Now that new fuel tanks for the shuttle have been completed why not a manned mission? Will the satellite fail before the next launch scheduled for May or June?
Simple - the robotic system is much cheaper and much safer.
While the robotic system is only $150Mil, the entire mission cost will be over $1 Billion. However the intended repair mission is huge. If you send a shuttle up to do the repair as many suggest, there is so much to do that a manned mission would take longer than the shutle can stay in orbit. So now you are talking TWO billion dollar shuttle flights.
Why not just deorbit the Hubble and replace it? Well Hubble has no deorbit capability - it was designed to be brought back in the shuttle. So a deorbit module has to be attached anyway (part of the robotic mission). This was the extent of the original plan but there was so much outrage that NASA wasn't going to fix Hubble, that they decided on the robotic repair approach. The replacement telescope (James Webb) isn't going to launch until late 2011 - probably later.
Replace batterys, gyros, a few computer modules, Wide Field Camera, COSTAR and a few other things. It's a huge mission.
Pretty much all the operations have been demonstrated with a robot on the ground by MDA which is why they were awarded the contract, so yeah, its possible.
MacDonald Dettwiler (now MDA) is the parent company of the division called MDRobotics that built the Canadarm, Canadarm2, SPDM, and practically every other space robot arm out there.
Just because the parent office of a multidivisional company was not involved doesn't mean you can say that MDA did not build the Canadarm. The fact that it was called Spar at the time the Canadarm was built is irrelevant.
Of course things cost more when NASA does it because the purpose of NASA is to take government money and spread it out to as many other companies as possible. Without this, companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and numerous other aerospace companies big and small would never exist (or be radically different).
This is a method to keep engineers, scientists, average joe workers, and the thousands of other workers that provide related services and materials to them employed. Doing something interesting with that money is completely secondary.
Some other countries choose to give direct subsidies to their high tech companies. Americans seem to frown or this so the government chooses to get NASA to do it indirectly.
Re:There are many others out there.
on
Time Sharing Cars
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· Score: 1
Yes and Autoshare has been around since 1998. They also cost only about $6 Canadian making it about half the price of the two companies in the article.
I agree, however I would argue that no one has implemented a way rather than no one has found a way.
And the oppression of the Chinese people has nothing to do with them being communist. That's simple corruption of power that can happen with any kind of government.
It's not really the wings per se, the whole concept is inefficient.
The shuttle has the worst cost for weight payload lift of all cargo vehicles for the simple fact that you have to also carry all of this life support equipment around. Similar argument for crew only transport.
The only solution that does make sense is separate crew and cargo solutions. Being reusable or not is secondary.
Actually you could easily argue that capitalism is inherently inefficient and wasteful.
Capitalism only functions when people buy products and consume them. The more people buy, the healthier the economy is, therefore most products are made to not last very long. (Don't believe me? Think of what would happen to the automobile industry if every family had a vehicle that lasted forever?).
Since products are essentially made to be disposable, this is by definition wasteful.
It's time we change the way we think about these utilities and start removing some of these outdated regulations.
Currently (here in Canada at least) I can get telephone, cellphone and high speed internet from my cable television supplier, or I can get cellphone, television and high speed internet from my telephone company, or I can even get most of the above through a number of independent smaller companies, usually through a wireless antenna or satellite dish.
With all of these options on equivalent services, these regulations and their outdated definitions no longer make sense.
Really. Why don't people want to take responsibility for their own actions?
I completely agree.
Data recorders simply record what happened in an accident. That's it. People who oppose this technology are just people who think it is their right to drive like complete jackasses instead of obeying the rules of the road.
Drive properly and when you do get in an accident you can count on the other driver's recorder convicting them instead.
Re:He was too fucking old to drive Goddamnit!
on
Spies Riding Shotgun
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· Score: 1
Oh like thats going to stop a drunk from driving. Here in New Mexico you would have to remove their arms and legs to keep them driving without a license. And even that might not be enough.
Well then if they catch him impaired with a suspended licence , they should be able to jail him or confiscate his car. How many cars could he possibly have or afford?
So you'll have no problem with wearing a GPS-equipped anklet at all times so that someone may be able to verify that you were obeying the rules all the time, not just while driving, right?
You are making two invalid assumptions with that comment:
1. You are assuming driving is a right. It is not.
2. You assume people think you are important enough that they care where you go and what you do. They don't.
So if you think it is the other guys fault you want to rip out his recorder so you can use it as evidence. But if it is your fault, you want the right to destroy your own recorder?
