Slashdot Mirror
The Hubble Lives On
tanman writes "CNN reports that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has agreed to send astronauts on one final mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. No date was reported for the mission, other than before the shuttle fleet is retired. From the article, 'A rehab mission would keep Hubble working until about 2013. It would add two new camera instruments, upgrade aging batteries and stabilizing equipment, add new guidance sensors and repair a light-separating spectrograph. Without a servicing mission, Hubble will likely deteriorate in 2009 or 2010.'"
I hope they get another Hubble Deep Field picture. I'd be happy if NASA just provided us with a bunch of those.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Actually, there is.
I hope the mission goes smoothly and Hubble can continue.
liqbase
With USA abandoning the Hubble and ISS, theres not much to be done in space. The Hubble at least should stay and take pictures, if nothing else. The pictures will motivate politicians and voters to pay for bigger projects.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
I'm sure the smart folks at NASA know what they are doing, and they actually know what programs are scheduled... If they need to fix Hubble to bridge the gap then let us get it done.
www.jmagar.com
-
I am very happy that they've decided to launch one final Hubble servicing mission. This will allow the HST to operate until the James Webb Space Telescope is launched in 2013.
From the article:
"The shuttle mission will likely be in early 2008."
Now that's not exactly a launch date but I would say it is better then "No date was reported for the mission, other than before the shuttle fleet is retired."
Support for Hubble SP1 has expired. Please upgrade to Hubble SP2.
I hate the term 'Sig'.
Awesome. I grew up in love with the idea of the Hubble. A remote optical platform from which to shoot insanely high-quality and far-reaching deep space photos is a powerful tool we should not let to waste.
The willingness to keep the Hubble alive in the midst of so much strife in the world today has made me feel just a little bit better about today.
Informatus Technologicus
A rehab mission would keep Hubble working until about 2013. It would add two new camera instruments, upgrade aging batteries and stabilizing equipment
Part of the challenge is ensuring that the telescope will burn up on re-entry at the end of its working life. This will be solved by sole-sourcing the battery upgrade from Sony.
Manned spaceflight would never have gotten off the ground if NASA had exhibited such risk averse behavior almost 50 years ago.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The cost of a shuttle mission, from Wikipedia.
is between $60M and $1.5B.. let the debate ensue. Not to be rude, but I'm ignoring the slight potential for human loss.
So many more people die in Iraq or Alaskan Crab Fishing or.. well.. you get the point.
I'm sure there will be other missions and shuttle maintenance and general program costs in 2007 whether we fix the Hubble or not. So, it's logical to factor the cost of this mission kind of inversely, thinking rather, how much will we save if we do not repair the Hubble? Probably not a whole $1.3B estimated one way in the link above, much less.
Regardless of how you intemperate the numbers, I think this is a good idea because:
The Hubble works, and we have experience servicing and fixing it, so it's much more likely that all of this will go smoothly.
We can get this done soon, whereas development of a another new telescope will undoubtedly take many times longer.
The Hubble is very meaningful. It's still returning good science and inspirational pictures.
It's functioning keeps a quite few scientists employed, and that's a good thing.
It's good press. NASA needs to flourish. I think the "new NASA" is just starting to hit it's stride, despite an
otherwise depressed national consciousness. We've had lots of enormously meaningful and successful unmanned missions lately, so yay NASA.
the Charismatic Megafauna problem would affect NASA?
Since Hubble's replacement is already under construction, and since ground based scopes like Keck exceed Hubble's capabilities, what is the benefit of dropping hundreds of millions of dollars repairing it?
Clear, Dark Skies
Instead of fixing Hibble maybe they should increase the resolution of the CCD's that are going up with the next mission. Cause those CCD's were designed in the late 90's (1 megapixel and 4 megapixel resolition).
Of course ideally we'd have the money for both.
Then again, the Mars Rover duo was only intended to last 9 months - how long do you think Hubble will pull through?
I wonder if the "injured" Mars Rover will continue to "live" come spring on Mars - once the sun comes out and its solar panels activate.
Haven't you noticed that NASA funding has got little smaller during last few years? And shuttle problems were not the only factor to blame. Think Iraq. Do you have any idea how much that war costs? Somebody needs to pay, and the most vulnerable one will. Education, as always. Even when Bush is making big promises about conquring space and such, space will belong to Chinese. They're trying to catch West, and undoubtly will do it soon. And with their economy and, more important, political system it's more posibble.
States should just give Hubble to somebody who wants to pay for it and just go with their world war business.
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
NASA is going to take some risks and put people in space again to work for the advancement of science. I understand space travel, even to orbit, is expensive and not without risk, but so do the men and women who work so hard to get into space and the crews who work to get them there.
Given budgets and political priorities after the shuttle fleet is retired their may not be another NASA manned vehicle for 20 or 25 years. I am glad to see every useful launch between now and the end of the shuttle program.
So, as risk mitigation in case the orbiter is damaged during this mission and cannot safely return to earth, NASA will have another shuttle ready to launch and go get the astronauts. Can you imagine transferring from one shuttle to another while in orbit? I'm guessing they would try an autonomous landing, now that they can deploy the landing gear remotely (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=4582) .
