Re:Yeah vs Huh? (Score:1)
by JayBat (617968) on Saturday April 30, @06:51PM (#12394452)
We would develop a lot more technology and knowhow by doing the repair robotically,
I agree, except that Hubble is not likely to survive long enough to fund/design/build a robotic repair mission (not to mention the practice robotic missions that would precede the actual repair if the thing is done properly).
Well most of the money has already been spent, the robotics have already been designed and partially built, and the entire mission has been practiced several times over on the Hubble mockup facility at Goddard.
This decision is entirely political - they need a high publicity stunt to show the shuttle is still useful.
This is gotta be candidate for worst decision ever.
We would develop a lot more technology and knowhow by doing the repair robotically, and it would be cheaper as well.
The next telescopes on the drawing board are all at L2 LaGrangian. They HAVE to be assembed robotically, so we might as well develop the technology on a target close to Earth.
That way we know how to do it when the more difficult tasks come up.
Sitting down in a tin can, with several gallons of highliy flammable liquid, hurtling down a concrete strip, in close proximity with other, similarly configured tin cans is supposed to be dangerous, too.
Yet, we do it every day - it's called commute on a motorway...
Yes and in the US (this data is from 2001) there were 37,795 fatalities on the roads due to crashes. There were 16.35 million crashes that year, which gives and average of 2.6 crashes per Km of roadway in the US, and one fatality for every 168Km of roadway.
Driving a car is dangerous, and if these statistics were posted for any other type of transportation (trains, airplanes, space shuttles) they would be immediatly banned from use.
I loved OS/2. There were a lot of things that I could do with it that would wow (or really annoy) the windows zealots of the time (in addition to the advertized better windows than windows and better dos than dos). I'm not even sure windows could do some of these things now:
- I set up my CD burner as an ftp-able directory. I once got several people to ftp to this drive simultaneously over a lan and OS/2 NEVER corrupted the CD. The machine was a PII 450 as well.
- While downloading over the modem on my laptop, I could plug in the lan, then hangup the modem. The download would momentarily stop while the machine grabbed a new IP but would then happily resume.
- On my P100 Thinkpad I could play full screen MPEG videos at full frame rates without any jitter.
- And my favourite - I can strip down OS/2 to just the kernel and networking to have a highly deterministic embedded operating system. Everything needed for the OS and IP support would fit on a single floppy (great for SBCs). Under Embedded XP I havent yet found a way to get the base OS and TCP/IP stack without forcing me to have graphics also. This boosts the footprint into the 10s of Megs (can anyone help with this??)
At the time, it was the most advanced telescope. Now it's just collecting dust and getting us some pretty pictures (which can be collected from observatories on Earth with modern corrective technology to compensate for atmospheric interference).
I have no idea where people get this impression but is completely incorrect.
No telescope in existence can take the images that Hubble can simply because the atmosphere is opaque to most wavelengths that are of interest to astronomers. Also to image really faint objects your surroundings have to be really dark. It just doesn't get that dark here on Earth. Check this out for more information: http://www.oarval.org/HUDFen.htm
If there was a comparable telescope in existance, or one ready to be launched in the near future then I'd agree with you, but there isn't.
Well you already have the cost of designing a deorbit module and the associated launch costs. If you want a controlled Hubble deorbit then you have to do this. It would likely cost about $400 to $600 million.
Now if you wanted to add servicing, and delay the deorbit as long as possible, you need a robot and a servicing module. The robot to do this costs only $150 million. If you used the electronics (communications , navigation) capabilities of the deorbit module you are building anyway, then the remaining structure is relatively simple and would add maybe $100 million more. The replacement parts for Hubble, a wide field camera, gyroscopes, batteries, already exist and are paid for since they were supposed to go up on an earlier shuttle flight.
Not necessarily. The original plan for Hubble was to have two modules : a de-orbit module and a servicing module. This servicing module would contain the servicer robot and the spare parts, boost the Hubble as its last servicing act then break away and control de-orbit itself. The de-orbit module would be left on Hubble for a future de-orbit once Hubbles life was over.
Everything you said is correct except Hubble has no engines to fire - it has no thrusters. It depends on boosts from the Shuttle to keep it from deorbiting just like the space station does.
Hubble is so high up that it would take years for atmospheric drag to cause a de-orbit. To cause a controlled de-orbit means flying up and attaching a thruster. Since they had (still have) to do this anyway, trying to repair it wasn't that much more expensive.
Maybe instead of sending up a deorbit module, we could send Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Jesse Helms up instead. The resultant mind boggling amount of illogic and sheer bullshit should be enough to destroy practically anything.
Until it works and is demonstrably proven, it is science fiction yes. Doesn't mean I don't think the concept will work.
