvt]

You are kidding, right? The Hubble has recieved plenty of publicity, thats why there is all this controversy over letting it go (long after it has lived out its intended lifespan) even though NASA has determined their research could be better served by using the money it would require to keep Hubble operating elsewhere, such as with the James Webb telescope.

And the reason the maintenance was cancelled isn't because Bush didn't like science class in high school, its because (in case you don't read the news) the shuttle program was grounded after the Columbia fell apart on re-entry.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[deficite]

You know what I think is insane? Bush can go up to the podium and say he wants people put on Mars, yet he probably doesn't know jack shit about the space program. And of course, people are going to listen to him because he's the president, and blah blah blah. It's like this with so many things. But, let's all pause a moment to remember that Bush is the DECIDER! He said that the people who want us to draw troops from Iraq have reasonable concerns but that they are "wrong" and of course, he is "right".

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[spune]

Modded (-1, Killed Dreams)

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[nwbvt]

In 2008? You might want to count again (ues a calculator if 2008 is too big of a number for you to divide by in your head). Bush will still be president unless something happens to him, in which case Cheney will be president. In November of 2008 we will have a new election, and the winner of that election will take office in 2009.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[BWJones]

From your linked website: If SM4 becomes a reality, EVA astronauts would perform a number of tasks not only to keep Hubble operational until at least 2013, but to expand greatly the scientific power of the telescope.

It is my understanding that funding for this mission is in doubt. The White House already cut funding for this servicing mission once back in 2005 and NASA was able to find the impetus to recover, but with the current NASA budget, I am being told by friends at JPL that it is not looking good. Of course the team is still making plans just in case, but they are *very* worried.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[cyclone96]

Well, for what it is worth you can consider me a friend from JSC. While the mission isn't "officially" on, it's considered to be almost certain around here. I'm not sure about the White House, but congressional pressure to fly this mission is considerable.

Ironically enough, the Constellation program manager (Jeff Hanley) cut his teeth on Hubble as a Payloads officer in Mission Control. When the original SM4 mission was cancelled, he posted this
to sci.astro.hubble.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[Anonymous Coward]

You go be sensible.

I'll go be human.

On to Mars.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[turgid]

No one's proposing that we attempt to breathe the atmosphere on Mars.

It would be an interesting and valuable laerning exercise setting up a semi-independent colony on Mars. We need some nuclear powered rockets first.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[KDR_11k]

Hey, it's not my country, I have no idea at what time of the year you guys hold your elections.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[(negative video)]

Mars is one of the least hospitable and most difficult to reach places you could hope to find.

Mars is the second most hospitable planet we know, after Earth. The only resource we don't know for sure that it has is uranium ore. The only really annoying thing is the giant long-duration dust storms.

The least hospitable places on Earth are still way, way less lethal than Mars.

Humans survive in Antarctica and the deep sea solely by means of a metric buttload of technology. Take it away and they die in seconds or minutes. Mars is different only in degree, not kind.

Contrast with Earth, on whose worst day life still flourished. [big list of mass extinctions]

If by "flourished" you mean "nearly all the big, elaborate organisms were snuffed out".

We've come up with a lot of creative ways to peek around Mars looking for signs of it and the best we've found is the possibility that it was there but died a really, really long time ago. That's a nice big "No Trespassing" sign. Violators are killed on sight.

No. We have done virtually no serious work on discovering Martian life (HPLC-tandem mass spec with chiral columns), and the conditions are within the known acceptable range for Earth-type microbes (sunlight, porous minerals, and temperature and pressure compatible with condensed-phase water).

The exception to this would be a planetary catastrophe that left no room for doubt that Earth would be less habitable than Mars is now--that would result in the total loss of liquid water, the burn up of all atmospheric oxygen, the loss of the Earth's magnetic field, the death and extinction of all life (from microbes on up), and the tipping point of sunlight being blocked from reaching the ground.

Don't be silly. You don't have to completely atomize Earth for the four horsemen to ride. A nice big asteroid coming in at 50 km/s and hitting a nice thick layer of limestone would likely make the human race go extinct. Being caught in a beam from a supernova or similar high-energy event would be very bad. Having some idiots set off a 20 stage thermonuclear bomb, just to see how far down the crust really goes, would give the human race a run for its money.

... there's little that's sensible about martian life as the human-kind "backup plan."

Fuck sensible. It wasn't sensible for people to fill a grave every few yards on the deadly path between London and San Jose, but they did it anyway. Their equally unreasonable descendants will one day do it again, at enormous expense and personal risk.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[jani]

Mars is the second most hospitable planet we know, after Earth.

Well, Venus is closer, warmer and with a substantial atmosphere. Granted, it's a hell on traditional materials and space technology, but the atmosphere offers significant protection as well as a plentiful source for oxygen (carbon dioxide). On the downside is the weak magnetic field, but Mars offers nothing in that department either.

It's easier to focus on Mars because the planet has been more thoroughly explored, and the lack of atmosphere means that we can practice on the Moon. We have no similar testing grounds for Venus, except for high pressure equipment used in deep sea exploration and drilling.

I'll also agree that Venus probably is more technically challenging to settle, but a bonus point is that as an inner planet, it has less risk of meteoritic impacts. :)

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[twiddlingbits]

I worked on the upgrades for the HST (i.e. SM4 - Service Mission Four). They were cancelled in favor of spending more $$$ on STS (Shuttle) and mostly ISS( Station). The pressure was on to finish ISS which really meant the money was going to the Russians who promptly wasted 90% of it.

IIRC NASA actually budgeted all three but only two got funds. Then when funding was restored for SM4 a few years later, we had all the problems with STS which all of a sudden meant going to Hubble was "unsafe". We knew the HST was slowly dying and that we only had 2 out of 4 gyros (not same problem as this article) that were good and one more that was "flaky". If we lost one of the good gyros we could rework the software to account for the flakiness of the 3rd gyro, but lose two and HST shuts down as you no longer have attitude control to point the instruments. The bad thing was all of these gyros came from the same batch from the same company. An earlier service mission had replaced two bad ones that failed earlier but the new ones themselves are now failing. Last caclulations I recall the HST might make it to sometime in 2009 or early 2010 before it fails, but that was under "nominal" conditions.