Don't you see anything fundamentally wrong with this?
No, I was aware that Bush is hated. I don't claim that this perception is media spin. I'm saying that the world hates bush because of media spin. That is to say, not the US media's spin, but the canadian media's spin.
I have difficulty calling it spin when every non-American media source shares a similar viewpoint.
I don't know why people in Canada care about the result of this election anyway. It's not likely that US foreign policy toward Canada has really changed in the last four years.
Political relations between the U.S. and Canada have changed significantly (for the worse)since Bush took over. Our countries have always had a great relationship, however now Bush refuses to visit Canada despite repeated invites, and he has not asked Canada to visit either. Instead he has banned some Canadian imports and placed illegal tarrifs on others. It is clear he does not like us, so yes Canada does have an interest in this election.
Your other comments correctly show some of our differences but that is not why we do not like Bush. In fact your comments prove my point -you have no idea why the world doesn't like Bush. Maybe it's time you find out the real reason before you make another four-year mistake.
As for the CNN article, you probably shouldn't be surprised that it is paired down, not everyone wants to read the full transcript.
The last thing I want is some media reporter deciding what I should and should not read. If they trimmed it for content that's fine, but say it is trimmed and provide a link to the full unedited transcript.
It is true that each news source has it's own bias, but for the most part they all report the big stories. Just because I don't think the US is turning into a police state doesn't mean I'm uninformed. I just means that I live here and I know what's going on in my own country.
And that's the problem - you only know what is going on in your own country.
For instance did you know that according to a recent poll if Bush and Kerry were running in Canada, 90% of Canadians would vote for Kerry? Or in London, Bush was voted "Movie Villain of the Year" for his screen role in 9/11 (beating out Doctor Octopus, Leatherface and Gollum among others).
These are Americas allies, yet they can't stand Bush-they see him as dangerous. This is not media spin or the result of influence by the Democrats as the Republican party would have you believe. This is how the world feels. (Actually if your friends and allies feel this way imagine how the rest of the world feels).
Most Americans cannot understand this attitude because American media only portrays one side. Read some foreign media sources and learn the truth for yourself.
Ummm . . . I read that quote on CNN, which is a US news agency, so I think this is probably a really bad example of media self-censorship.
I read the CNN article too, and it is nowhere sear the full transcript. How do I know? Because I also read the NYTimes, Canadian and British newspapers, and of course Slashdot.
And for your information there a lot of US citizens exercising their right to free speech every day so don't get all self righteous and claim that there's no freedom in the US..
I did not claim you had no freedom in the US. I said you were in danger of losing it.
Do you honestly think that the patriot act has permanently suspended all of out rights? This is absurd, all it really does is give law enforcement agencies more power to act on minimal intelligence. Do you think that's unreasonable? You should ask all those morons who said that Bush didn't do enough to stop terrorists before 9/11.
I never mentioned the Patriot act. Geez, its not hard to tell you are a republican.
Don't like the Department of Homeland Security? Maybe you should find out what it is before you judge it.
Again never mentioned it. My only experience with the Department of Homeland Security was when my friends dad (who's Indian) put up a for sale sign on the contents of his apartment in Chicago (he was moving back to Canada). An FBI agent showed up to the sale and asked him who be was, where he worked, what he was doing, why he was leaving... I guess because he was non-white (the agent thought he was Pakistani) he was automatically suspicious.
People should learn the facts before assuming the worst.
And people should not blindly follow someone just because he is their president.
Being outside of the US, I can see how the US media has become more and more censored over the years. Anything critical of US foreign policy or the government gets toned down or completely censored out. I visit the US frequently and if all I read was the US media, I would be as clueless as you. Read other countries newspapers, as many as you can, so you can find out what is really going on.
Re:Yeah... Listen to the gov't run media outlets!
on
What's Going On in Canada?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually they are government funded, but not government run. There is a big difference.
News agencies have to be funded by something and having them funded by the advertising revenue of corporations ( and therefore policy set by corporations that threaten to remove their funding if they don't like something) is much more dangerous an my opinion than being government funded.
This is not even close to the full transcript. The full transcript contains a lot of taunting of the ineptitude of George Bush, in that after the president was informed of the attacks he chose to do nothing and keep listening to the story of the goat.