FTA "....upgrade aging batteries..."
I certainly hope they are not sony or dell batteries!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
then strap a scope onto the ISS.
Clear, Dark Skies
I smell something fishy. My guess is that the batteries were manufactured by Sony and this is the real reason for the mission to repair. This will officially be the longest distance battery recall in history.
There would be a five year gap between the projected death of Hubble and the operation of the the New Space Telescope. And we know how Murphey's law complicates the situation.
The nominal operation life was 90 days. Its now over a thousand. NASA often decides to kill projects when the cost exceeds the benefits and not when the spacecraft stops working. The next rover lands May 2008, so that could be the cutoff.
50 years ago we were fighting for dominance over the russians. Now we are just exploring space. Human lives can be lost in the fight for dominance over another country (see: war) but for the peaceful pursuit of space? Politicians and the general public say no.
There are a few important things about the servicing mission. First of all, almost all of the parts are just sitting in a warehouse at the moment waiting to fly. The whole question about the servicing mission isn't a question of money, it's a question of whether the mission can be done safely without losing another shuttle.
As an astronomer, I can tell you that HST can do things that no other telescope can do. The Keck telescopes are bigger (frankly, there are lots of telescopes bigger, including the new 11m SALT telescope) and bigger telescopes can do spectroscopy faster (in some cases). But there is no ground-based telescope which can come close to HST in image quality... the atmosphere is just too tricky of a thing to look through. Plus, adaptive optics systems on the ground are really only effective in the near-IR and you can just give up on doing any UV work from the ground.
The "Hubble replacement" JWST that's going to launch next decade isn't really a Hubble replacement either. It's highly optimized to do infrared work and will have basically no optical capabilities. It'll definitely produce pretty pictures, but they're not going to be pictures of things you could see with your eyes and I think that's going to make it less powerful to the public.
Basically, if this servicing mission weren't to go forward, it would mean a pause in some of the most ground-breaking astronomical research for 5-10 years.
The astronauts. The reason they have the backup shuttle ready to go is so that in the event that the shuttle servicing Hubble undergoes irreparable damage during the mission and would not be able to safetly re-enter the atmosphere, the other shuttle can be launched to pick up its crew.
At which point the original shuttle would most likely be lost. The astronauts would be safe, though, which is the point.
Manned spaceflight would never have gotten off the ground if NASA had exhibited such risk averse behavior almost 50 years ago.
From TFA:
There's nothing wrong or overly "risk averse" to having a backup plan to rescue astronauts in case something goes wrong. Knowing and understanding risks and having plans to account for them is a good thing, and I think the astronauts appreciate it despite, as you can see from the quote, still having the explorer's attitude that made the space programe great in the 50's and 60's.
Plus they do have to consider the politics -- space exploration is always a favorite target for those seeking to cut budgets, and is seen as unnecessary by a large number of people. Losing another shuttle crew, aside from being a disaster worth avoiding, would be just the impetus needed for Congresscritters to scrap not just Shuttle but manned exploration. So they need to be extra dilligent in avoiding failures. I think having a backup shuttle to launch in case of an emergency is a perfect way to mitigate risk, both physical and political.
I would only be dissapointed in how risk averse NASA had become if they had decided against a Hubble mission on the basis of it being too risky.
The enemies of Democracy are
One of my dance partners works fairly high up in NASA, and he said that this morning's announcement is actually telegraphing NASA's intention to cancel the Webb space telescope. Its funding is expected to go instead to the Mars missions... indeed, Mars is going to suck up the funding of practically everything else.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
This is why we're in space. It's not to "fully exploit space" and, as such must "control it." We've learned a lot in very recent history. Since I was a child, the robotic missions to the far reaches of the solar system have taken us from very primitive knowledge to a better understanding of the nature of the universe and all the cool stuff out there. NASA being used to push political rhetoric gets in the way. This is a good development.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
A decision had been made [early on], because of what was an expected lifetime for these vehicles [90 days guaranteed] that we would represent the data that was received and plans created using 3 digits," Matijevic expounded. "Obviously, that's not going to work when we hit Sol 1K. Recognizing that we were going to survive that long meant coming up with a modification of all the scripts that we use routinely here on the ground to process the data and the plans in order to adapt them to a 4-digit sol number. That meant coming up with the mechanism by which we could do that, but also testing environment so that we could verify the tools could work and make sure that we caught all the problems that might arise because of this."
Jeebus, even rocket scientists are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Remember this my developer compatriates lest we forget.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
BS. First of all, there are no Mars missions on the books of the scope of JWST. By far the biggest, the Mars Surface Laboratory is projected to come in around $1 billion. JWST is a roughly $4 billion project. The plans for Mars are fairly well established through 2013, and there's nothing in there that doesn't already have it's own money. In fact, the only candidate of similar scale is the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, which has already been postponed indefinitely (read "cancelled").
Second, if you thought the astronomers raised a fuss when O'Keefe originally cancelled the Hubble servicing mission, you literally have seen nothing yet. Researchers seem to be almost unanimously agreed that however much they value the Hubble, they'll shoot it down themselves if it threatens to steal one penny from the JWST. There's plenty left that Hubble can explore, but it's biggest discoveries are probably done. To go deeper, they need JWST.