It was NOT GWB's fault, the decisons were made by Congress not wanting to fund NASA to the level where they could do all three, HST, STS, and ISS. Remember ALL spending Bills MUST orginate in the House of Representatives, then be approved by both houses of Congress and the President. It also doesn't help that NASA's budget gets lumped into bills that fund other things like HUD and Veterans so it often gets short shafted as we can't spend LESS money on Social project or Veteran's benefits so we can so space.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[Pometacom]

I'm not sure I understand the logic that "it won't do us good" to study events hundreds or millions of light years away. By the same logic, why would it do us good to study the Moon, the Sun or Mars? They're pretty gosh-darned far away -- especially by boat. Nor do I understand the big jones for a "manned" trip to the moon or Mars (howbout the Sun?). If robots and remote analytical gadgets can gather the same or more scientific data as humans more quickly and at a remote fraction of the cost, why is this not a good thing? Isn't one of the key purposes of technology to take people where they cannot physically go (inside your arteries, for example)? Seems the whole "manned" expedition thing has very little to do with science and is mostly a hubris, nationalism and manifest destiny thing. If manned interplanetary visits were cheap, safe and easy, we would already be doing it. Any manned visit to another celestial body except the moon would eat up all of the $$$ for all other space projects and then some -- while producing far less usable and interesting scientific data. And we've already been to the moon a bunch of times. The holy grail for interplanetary, manned space trips has always been to find other life. Non-manned exploration technologies are now filling that role very well. At best, Mars may support very scant and simple microbial organisms -- or just fossils of them -- and these would most likely exist at depths or locales on Mars well beyond what a first, second or seventh manned exploration could investigate. The moons of Saturn and Jupiter suspected of perhaps (maybe) harboring life have such wacky and inhospitable conditions and are so distant from Earth that manned exploration is pretty much out. So Mars is it in terms of finding and signs of life and we already know that at best we might find a few very simple microbes or fossils of them. Hubble or its replacement already gives us viewing conditions outside the Earth's atmosphere, so there's no crying need for a telescope on the moon that will do the same thing at a much higher initial and ongoing cost (think of the $$$ bill for sending a Hubble repair/upgrade flight to the moon rather than just into Earth orbit). Any other reasons?

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[nwbvt]

Yeah, you also have no idea about how the political system works over here. The Hubble maintenance was delayed because of saftey issues regarding the shuttle (currently our only manned space vehicle), and NASA is considering letting it die because they feel their funding (NASA, like everyone else, is forced to work on a limited budget) could better serve science by going to other projects. It has nothing to do with who is in the White House.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would he want to divide by 2,008? And why are you never anything but full of bile and venom when you post? Projection isn't healthy, Nick. Please seek help. This is my advice to you, and neither for your emotional issues alone—fact is, you smell like an ugly, tasteless Republican. So I implore you to scoot on out of here, and take your karma bonus and your red-state attitudes to a therapist's couch, there hopefully to never be heard from again.
--
Sick of pompous windbags? Change "Karma Bonus" modifier to -1 penalty.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[ajpr]

Ground (Earth) based telescopes are almost (if not better) than Hubble in certain wavelengths due to fairly recent technologies. The key ones being Adaptive Optics and Interferometry, which have allowed for astronomers to compensate/eradicate most of the problems associated with the atmosphere. 10 years ago these technologies were mostly theory, and 20 years ago there was no-one that would take the ideas seriously. We really have come a long way since Hubble was on the dtrawing board, and I don't think we need space based telescopes for most areas of astronomy. Of course there are a few wavebands that we cannot observe properly on Earth, but it's not the case that space telescopes are superior. In fact, the next generation telescopes (ALMA, OWL, ELT etc) will most likely surpass the JWST in the frequencies they can observe.

Astronomers generally refer to space telescopes as complementary to ground telescopes. But we won't be building telescopes like ALMA, OWL etc on the Moon because of the difficulty in assembling them on Earth. They need a lot of space and materials (both to house and to construct, which is a problem for the limited space on rockets) and optical telescopes need their mirrors cleaning. I just don't see us building large telescopes on the Moon when we can get almost the same results from having space telescopes and ground based ones that complement each other.

The only way I see us building Lunar telescopes is if we find a cheap way to launch the building blocks. If we manage this though, we would open up a lot more possibilities, such as building the telescope on Mars. The South Pole would be a good place as it has: free water (as in not tied up in rocks like the Moon)/rocket fuel (with a decent power source) and has a lot more gravity than the Moon (which would be a lot better for long stays). Most people would say we shouldn't go so far due to the long trips for astronauts, but the ISS currently has around 6 months stays for crews with no problem.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[barawn]

Starting from scratch on a lifeless planet is much harder (and strikes me as much less sensible) than sticking around where life has clung with tenacity for the last 3.5 billion years.

Life does not equal humans. There are plenty of ways that life could stick around and still eradicate all humans. Or all human civilization. Either or, because without civilization, we're just another species waiting to be extinguished. And human civilization is really fragile.

While it may seem less sensible, starting from scratch on another planet has several advantages.

1. You control the environment. Unless you go full-bore terraforming (and then, if you do, see below) you're living in a meticulously controlled self-contained habitat. Anything goes wrong, and it's likely a hell of a lot easier to fix than on Earth. This sounds bizarre, but think about it: killer virus gets loose on Earth, and you're in huge trouble. Killer virus gets loose on a habitat-controlled Mars... and everyone suits up and you irradiate the hell out of the place. Being in a lethal environment has its advantages. The only things that live are the ones you want to.
   
2. More resources. We're unfortunately a very resource-hungry organism, and Earth's only got so much. While the standard argument is "we're nowhere near close to running out" - what, you want to wait until we are?
   
