NASA To Determine Hubble's Fate

clickclickdrone writes "According to the BBC NASA is debating whether or not to send astronauts in to space to service the Hubble telescope. Without intervention it is thought to be good for another 24-36months. Given the quality of images and data it has produced since it's launch, it sounds like a no brainer to me but the people who hold the purse strings are rarely predictable when it comes to spending money."

Comments

Auction Hubble

[Colin Smith]

Sell it off to the highest bidder. Some other space agency may well want to take over the maintenance and running of the telescope. Or maybe Google to grab it turn it round and use it to map the earth down to the smallest pebble.

Re:Auction Hubble

[wanerious]

Perhaps we're pushing this so hard is makework for all of people who have degrees (in this field)?

Surprisingly not. Most astronomers I rub elbows with are not too supportive of the Hubble program. Sure, the pictures and deep field stuff is nice, but with recent advances in adaptive optics, we can build enormous ground-based scopes for much less money that outperform Hubble. And Hubble has diverted hundreds of millions of dollars away from other projects. I'm not a zealot for either side, but the professional astronomical community is certainly not of one mind on this.

Re:Not Only Money

[Ctrl-Z]

Since the US government just signed off on a 700-mile-long fence along the Mexican border with a down payment of $1.2 billion [1], I think it's worth spending that much for a few more years of Hubble. But that's just me.

Replace it...

[ironicsky]

If its going to cost millions/billions to fix hubble we could just replace it with modern technology. Better yet, we could have a H Prize to replace hubble. Let the private sector try to launch their own. I mean, if they can launch a shuttle to space let them do other things. NASA Cant seem to do it for under a billion.

Hubble may simply not be good enough

[lokedhs]

There are ground-based telescopes that produces much better pictures than what Hubble can produce these days. I believe that the choice to abandon it may very well simply be a result of some simple maths. The same scientific results can be had cheaper by using the VLT. Here's an interesting quote from the Wikipedia article:

The VLTs are equipped with a large set of instruments permitting observations to be performed from the near-UV to the mid-IR (ie a large fraction of the light wavelengths accessible from the surface of the Earth), with the full range of techniques including high-resolution spectroscopy, multi-object spectroscopy, imaging, and high-resolution imaging. In particular, the VLT has several Adaptive optics systems, which at infrared wavelengths correct for the effects of the atmospheric turbulence, providing images almost as sharp as if the telescope was in space. In the near-IR, the Adaptive Optics images of the VLT are up to 3 times sharper than those of the HST, and the spectroscopic resolution is many times better than Hubble. The VLTs are noted for their high level of observing efficiency and automation.

Re:Hubble may simply not be good enough

[gerardrj]

Exactly. In the 16 years since it's launch our technology has improved dramatically. We have learned to make super large mirrors, flexible mirrors, and other such improvements to the optical systems. We can now use a laser and either flexible mirrors or computers to remove the distortion of the atmosphere. We've gained the compute power to build arrays of smaller scopes to build a "virtual" telescope orders of magnitude larger than any single reflector in the array.
On top of that we've also sent up other spacecraft, or are building them, that dwarf Hubble's capabilities.

Hubble does have the rather unique ability to stay parked on a single target, continuously, for very long periods of time. No Earth based scope can do that. But again, there are smaller, faster, cheaper craft in service or coming on line soon that will have better imaging and better processing power.

I don't know that Hubble should be repaired and kept operating, but I do think it should be brought back to Earth for placement in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Re:Not Only Money

[Xzzy]

But what if that 1 billion were to end up spent on Hubble's replacement, which would permit a new level of research?

A lot of the "save Hubble" defense seems to be more sentimental than practical. I'm not saying it should be tossed in the bin just because it's old, but it IS old, and technology has advanced tremendously since it was put into orbit. I'm not against being sentimental either, but if the money doesn't exist to maintain two space observatories, I know I'd choose to get an all new one.

Many astronauts have spoken

[wass]

Actually, several astronauts have spoken out in the past few years saying they were willing to go service Hubble again, despite the risks. Ie, they understand the huge scientific output that are at stake should Hubble be shut down. Additionally, the risks aren't greater than previous Hubble servicing missions, it's just that there are problems of which we were blissfully unaware previously.