Third, JWST is already deep into the design phase and some parts are already being made, such as the sunshade and spacecraft frame. If Griffin drops the JWST now, all that cost and effort is wasted.
But perhaps you were thinking of the Moon program? Basically the same story as Mars. The Orion CEV and the Ares I are scheduled to be completed by 2012. The LSM and Ares V development will commence in earnest somewhere around that time and fly by 2018. All this is budgeted, too, mostly from money freed up by the shuttle program. If they even tried to sneak money away from the science budget to support this, they're going to face the wrath of astronomers around the world.
sounds like a pleonasm.
Another service mission will only get us from 2009 to 2013? That seems like an awfully short life extension compared to the expense and risk of a manned flight. Is this really the best they can do?
Maybe the plan is to use those exploding Dell Batteries to make it a 12 ton fireworks show!
Is there any reason that a big telescope couldn't be attached to the ISS? I would think it would be very convenient then. If it needed minor maintinece there would be someone close by.
Is it an orbit thing? Is ISS not far enough out?
MG
Randomly distributing Karma whenever possible.
No, I haven't. Looks like it has grown slightly since 2000. Thanks President Bush!
Last I saw the Chinese were grovelling to collaborate with the US in manned space flight and were spurned.
an ill wind that blows no good
NASA: "This is the LAST TIME I'm gonna fix you!"
Hubble: "OK honey I promise I won't absorb any more gamma radiation!"
NASA and Hubble. Clearly codependent.
It seems like a small price to pay to extend the life of something that has performed admireably through the years. Thanks, NASA for all the startling photographs taken in deep space and the ones to come.
All of that for only three more years why not just put up another one and save the cash.
The images from Hubble have captured the public's imagination for years. I'm glad that NASA found a way to keep Hubble around a little bit longer.
1) Apparently you aren't considering the use of multiple scopes to get far, far higher resolution from groups of ground based scopes - like Keck - than you can get from Hubble's small mirror. There's reason Hubble isn't being used to look for extrasolar planets.
2) Yes Webb works in a different band. Sorry, you won't get pictures as pretty. But you *will* get a much larger light gathering system than Hubble has, and you will get long term access to a band of light that... how did you put it? "Doesn't penetrate Earth's atmosphere". Here's a hint. Visible light is the least useful of Hubble's cameras, because visible light penetrates the atmosphere.
Repairing Hubble is a PR mission to make APOD subscribers happy, nothing more.
Clear, Dark Skies
You could build two more Kecks, and faster.
Meanwhile, repairs to Hubble take years of advance planning. Great for emergencies.
Clear, Dark Skies
And all things I am aware of, you can't spend any time at a telescope without being aware of light pollution - whether natural or not.
But Hubble has similar problems - or did you think that Hubble hides in the Earth's shadow 24 hours per day? Long duration observations must be very carefully planned to avoid letting Hubble point even generally towards the sun; and moon glow and even earth glow are issues.
Clear, Dark Skies
That's all true - but Hubble is optimized for visible light; it has some near-infrared and near-uv capabilities, but NASA uses other space-based telescopes for the more exotic frequencies; Chandra for X-Rays, COBE for microwaves, Spitzer for infrared, Compton, etc..
Don't get me wrong - space-based scopes are a great idea; but obsessing over Hubble instead of focusing on how to create something even better is pointless. As others have mentioned, for the price of a Hubble repair mission, you could create a truly monstrous array of telescopes on earth.
Clear, Dark Skies
I know the orbit of ISS, thanks.
If you had followed the thread you would have noticed that I was replying to someone who said the only point of repairing Hubble was to give manned missions something to do. In other words, a PR campaign, not science.
Clear, Dark Skies
If we put something even modestly larger than Hubble in space it would still be better than Keck for imaging.
Which is why we should be working on replacing Hubble instead of fixing it.
Can you imagine if we could put a scope in each of the Lagrange points and used interferometry to combine the images?
Clear, Dark Skies
We don't need a better visible-light space telescope, which is why Spitzer, WISE and James Webb are all infrared scopes - infrared is the band that is least able to penetrate our atmosphere.
Now, if we put an array of space-based visible-light telescopes up, we could use them to "virtual lenses" thousands of kilometers in size; I'm off the edge of my math here, but I believe such an array would let you see surface features on planets in other solar systems.
Clear, Dark Skies
My "argument" is that money spent on Hubble is better spent on other, newer telescopes. How does pointing out that Webb will be able to do work that ground based scopes can't, and will have greater light gathering power than Hubble, "refute" that?
I suggest you rethink the rest of your replies as well, since you obviously never got that.
Clear, Dark Skies
how much will it cost to service hubble? will it be cheaper to just create an equivalent telescope and launch it? or create a better scope and launch it?
just realized the practicality of keeping something so old might leave us out of something new.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
The only point in the whole mission where a single engine failure was fatal were the few seconds just before landing on the moon.
If the Service Module's engine failed while in lunar orbit, there would be no way to break out of lunar orbit and head back to earth.
Bob