3. And finally, but probably most importantly, we're a very lazy organism. You think we'll bother figuring out how this ecosytem works on our own? Please. We're terrible at learning things unless there's pressure on us. "Another country might get to the moon!" "They might get the bomb!" Man. Throw those things at us, and we're freaking geniuses. We're better off living in a sucky environment. So even if we terraform the planet, we'd still be better off - we made it, so we'll understand it better than Earth.
   

The third point is really the big one. Just look at our pathetic attempts at ecological engineering - they're jokes. We usually end up constantly screwing things up. But I wouldn't discount the second one, either: Mars has a pretty big advantage in terms of depth of its gravity well.

Plus, from a very practical standpoint, you could also think of it as the start of interplanetary zoning laws. It'd be real nice to offload really crappy industry to Mars, after all.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[east coast]

Different people in power = different spending priorities. Perhaps the next president will spend more on Hubble. If not, well, a mission can still be cancelled.

You've never really been involved in the budgeting and project planning of a large organization or you'd be embarrassed to say anything like this.

Not to mention the fact that it will be a Bush budget still in effect during the 2008 year.

And also to not mention the fact that in all truth the NASA budget hasn't suffered a bit under Bush.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[a.d.trick]

So the idea here is that since modern man has perverted and screwed up everything on his own planet, he might as well go and repeat the process on another? Also given our history with other men with different features and skin colour - I'd hate to see what would happen if we met any alien life.

I think "look, don't touch" is better for now.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[GooberToo]

I believe the great hope for Mars is that it may one day be terraformed. As I understand it, of all the planets here, Mars is the best chance of any terraforming pipe dream.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[patricksevenlee]

I think you're absolutely right, about the value of manned space exploration, but I also think that right now NASA is dithering; they're not spending enough time and money on either the things that already work (e.g., Hubble) or on things that will only work if we put a ton of effort into them (e.g., a human return to the Moon, and then on to Mars.)

Imagine where things would be right now if they put even a miniscule portion of the money for the war on Iraq (currently almost $300 billion US) into NASA.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[jani]

The hope of actually terraforming Mars is at best slim.

How will you fix the gravity (1/3 Earth standard, approximately)?

Where will you get the protective magnetic field, so that you don't get roasted next time Father Sun decides to blow his nose?

Where will you get the ozone layer to protect from UV?

Where will you get the rest of the atmosphere to provide additional protection?

It's only the latter two points that have -- and then only very vaguely with hand-waving regarding water, CO2 and O3 -- been covered for, in a suggested process lasting not a few years, a few hundred years or anything that comfortable; rather, we're operating on a scale of at least a few millennia.

Sure, Total Recall had a cool idea, but ...

As for Venus, the pressures and temperature also make terraforming unrealistic with technology that we can plausibly explain how might work.

Settling on the planets is another matter entirely.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[obnoxiousbastard]

No one talks about the pictures the Hubble just took, but a man standing on another planet, now that's news!

Ummm... that's just wrong. Do you have any idea how many papers have been written citing Hubble data and how many discoveries it has made!?

There are people talking about Hubble data all the time and will continue to do so long into the future.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[canatech]

Maybe this is like my 1973 Pinto. I'll only put so much in to it because I know it's going to be replaced.

See - http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[azav]

I hate to pull a "me too" but considering your post got marked as flamebait, I feel that you are 100% correct.

Good thing Hubble's got a lot of spare gyros too.

Oh, wait.

It's a travesty since scientific discoveries are one of the reasons how society advances.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[UnrefinedLayman]

Life does not equal humans. There are plenty of ways that life could stick around and still eradicate all humans. Or all human civilization. Either or, because without civilization, we're just another species waiting to be extinguished. And human civilization is really fragile.

But humans require life to exist. This is a point I made which you chose to overlook. Animals require other life to exist and when faced with the option of a) hang around where life exists even through extreme protracted periods of mass extinction which can lead to food or b) go to a dead lifeless world that lacks the major supporters of life (oxygen, liquid water, a magnetic field, and other life, all of which I mentioned), sticking to option A is the sensible one.

You also have this naive idea that without civilization we're just sitting ducks waiting to be picked off. Humans and their direct ancestors have survived for over three million years. Modern humans have existed for the last two-hundred fifty thousand years. During that time there have been some pretty shitty days too, like the ice age whose remnants we're currently shaking off. Civilization is fragile. Humankind isn't.

You make a reasonable point about a lethal environment but fail to acknowledge my point that that same environment will work on Earth.

You fail to make any kind of reasonable point with "you want to wait until we are" running out of resources. The resources that really matter--oxygen, water, other life, materials that have already been refined--exist on Earth. Not Mars.

I'm not sure I even understand your third point. Mars is better than Earth because we'd have to make it and understand it? I see it that Earth is better than Mars because you don't have to understand it for life to survive. That's a lot of work already done when it comes to the survival game. You then contradict yourself by saying we're really bad at ecological engineering (so that's why we should place our bets on it?).

Interesting? Not really. With the resources on Earth and the fact that life will survive here even through catastrophic events, Mars is not the place to be. Mars kills life; Earth fosters it.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[UnrefinedLayman]

Mars is the second most hospitable planet we know, after Earth. The only resource we don't know for sure that it has is uranium ore. The only really annoying thing is the giant long-duration dust storms.

But we know it doesn't have oxygen, liquid water, life, or an environment that would support industry. Like I said, Mars is the Club Med of other planets but on its best day and Earth's worst it's still a death trap compared to Earth.

Humans survive in Antarctica and the deep sea solely by means of a metric buttload of technology. Take it away and they die in seconds or minutes. Mars is different only in degree, not kind.

Mars is different in kind more than you seem to realize. What do Antarctica and the deep sea have that Mars doesn't? Oxygen, water, and a magnetic field.

If by "flourished" you mean "nearly all the big, elaborate organisms were snuffed out".

...leading to the evolution of all the big, elaborate organisms you see today, including humans. Yeah, that worked out really badly for life.

