I supported the HST project for 18 mos back in the early 80's. Originally, Hubble was designed to be returned for servicing and relaunched. Some of the on-orbit replacements have been nothing less than amazing, given that the equipment was not necessarily designed for in-situ replacement.
I agree, foresight would make the case for modularity. But remember this was back when they thought the shuttle would fly far more often, and cheaply, and that satellites would be recovered and routinely 'shuttled' around.
I agree. I worked on the HST project back in the early 1980's. We sat through the Challenger freeze on launches, the imperfect mirror discovery after launch, and the servicing mission to restore Hubble. It has been a wonderful science platform for a long time. It merits, if the astronauts are willing to return it, a place of honor to inspire future generations. And the idea to deorbit and destroy long before any successor craft is launched (note the the Webb is put in an unreachable synchronous orbit - if it is defective, we can not fix it once launched) is very shortsighed.
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I supported the HST project for 18 mos back in the early 80's. Originally, Hubble was designed to be returned for servicing and relaunched. Some of the on-orbit replacements have been nothing less than amazing, given that the equipment was not necessarily designed for in-situ replacement. I agree, foresight would make the case for modularity. But remember this was back when they thought the shuttle would fly far more often, and cheaply, and that satellites would be recovered and routinely 'shuttled' around.
I agree. I worked on the HST project back in the early 1980's. We sat through the Challenger freeze on launches, the imperfect mirror discovery after launch, and the servicing mission to restore Hubble. It has been a wonderful science platform for a long time. It merits, if the astronauts are willing to return it, a place of honor to inspire future generations. And the idea to deorbit and destroy long before any successor craft is launched (note the the Webb is put in an unreachable synchronous orbit - if it is defective, we can not fix it once launched) is very shortsighed.