However you are right about solar sails working in low earth orbit. However given that Hubble weighs over 11 tonnes, I doubt the solar sail would overcome atmospheric drag let alone get it anywhere else.
It's not obsolete. Besides that why they were going with a robotic mission - one where the test robot has already performed every required operation flawlessly using a full size Hubble mockup on the ground.
Simply because solar sails are purely science fiction right now.
Besides if they did actually build one it wouldn't work in low earth orbit where Hubble is because the Earth's magnetosphere deflects the solar particles away from Earth. You have to get pretty far out to get away from this effect.
Up in space theres this thing called gravity which makes it slightly difficult to break from orbit in the "up" direction and it takes quite a bit of fuel (however "down" is very easy.)
Actually this is a very common misconception.
Any satellite in a stable orbit is in freefall and expending none of its own energy to stay in that state. To change orbits, either up OR down requires a change in velocity, and that change in velocity requires fuel. So up is just as difficult as down energy wise.
The only free ride you get in the down direction is when you get low enough so that atmospheric drag begins to slow you down.
That's such an abuse of the word 'truly'. How can something fake be true? Even if it's a live shot with a webcam creating the transparency effect, it's just just an effect and not TRUE transparency.
Right on dude! Glad someone is pointing out these blatant distortions of the English language.
Another one is 'remote control'. How can they call it a remote control when THE DEVICE IS RIGHT THERE IN YOUR HAND!! If it was truly a remote control it should be able to be on the other side of the room when you use it.
Really? So Chicago the city now encompasses the entire major populated area of Illinois? Wow.
Well with that logic, Toronto also encompasses the major populated areas of southern Ontario around lake Ontario from Niagara Falls to say Whitby (approximately the same area you specify). This population is probably about 7 million.
While I don't mean to be a prick, I have to disagree with you on the issue of most people having done drugs. Out of my peers, none of us have done illegal drugs once. Now, I am in a religiously conservative area, but to say that most is flat wrong. It may be according to your world view, but for most I would say they haven't.
I'd say almost everyone I know has done soft drugs (pot, hash) at one point or another in their lives. Most have just tried it once, some still use it occasionally.
Maybe it is the relaxed Canadian attitude towards soft drugs, but yeah, I'd say most is probably accurate.
Or the lie that the current president ever said either of those things.
"No new taxes" was the promise of the other President Bush
Never said it was this president that said that. Yes you are right it was the other Bush.
Saddam is linked to al Quida. Several of his top people were also high-ranking members of al Quida. That much has been established beyond debate, and that's the only claim "Shrub" ever made regarding the connection.
See? You just proved my point. People hear stuff that is totally fabricated enough and they start to believe it.
Obviously you know a lot about repeating lies, as you seem to be a practitioner of the method yourself.
That was an uncalled for personal attack. What exactly did I lie about?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a Christian and I also believe in evolution. I honestly don't see a conflict in these two beliefs.
What kind of freaking nutbar are you? That made the kind of sense thats not.
I guess you did.
The Russians have been doing this for years with their Soyuz and Progress vehicles.
The Americans will demonstrate autonomous rendezvous and docking this summer on the XSS-11 microsatellite.
Well most of the money has already been spent, the robotics have already been designed and partially built, and the entire mission has been practiced several times over on the Hubble mockup facility at Goddard.
This decision is entirely political - they need a high publicity stunt to show the shuttle is still useful.
This is gotta be candidate for worst decision ever.
We would develop a lot more technology and knowhow by doing the repair robotically, and it would be cheaper as well.
The next telescopes on the drawing board are all at L2 LaGrangian. They HAVE to be assembed robotically, so we might as well develop the technology on a target close to Earth. That way we know how to do it when the more difficult tasks come up.
Yes and in the US (this data is from 2001) there were 37,795 fatalities on the roads due to crashes. There were 16.35 million crashes that year, which gives and average of 2.6 crashes per Km of roadway in the US, and one fatality for every 168Km of roadway.
Driving a car is dangerous, and if these statistics were posted for any other type of transportation (trains, airplanes, space shuttles) they would be immediatly banned from use.
Uhh ... Russians Communist? Sorry to hear about your 20 year coma. Welcome to the 21st century.
I loved OS/2. There were a lot of things that I could do with it that would wow (or really annoy) the windows zealots of the time (in addition to the advertized better windows than windows and better dos than dos). I'm not even sure windows could do some of these things now:
- I set up my CD burner as an ftp-able directory. I once got several people to ftp to this drive simultaneously over a lan and OS/2 NEVER corrupted the CD. The machine was a PII 450 as well.
- While downloading over the modem on my laptop, I could plug in the lan, then hangup the modem. The download would momentarily stop while the machine grabbed a new IP but would then happily resume.