No. We have done virtually no serious work on discovering Martian life (HPLC-tandem mass spec with chiral columns), and the conditions are within the known acceptable range for Earth-type microbes (sunlight, porous minerals, and temperature and pressure compatible with condensed-phase water).

If life exists on Mars then life exists in a diminished capacity that hasn't been seen on Earth in hundreds of millions of years. My point stands: whatever forms of life may exist on Mars pale in comparison to what you find on Earth.

Don't be silly. You don't have to completely atomize Earth for the four horsemen to ride. A nice big asteroid coming in at 50 km/s and hitting a nice thick layer of limestone would likely make the human race go extinct. Being caught in a beam from a supernova or similar high-energy event would be very bad. Having some idiots set off a 20 stage thermonuclear bomb, just to see how far down the crust really goes, would give the human race a run for its money.

But the point wasn't what will kill us, it's what would it take for Earth to be a worse choice than Mars. We'd need to lose oxygen, water, the magnetic field, geothermal heat (which I didn't mention), and then we'd be on equal footing with Mars. To make Mars start looking attractive Earth would need to lose access to sunlight and it would have to be harder to live here than it is to live there. Yes, there are some bad things that can happen to Earth. Mars is already a disaster.

Finally... fuck sensible? How can I argue with that.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[Nataku564]

Or, better yet, education. Think of the benefit of increasing the general awareness and intelligence of the entire nation ... sure, the rewards would be further down the line, but im betting the results would be spectacular.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[grozzie2]

I worked on the upgrades for the HST (i.e. SM4 - Service Mission Four). They were cancelled in favor of spending more $$$ on STS (Shuttle) and mostly ISS( Station). The pressure was on to finish ISS which really meant the money was going to the Russians who promptly wasted 90% of it.

500 million a pop (last report, probably much higher today)to shoot off a shuttle, and even then, you guys rarely get around to actually doing it, to busy spending money on who knows what. Then you want to accuse the Russians of _wasting_ money? Dunno if you noticed, but, they actually do send folks back and forth to the ISS, and they even manage to do it on a schedule.

Just an fyi, spending a few billion to fix a design problem, then finding out it wasn't fixed at all, that's a waste. Keeping a huge standing army of folks on staff to launch shuttles, and then not launching them, that's a waste. Spending a few bucks on Russian launches because domestic folks cant get the job done, that's not a waste, that's 'damage control'. While it may be possible the Russians dont spend that money as efficiently as you would like to see, hey, it's still a hell of a lot more efficient than tossing money into Nasa to get rides to the ISS, after all, the Russian expenditures actually result in rides to the ISS. Tossing money into Nasa in that respect, well, that's kinda like tossing it into a black hole these days, a total waste as it doesn't seem to result in rides to the ISS at all, just more excuses why it's not 'safe' to launch, and more reasons for delays.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[navyjeff]

No one talks about the pictures the Hubble just took...

That's why I have this on my personalized Google. Granted they're not all Hubble images, but there's certainly a significant number of photos for your perusal.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[GooberToo]

I suggest you read any number of a "billion" articles available on the subject. Don't be confused with technological hope and a sure thing. Nonetheless, the answer I gave is the correct one. Long story short, various terraforming plans require anywhere from a century or two to a couple of millennium or two to complete. Many of them are fairly realistic; while some of the plans require some giant leap in technology. Like I said, go read about the subject before you bother to answer again. There's more published on the notion than just about any other facet of futurist space exploration. That, combined with the fact that you're asking here about it, doesn't reflect well on you.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[chrish]

If you guys weren't blowing so much money on the war against "terror" in various middle-eastern countries, you could do both.

With any luck, other nations will fill this vacuum.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[barawn]

But humans require life to exist. This is a point I made which you chose to overlook.

I didn't overlook it. We're also the only organism capable of establishing new life in an area. We tried once already, halfheartedly, with Biosphere 2. It was a failure because, well, there wasn't any incentive for the scientists. It was a PR deal, and it failed. Think a scientist will work like crazy to fix a giant PR move? Not likely. Think a scientist will work like crazy to fix a habitat supporting him? Yes.

You also have this naive idea that without civilization we're just sitting ducks waiting to be picked off. Humans and their direct ancestors have survived for over three million years. Modern humans have existed for the last two-hundred fifty thousand years. During that time there have been some pretty shitty days too, like the ice age whose remnants we're currently shaking off. Civilization is fragile. Humankind isn't.

You do realize we were on the verge of extinction several times during that period, right? We were confined to a tiny portion of Africa for all but the most recent portion of history. We're fragile. Fragile and lucky.

You make a reasonable point about a lethal environment but fail to acknowledge my point that that same environment will work on Earth.

Um, what? We can't shut off life support for a portion of Earth, and nowhere is Earth hostile enough to support the kind of "necessity breeds invention" that spurs humans on. Hell, we're too lazy to make Antarctica self-supporting. We screw up an ecosystem on Earth, and it just starts spiraling out of control until things are a total mess. We screw up an ecosystem on Mars? We made it. We can just make it again.

As for creating a controlled biosphere on Earth? Yah. Tried that. Failed. The scientists had nowhere near enough incentive. They broke the seal because they wanted peanut butter.

The resources that really matter--oxygen, water, other life, materials that have already been refined--exist on Earth. Not Mars.

There are plenty of materials that exist elsewhere in the solar system, and it's a joke to get resources to Mars from the asteroid belt, for instance. Recycling and recovering precious metals will always be more difficult than mining new, and eventually, all we're going to able to do is recycle materials. Hell, we'll be out of helium in a few hundred years. Not that there's an easy source of helium on Mars, but there sure as hell won't be a way to get more on Earth.

I see it that Earth is better than Mars because you don't have to understand it for life to survive. That's a lot of work already done when it comes to the survival game. You then contradict yourself by saying we're really bad at ecological engineering (so that's why we should place our bets on it?).

We're bad at ecological engineering because we haven't had to do it. We sucked at manipulating electricity and light for the longest time, until we needed to, and then we just took off. Put us on Mars, and we will be good at it. Really, really fast.

