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Hubble Camera Shuts Down
Maggie McKee writes "Hubble's main camera is offline again, but the problem does not appear to be with its power supply, like it was this summer. This time, the issue seems to be the electronics on the sharpest of its three camera-like channels, the High Resolution Channel. NASA says the worst-case scenario is that the ACS could lose half the channel's field of view, so it would take longer to observe its targets. If the problems are truly unrelated, it's been an especially unlucky few months for this instrument!"
Main screen turn on.
Maybe the camera got smacked by a lost bolt from the International Space Station?
Why blame anyone when leading edge technology has a problem? It happens. The Russian's deserve our hats off to them for their dependable rides to the ISS. The US deserves a hat tip for the brilliant images brought to us of space, from space. Though different, it is all high tech and subject to the problems that always happen when we're pushing the envelope. I just don't see how we would blast the Russians anymore than we would blast the US, if the US has a failure in one of their most publicized systems.
When you do though, ask a simple reality check question. With shuttle trips running on the order of a billion dollars these days, what will generate more actual scientific data? Squander those kind of funds on a rocket ride to fix the aging hubble, or, invest half of it in modern ground based observing infrastructure, then take the other half and feed it into the scientific welfare system known as grants over a period of 20 years.
Hubble is and has been an amazing scientific instrument. While I do love the idea of sending people into space, I feel more and more that the money is far better spent on unmanned missions, including satellites like Hubble. Instead of figuring out how to send humans to Mars (and back to the moon), pour 25% of that budget into Hubble II and Hubble III (or whatever you'd want to call them) and the rest into unmanned probes/missions to Mars. It just feels to me like money well spent. Build two or three identical satellites. Yea, that's expensive, but if one goes south, you figure out why, fix it in the one sitting on the ground (if it's something that can be fixed/improved) and fire it up into orbit.
The Mars rovers and Hubble have been absolute bargains as far as new knowledge gained. That seems like the right model to follow.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
I don't think that would be feasible. The shuttle can't just zip around to multiple different orbital rendezvous over the course of a single mission. I haven't been able to find any info, but I'm doubting very much that Hubble and the ISS are even remotely "on the way" to each other. Not to mention that the shuttle will be using much of its payload capacity to build the station and burning some of its limited orbital-manuevering fuel to correct the ISS's orbit. There's probably not enough room or enough in the tanks. (Hubble needs orbit correction too, as well as new gyroscopes in addition to this recent camera failure--no telling what that'll entail.) Even if they're close in orbital rendezvous terms, the shuttle would still probably have to fly a dedicated mission to fix hubble. Not gonna happen.