- On my P100 Thinkpad I could play full screen MPEG videos at full frame rates without any jitter.
- And my favourite - I can strip down OS/2 to just the kernel and networking to have a highly deterministic embedded operating system. Everything needed for the OS and IP support would fit on a single floppy (great for SBCs). Under Embedded XP I havent yet found a way to get the base OS and TCP/IP stack without forcing me to have graphics also. This boosts the footprint into the 10s of Megs (can anyone help with this??)
No terrorists have ever entered the US from Canada! That was completely fabricated!
I have no idea where people get this impression but is completely incorrect.
No telescope in existence can take the images that Hubble can simply because the atmosphere is opaque to most wavelengths that are of interest to astronomers. Also to image really faint objects your surroundings have to be really dark. It just doesn't get that dark here on Earth. Check this out for more information: http://www.oarval.org/HUDFen.htm
If there was a comparable telescope in existance, or one ready to be launched in the near future then I'd agree with you, but there isn't.
Well you already have the cost of designing a deorbit module and the associated launch costs. If you want a controlled Hubble deorbit then you have to do this. It would likely cost about $400 to $600 million.
Now if you wanted to add servicing, and delay the deorbit as long as possible, you need a robot and a servicing module. The robot to do this costs only $150 million. If you used the electronics (communications , navigation) capabilities of the deorbit module you are building anyway, then the remaining structure is relatively simple and would add maybe $100 million more. The replacement parts for Hubble, a wide field camera, gyroscopes, batteries, already exist and are paid for since they were supposed to go up on an earlier shuttle flight.
Not necessarily. The original plan for Hubble was to have two modules : a de-orbit module and a servicing module. This servicing module would contain the servicer robot and the spare parts, boost the Hubble as its last servicing act then break away and control de-orbit itself. The de-orbit module would be left on Hubble for a future de-orbit once Hubbles life was over.
My point was changing the orbit in any direction takes energy, not just to a higher orbit.
Everything you said is correct except Hubble has no engines to fire - it has no thrusters. It depends on boosts from the Shuttle to keep it from deorbiting just like the space station does.
Hubble is so high up that it would take years for atmospheric drag to cause a de-orbit. To cause a controlled de-orbit means flying up and attaching a thruster. Since they had (still have) to do this anyway, trying to repair it wasn't that much more expensive.
That was beautiful.
Maybe instead of sending up a deorbit module, we could send Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Jesse Helms up instead. The resultant mind boggling amount of illogic and sheer bullshit should be enough to destroy practically anything.
Until it works and is demonstrably proven, it is science fiction yes. Doesn't mean I don't think the concept will work.
However you are right about solar sails working in low earth orbit. However given that Hubble weighs over 11 tonnes, I doubt the solar sail would overcome atmospheric drag let alone get it anywhere else.
Oh yes, because keeping the most advanced telescope ever built operational is SO much like running a videogame on a PC.
Give your head a shake and join the rest of us in reality.
It's not obsolete. Besides that why they were going with a robotic mission - one where the test robot has already performed every required operation flawlessly using a full size Hubble mockup on the ground.
Simply because solar sails are purely science fiction right now.
Besides if they did actually build one it wouldn't work in low earth orbit where Hubble is because the Earth's magnetosphere deflects the solar particles away from Earth. You have to get pretty far out to get away from this effect.
Actually this is a very common misconception.
Any satellite in a stable orbit is in freefall and expending none of its own energy to stay in that state. To change orbits, either up OR down requires a change in velocity, and that change in velocity requires fuel. So up is just as difficult as down energy wise.
The only free ride you get in the down direction is when you get low enough so that atmospheric drag begins to slow you down.
Right on dude! Glad someone is pointing out these blatant distortions of the English language.
Another one is 'remote control'. How can they call it a remote control when THE DEVICE IS RIGHT THERE IN YOUR HAND!! If it was truly a remote control it should be able to be on the other side of the room when you use it.
Fight the deception!
Really? So Chicago the city now encompasses the entire major populated area of Illinois? Wow.
Well with that logic, Toronto also encompasses the major populated areas of southern Ontario around lake Ontario from Niagara Falls to say Whitby (approximately the same area you specify). This population is probably about 7 million.
No Toronto and Chicago seem pretty similar:
Toronto the city has a population of 2.48 million people, and there are 5 million in the greater Toronto area (cities touching Toronto).http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/toronto_fac ts/diversity.htm
Chicago has 2.9 million people in the city and 5.4 million in the county.http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/chifact s.html
Why do you say Chicago has 1 million more people ?
I'd say almost everyone I know has done soft drugs (pot, hash) at one point or another in their lives. Most have just tried it once, some still use it occasionally.
Maybe it is the relaxed Canadian attitude towards soft drugs, but yeah, I'd say most is probably accurate.