Your reasoning here is ridiculously naive: we have to understand things if we want to survive long term. That's what separates us from natural selection - because we can manipulate our environment rather than letting it manipulate us.

Humans staying in an environment that's beneficial to us is the same thing as a guy living in his parents' basement until he's 40. Think about it - your argument applies equally well there. A 40-year old in his parents' basement doesn't have to understand how the world works, or how things get paid for to survive. After all, there's so much that's already been done to allow him to just survive like that! The fact that he'll be in trouble when his parents die? That's far too far off for him to worry about.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[barawn]

Well, Venus is closer, warmer and with a substantial atmosphere.

If by "warmer" you mean "melts lead", yeah, it's warmer. Space probes can't survive on Venus. People definitely can't.

But Venus's biggest problem is related: it doesn't rotate nearly fast enough.

You want an ideal planet? Smack Mars into Venus. Unsurprisingly, that's how Earth started out.

but a bonus point is that as an inner planet

That's more of a downside: I don't think liquid water can survive on Venus already for any long period of time due to the solar insolation. The Sun's so bright from Venus that it'll just rip water in the atmosphere apart.

It's definitely possible to imagine a stable, terraformed Mars. It'll hold an Earth atmosphere for long enough for it to matter, and it's close enough to the Sun that water would even be liquid for a portion of the year.

Venus, I'm not so sure. The rotation rate's a killer, for one, and I think the solar insolation might be a death knell as well. Maybe you could build a giant solar shade, though, but you could always do the reverse on Mars to heat it up as well.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[jani]

May I ask you to re-read my posts -- both of the previous ones as well as this one -- and see if you can catch my thread of reasoning? I have read quite a few articles on the subject, and I remain unconvinced that Mars is "a great hope" as you like to call it.

It's a slim hope at the best of times, and the problems I've mentioned (or "questions") are fundamental to terraforming the planet.

Perhaps your attitude comes from a misunderstanding; when I write "terraforming", I'm writing about making the planet permanently* suitable for terrestrial life forms. You seem to be using it as a far broader term.

* For a value of permanence reasonably close to that of Terra.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[GooberToo]

I assume you mean live in the open air as care free as we do on Earth versus simply living there in some type of habitat?

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[GooberToo]

BTW, your comment about gravity is the first I've ever heard is even worth consideration. What does it matter? No return trip for Marslings to Earth?

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[jani]

Lower gravity increases the risk of skeletal damage, which is a well known problem, thanks to the space programs. Of course, this problem is far more significant on the Moon or in near zero gravity. There are other effects as well, but I'm not sure how significant those are at one third gravity.

Right now, skeletal damage a big enough hurdle just for getting the first batch of astronauts to Mars, but the solution sketches are sound; using centrifugal effect as artificial gravity, exercising regularly and getting enough calcium are part of a satisfactory solution to that problem.

As for your other question, yes, I mean "live in the open air as care-free as we do on Earth now". That should be a minimum requirement for a successful terraforming project; without that, we'll be living in bubble villages (and perhaps cities, in time).

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[GooberToo]

I've read that skeletal issues are only a concern for those that make the trip...not for those that would live there. So I do not believe it to be an issue. If it is, I've never read anything about it before; that is, specific to Mars.

I believe the intent is to have an "Earth-like" environment...mean we can grow crops and breath the air. Because of radiation, I do not believe the intent is to live under the open sky.

It seems you have uniquely redefined the term, "terrforming". Any environment which can be reproduced on earth on a planet wide scale, on another planet, qualifies as terrforming. Do keep in mind, the environments here are earth vary a lot, for human standards. Some of those environments are not terribly nice for humans. As such, I do not believe anyone seriously considers your definition as terraforming. Rather, your definition qualifies as a very narrow subset for what actually qualifies.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[jani]

I've read that skeletal issues are only a concern for those that make the trip...not for those that would live there.

I've read that skeletal issues are a concern for those making the trip, but I haven't read that it's a problem exclusive to the trip, as you imply.

Unfortunately, none of us can back up these claims with "hard" research, since there has been no long-term studies on the effects of a low gravity environment on the skeletal system; the current studies are about microgravity environments, which is reasonable enough, given that we've had space stations to perform such studies in.

It remains speculation that people may have skeletal problems under lower gravity, but it's not an unreasonable inference from the fact that there are skeletal problems with microgravity. The onus is on showing that this is not the case.

It seems you have uniquely redefined the term, "terrforming".

I haven't.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the term has different usages. Feel free to Google it, or use a bunch of different dictionaries; my usage is common enough, and it is AFAIK very close to the origin of the term.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[sjames]

Humans survive in Antarctica and the deep sea solely by means of a metric buttload of technology. Take it away and they die in seconds or minutes. Mars is different only in degree, not kind.

Yes, survival in Antarctica is hard, but the equipment necessary to do it has been around for many decades. For the cost of getting 7 people into orbit for a week, we could build a REALLY nice hotel in Antarctica complete with indoor sauna and swimming pool. For the cost of getting 7 people to Mars, we could run that hotel for a lifetime.

I'm not saying there is no benefit to going to Mars or even that we won't one day consider colonization to be practical, just that it is certainly NOT currently anything like a good survival option.

If/when we DO colonize Mars, it will be for the same reason we have always pioneered. That is, enough people will find the political situation everywhere on earth so entirely unacceptable that they would rather die than stay where they are OR will find the promise of wealth to outweigh the chances of dieing broke.

As for the former reason, now you know what Bush means by encouraging exploration of Mars.

Re:Hubble maintenance cancelled.

[sfjoe]

It was NOT GWB's fault,

You're joking, right? The money W is wasting in Iraq could fund libraries, schools, roads, the ISS, STS, HST and still have plenty left over for a nice party. It is most certainly W's fault that he decided to start an expensive war that was not needed.

Funding

[TubeSteak]

So did they cut the Hubble from future NASA plans?

I recall they cut it, brought it back, wanted to cut it again...

I don't remember how the story ended.

Either way, the Hubble isn't getting any repair flights in 2006.

Re:Funding

[Firethorn]

Hubble always had a limited life span, and with the loss of two shuttles, we have to look at prioritizing, especially with the requirement for the astronaughts to be able to evacutate to the ISS if the shuttle is unable to land.

Personally, I'd be working more towards launching a replacement for the Hubble. Ground based telescopes have caught up in many ways with adaptive lense technologies, but the hubble works much better in the infrared from what I understand. Design the replacement more towards making up the shortfalls of ground based telescopes.

Given the cost of a dedicated shuttle maintenance mission, it might even be cheaper to just launch new ones, especially if you make a series of them, allowing you to spread R&D costs between multiple sats.

Re:Funding

[cyclone96]

I work for NASA on the manned programs.

Officially, Sean O'Keefe (the former NASA admistrator) dropped the last Hubble servicing mission from the Space Shuttle manifest because of the risk involved (Hubble was the only non-ISS mission left, leaving no option to fix the orbiter with the help of ISS assets or possibly "holing up" in the ISS while a rescue mission was processed). I'm really oversimplifying it, but essentially that's the reason.

Of course, I'm fairly certain Sean O'Keefe was the only individual within NASA that thought this was too great of a risk. That includes the astronauts who would actually strap themselves to the orbiter stack. Everyone at NASA loves Hubble. O'Keefe may have been playing politics to get Congress to "order" the mission, thus relieving NASA of the risk decision.

O'Keefe is gone now, however, and the new administrator (Mike Griffin) has been more or less been in favor of servicing Hubble again.

Anyways, while the flight isn't officially on the books it's more or less common knowledge around here there is going to be a servicing mission in 2008 or so. Long lead work is being done on the flight. As long as something drastic doesn't happen to the shuttle program that causes it to shut down, that mission is going to be flown. Hubble is NASA's crown jewel.

Re:Funding

[helioquake]

...but the hubble works much better in the infrared from what I understand....

No, no, no!

[I'm banging my head on the desk right now, because of you...]

The Hubble Space Telescope, by design is a telescope designed to observe the Universe in ultra-violet (UV) waveband. Its mirror gerates the finest point image at 2800Angstrom, and the image rapidly degrades at a longer wavelength (esp. IR). It's Daniel Goldin and his stupid minions who successfully sold the idea that the HST would be a great IR telescope (to detect planets, which were the hot topic to sell to the congress for funding).

You can do most of IR observations from the ground. Even the imaging quality ain't too bad from the ground, either. The best part of doing IR in space is the gain in sensitivity (the atmosphere isn't exactly dark in IR; also it absorbs some water molecule wavebands). But then, there is Spitzer telescope for IR space astronomy today. You don't need the Hubble to do that.

On the other hand, you can't do UV astronomy from the ground. The air is opaque to UV light.

Re:Funding

[helioquake]

I'd like to point out to myself that

(1) I can't spell in a hurry,

(2) Daniel Goldin may not be the first moron to promote the use of the Hubble in IR.

Re:Funding

[fermion]

On the one hand, NASA must play politics and say what will keep the public and thier representatives happy. OTOH, it is nice when NASA just tells it like it is. I would think that any reasonable person would be reluctant to make any predictions about what can and cannot happen with the manned space program given present data. It seems to me that such questions will be answered in July when we see what the foam does.

We have three space shuttles, all have flown over 20 missions, and are much over 10 years old. This is all the hardware we have for manned space travel. We have to use it for Hubble, ISS, and whatever else we need to build or fix. I hope that any decision concerning missions will wiegh the risk of losing another vehicle much more that the loss of the Hubble, or even the completion of ISS. While the hubble is extremely useful, and has provided a large data set to help answer some very basic questions, it is not worth the a premature ending to manned space exploration.

So unless we see much better that expected results this summer, I would bet dollars to doughnuts that we will use the remaining fleet sparingly and that Hubble is going to limp along past 2008. It is my hope it can survive. If it doesn't, I hope we will have a larger launch vehicle in the future so that the next telescope can have larger mirrors.

Re:Funding

[Cylix]

Oiy!

Maybe you can answer a question of mine then!

How are the engineers able to make further evaluations on the break down or even isolate the problem to a couple failed components?

Personally, I find that part the most fascinating as I generally have to look at a component to know what has failed. Unless of course, I knew that X part was a POS and I shouldn't have used it. (though in the past I have known a component was going to eventually fail due to physical inspection or odd readings, but I was lazy and put it into production anyway!)

Details appreciated and thanks for the insight.

Re:Funding

[Quantum Fizz]

A few other factors.

O'Keefe was NOT a scientist, but a business-track administrator, and as such didn't have an intimate understanding of the import of science as a full-blooded scientist does. In other words, he looked at the Hubble telescope as a business project, not as a scientific instrument. Luckily Griffin is completely opposite, he was a scientist and worked his way from science through science management, so has an understanding of both fields pretty well.

Additionally, Columbia was lost on O'Keefe's watch, so he's overcompensating by being excessively cautious for future flights. Unfortunately to the point of compromising scientific fulfillment.

Re:Funding

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post lacks any political nous. Technology is irrelevent - we politicians can't understand it and we have the purse strings. The Hubble is now designated as this nations No. 1 IR research tool - get used to it!

Oh, and we want a spectacular discovery about two months before the next election - something to make America feel that we're the best nation in the world. How about discovering that the centre of the Universe is in Texas?

Re:Funding

[(negative video)]

On the other hand, you can't do UV astronomy from the ground. The air is opaque to UV light.

Ah, so what you're saying is we need to thin out the air a bit, in fact just get rid of it.

I can see the War on Air now: "Muslims, Mr. President. Our top scientists have determined that Muslims need air." "There's only one thing to do then ..."

Re:Funding

[helioquake]

I'm impressed by your logical deduction. Can I subscribe your newsletter?

Re:Funding

[feronti]

A spacecraft is only useful when it's in space. While certainly the lives of the astronauts are more important that the Hubble, assuming we could get the astronauts home safely if the orbiter couldn't make it back, I say fix the Hubble.

Re:Funding

[Firethorn]

Sorry, I was writing purely from memory, but the fact still remains that there are chunks of spectrum that, because of either contamination or absorbtion that aren't as useful on the earth, and given the cost of launching satellites, we might as well concentrate on having them do the things that they're advantaged at.

Re:Funding

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to be gruesome, but we could concievable tolerate the loss of a few more astronauts. The knife in back is the loss of another vehicle. We will be seriously limited with a fleet of two. A spacecraft is only useful if it can make to space and back in one piece.

More links

[helioquake]

Here is another link that may be worthy of checking:

Space.com article.

And the original statement from Space Telescope Science Institute (this was edited out by the editor...not that I mind being edited, btw):

STScI Anomaly Report

Re:More links

[MustardMan]

So let me get this straight...

The 'editors' at slashdot refuse to correct misspellings, typos, and grossly inaccurate statements.

Put in an informative link, though, and they are ALL ABOUT removing that shit.

Re:More links

[helioquake]

I believe my original post was too wordy (I thought it might, but I left it to the editors to trim down).

Some editors do corrections; others don't. I don't see any serious problem with that. This is, after all, slashdot. It ain't NY times.

Budget Cuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe cutting costs by using a disposeable camera wasn't such a good ideas, huh?

The hubble is old tech. Cheaper to replace whole.

[ABeowulfCluster]

It's cheaper to replace the whole thing than to go up and fix it once a year.

Only if...

[Anonymous Coward]

...a space telescope could also be able to be pointed downwards towards Earth and had powerful enough optics to be able to count the hairs in an Arab's beard, you could be damned sure that US govt money to fund it would flow like Budweiser at a biker's party.

Re:Only if...

[jrmcferren]

Other than the Arab Beard comment, I fail to see this a flamebait. The parent had a point, but only ruined it with the Arab Beard part. If the optics were powerful enough, and the Hubble could be turned around, it would make a great spy satellite. However due to the Hubble's age, even if it was a possibility, the hubble would be too prone to failure.

Hmmmm..

[electronmaster]

Shoulda bought the warranty. I'm a camera salesman, I know.

Re:Hmmmm..

[brogdon]

"Our replacement plan covers any manufacturing defect, of course, but you're required to bring the broken item back to the store."

Of course

[Itninja]

"At this point, the ACS is in a safe configuration, and further analysis is ongoing,"

Your computer is currently running in safe mode. Some functions may be unavailable.
Looks like it's time to do a wipe and reinstall the Hubble. It's probably just spyware anyway...

energetic?

[Lord Ender]

Is there such a thing as non-energetic particle bombardment?

Re:energetic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there such a thing as non-energetic particle bombardment?

yeah, how about rain?

That's a big example, though.

Re:energetic?

[0racle]

I believe that would be dust.

Place your bets

[Joebert]

But, before any attempt to reactivate the camera, engineers are cautiously evaluating and isolating the probable cause of this incident in order to avoid any further incident.

That's fancy talk for "Placing bets on what's going to break next".

Re:Place your bets

[TubeSteak]

That's fancy talk for "Placing bets on what's going to break next if they do something stupid".

Fixed that for you.

In a sense, they are placing bets, but whatever course(s) of action has the highest probability of causing failures... they aren't gonna do it.

After all, the engineers have nothing to lose if they spend a month trouble shooting every possible failure scenario.

Re:Place your bets

[Joebert]

Hubble, launched in April 1990, needs new batteries and gyroscopes if it is to keep working beyond next year.

Like I said, Placing bets on what's going to break next.
The thing's cool & all, but nothing can last forever, & jerry-rigging it only works for soo long.

The real reason behind it...

[Zx-man]

...is that ALIENS have STOLEN our camera jamming technology!!

Headlines compared:

[Tablizer]

Another website, USA-Today I think, had a headline that somehow stood out much much quicker. Compare:

Here: "Hubble's Advanced Camera Suspends Operations"

There: "Hubble Blind!"

Now I know why they don't let nerds write ad copy :-)

Re:Headlines compared:

[helioquake]

Now I know why they don't let nerds write ad copy :-)

You know why I didn't choose to use the word "blind"?

Because it still has the WFPC2 Camera. It's old and somewhat busted, but it still works. FGS works, too, if the interferometer tickles your fansy. Does NICMOS still work that well, I wonder?

Re:Headlines compared:

[chawly]

Duly noted,

"FGS works, too, if the interferometer tickles your fansy . Does NICMOS still work that well, I wonder?"

and, while I can resist (but only just) the temptation to ask about having your your fansy tickled by an interferometer , I feel I should console you. I can find no better form of consolation than something that has already appeared in this discussion "Don't worry, we can always fall back on America's lead in grammar and spelling." And ask you to notice that I resisted the temptation to add anything concerning America's lead in pornographic thought.

Re:Headlines compared:

[helioquake]

I'm a lousy at spelling when I'm tired and hurried to write.

oooh-- HUBBLE.

[Anonymous Coward]

At first, I thought it said, "Hubbie's Advanced Camera Suspends perations". I imagined an amateur milf-porn debacle.

I was disappointed.

Have to go back in space

[jessicalandy]

They say they can fix the problem from the ground with back ups but if it was a cosmic event the triggered it to go offline then you can bet they will have to go back up there to replace the parts, since more than likely everything would be fried. They will stall as long as possible before they NASA will request the additional funds to go there since there are several budget meetings being held right now in the Congress and Senate.

I checked the labels

[RedHatChilliPeppers]

Guess what, I used my ultra telescope and checked the parts and its says:
Made in China

Two words: SPACE HELMET

[bullshit detector]

Hubble Computer: Just a moment...just a moment...I've just picked up a fault in the ACS camera unit. It's going to go a hundred percent failure within 72 hours.
NASA: Is it still within operational limits right now?
Hubble Computer: Yes, and it will stay that way until it fails.
NASA: Would you say we have a reliable 72 hours to failure?
Hubble Computer: Yes, that's a completely reliable figure.
NASA: Well, then I suppose we'll have to bring it in, but first I'd like to go over this with Mission Control. Let me have the hard copy on it, please.

Hubble Origins Probe

[bhima]

This would be nearly a non-issue if the powers that be had gotten off their asses and funded and built the Hubble Origins Probe.

This failure is one of many that show that America is loosing the capability of space flight and research.

From their website (http://www.pha.jhu.edu/hop/):

The Hubble Origins Probe (HOP) is a proposed 2.4 meter free flying space telescope.The HOP concept is to replicate the design of the Hubble Space Telescope with a much lighter unaberrated mirror and optical telescope assembly, enabling a rapid path to launch, significant cost savings and risk mitigation. HOP will fly the instruments originally planned for the 4th HST servicing mission as well as a new very wide field imager, enhancing the original science mission of Hubble.

Re:Hubble Origins Probe

[Anonymous Coward]

This failure is one of many that show that America is loosing the capability of space flight and research.

Don't worry, we can always fall back on America's lead in grammar and spelling.

Re:Hubble Origins Probe

[Lactoso]

Dang!! Don't have any mod points, but would like to at least bestow some honorary mod points...

Moderation +1
100% Witty Sarcasm

Yet another conspiracy theory...

[sysconp1]

I wonder if Hubble was shut down because it saw something that it wasn't meant to see? Let me guess they will be successful in getting the backup systems working once whatever that is up there has passed or gone public! Well I said it was a conspiracy theory :-)

Re:Yet another conspiracy theory...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe it is because you're gay?

Don't be idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

That's fancy talk for "Placing bets on what's going to break next".

Don't be idiotic! The original quote obviously means "make sure we thoroughly understand what broke so we don't MAKE ANYTHING WORSE by trying to turn it back on".

That is just sound engineering. You don't "shoot from the hip" and "hope for the best" when its something as important as the Hubble.

Pop quiz: if one of the Mars rovers got stuck against a rock and you thought there was *even a slight* chance that trying to move rover might rip something loose from the rover, would you just go ahead and do it? Or would you study every available piece of data to try and understand the exact situation and risks, and then take the course of action presenting the least risk of damage to the rover?

Same thing here. First they evaluate the data, understand the situation and risks in detail, and then take the course of action least likely to turn Hubble into floating spacejunk.

The REAL story:

[dpbsmith]

Karl Rove had the NSA upload H5N1 virus to it, because it was on the brink of finding scientific proof of global warming, the nonexistence of God, and the morality of same-sex marriage.

Instrument is back on-line now?

[jelle]

Posted this Friday:

"SIGNIFICANT EVENTS:

ACS Transition to Operate1

Ops Request 17802-0 was completed at 173/21:11:12, successfully
transitioning ACS from Suspend to its Operate1 state. In this state,
ACS normal engineering data collection can be observed."

From:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.astro.hubble/br owse_frm/thread/402c960a631ad339

After this message on June 20:

"SIGNIFICANT EVENTS:

The ACS suspended at 170/17:15:25z. An Ops Briefing was held at 6 pm
on June 19,2006.

At 170/17:15:25 the ACS 715 and ACS 707 status buffer (STB) messages
were received indicating the ACS WFC CEB analog signal processing +15
and + 5 volt power supply voltages were out of limits high which
resulted in the ACS suspend. Detailed analysis of the event is
underway with a tiger team meeting planned for Tuesday. "

So, why is no Hubble a crisis?

[Loudog]

Is the Hubble so valuable to the world that it's worth risking the lives of astronauts to fix? Or is it really a PR machine for NASA and a tool for grad students to get a PhD? What's the big deal? Is anything going to happen in the few years it takes to justify, fund, build a launch a new telescope that ground based system can't handle?

Honestly, what's the rush? How did we manage without it?

Was this some kind of cosmic blast?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was this some kind of cosmic blast that blew out the space instruments and blasted waves across the extent of the entire Pacific Ocean?

It seems very odd that the same day the Hubble went off-line
(due to a possible 'strike by cosmic radiation' or a 'memory corruption event due to energetic particle bombardment')
that the global satellite imagery went off-line for the entire day ( at http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/tropic.html )( due to a 'power failure that kept it from retrieving images from its memory')
and massive waves caused by a storm more than 3,000 kilometres away washed away homes, hotels and restaurants along the coastline of Central America. The barrage began Sunday the 18th, and the waves weren't beginning to weaken until Tuesday afternoon.

Heavy surf was pounding the Pacific Coast from Chile to California -
A FREAKISHLY POWERFUL storm far off in the South Pacific propelled huge swells to the Americas, causing a surge of waves that battered homes and beachfront businesses from Peru to Mexico.
Several hundred people were evacuated in at least eight countries.
The waves resulted from a particularly intense low
pressure system several hundred miles off New Zealand that caused
hurricane force winds and rare snowfall at sea level. Masses of water were shoved eastward, creating UNUSUALLY big waves when the swells hit the Americas.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/06/20/ central-america.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/20/ap/world /mainD8IC743G1.shtml

16th year of a 10 year mission

[amightywind]

Gee, too bad the Bush administration cancelled all maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope, dooming it to a slow death.

The Hubble Project site says differently.

Of course this whole science thing is overrated, right? In all honesty though, there simply is not enough money to take care of all of the costs given that the Bush administration wants to send men to Mars to the detriment of many, many science missions at NASA.

Hubble is in the 16th year of a 10 year mission. It replacement, the James Webb Telescope will be launched in 2013. The Hubble mission cannot last forever. I have read that there are 51 active NASA missions total. JPL alone has 11. Planetary science has flourished while US manned launch capability has stagnated. Allowing some active missions to end in the next few years should free up money for exciting new projects like Project Constellation. The Bush Administration deserves credit for reenergising the moribund US manned program.