Here's a direct quote of Bin Laden speech(translated): "He thought listening to a child about her goat.. was more important"
I find the American news media tends to self(?) sensor a lot lately, especially when the content is politically motivated. Try Canadian (CBC) or British (BBC) for the true story. If the US citizens don't start insiting on their rights of free speech, they are going to lose them without even realizing it.
Last time I was at the San Diego Aerospace museum, the shuttle model had an American flag on the robotic arm. I bet most Americans have no idea that arm is Canadian.
Slashdot Mirror
They're already working on a replacement, it's called the James Webb telescope.
It's estimated to cost 1.5 Billion, and that doesn't include launch costs. Launch is expected to occur in 2011.
Simple - the robotic system is much cheaper and much safer.
While the robotic system is only $150Mil, the entire mission cost will be over $1 Billion. However the intended repair mission is huge. If you send a shuttle up to do the repair as many suggest, there is so much to do that a manned mission would take longer than the shutle can stay in orbit. So now you are talking TWO billion dollar shuttle flights.
Why not just deorbit the Hubble and replace it? Well Hubble has no deorbit capability - it was designed to be brought back in the shuttle. So a deorbit module has to be attached anyway (part of the robotic mission). This was the extent of the original plan but there was so much outrage that NASA wasn't going to fix Hubble, that they decided on the robotic repair approach. The replacement telescope (James Webb) isn't going to launch until late 2011 - probably later.
Replace batterys, gyros, a few computer modules, Wide Field Camera, COSTAR and a few other things. It's a huge mission.
Pretty much all the operations have been demonstrated with a robot on the ground by MDA which is why they were awarded the contract, so yeah, its possible.
What the heck are you talking about??
MacDonald Dettwiler (now MDA) is the parent company of the division called MDRobotics that built the Canadarm, Canadarm2, SPDM, and practically every other space robot arm out there.
Just because the parent office of a multidivisional company was not involved doesn't mean you can say that MDA did not build the Canadarm. The fact that it was called Spar at the time the Canadarm was built is irrelevant.
You completely miss the point of NASAs existence.
Of course things cost more when NASA does it because the purpose of NASA is to take government money and spread it out to as many other companies as possible. Without this, companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and numerous other aerospace companies big and small would never exist (or be radically different).
This is a method to keep engineers, scientists, average joe workers, and the thousands of other workers that provide related services and materials to them employed. Doing something interesting with that money is completely secondary.
Some other countries choose to give direct subsidies to their high tech companies. Americans seem to frown or this so the government chooses to get NASA to do it indirectly.
Yes and Autoshare has been around since 1998. They also cost only about $6 Canadian making it about half the price of the two companies in the article.
Why is this news? This is not new.
I agree, however I would argue that no one has implemented a way rather than no one has found a way.
And the oppression of the Chinese people has nothing to do with them being communist. That's simple corruption of power that can happen with any kind of government.
It's not really the wings per se, the whole concept is inefficient.
The shuttle has the worst cost for weight payload lift of all cargo vehicles for the simple fact that you have to also carry all of this life support equipment around. Similar argument for crew only transport.
The only solution that does make sense is separate crew and cargo solutions. Being reusable or not is secondary.
Actually you could easily argue that capitalism is inherently inefficient and wasteful.
Capitalism only functions when people buy products and consume them. The more people buy, the healthier the economy is, therefore most products are made to not last very long. (Don't believe me? Think of what would happen to the automobile industry if every family had a vehicle that lasted forever?).
Since products are essentially made to be disposable, this is by definition wasteful.
It's time we change the way we think about these utilities and start removing some of these outdated regulations.
Currently (here in Canada at least) I can get telephone, cellphone and high speed internet from my cable television supplier, or I can get cellphone, television and high speed internet from my telephone company, or I can even get most of the above through a number of independent smaller companies, usually through a wireless antenna or satellite dish.
With all of these options on equivalent services, these regulations and their outdated definitions no longer make sense.
We already have three moons (the big one you can see, 3753 Cruithne and 2002 AA29). How many more do you want?
I completely agree.
Data recorders simply record what happened in an accident. That's it. People who oppose this technology are just people who think it is their right to drive like complete jackasses instead of obeying the rules of the road.
Drive properly and when you do get in an accident you can count on the other driver's recorder convicting them instead.
Well then if they catch him impaired with a suspended licence , they should be able to jail him or confiscate his car. How many cars could he possibly have or afford?
You are making two invalid assumptions with that comment:
1. You are assuming driving is a right. It is not.
2. You assume people think you are important enough that they care where you go and what you do. They don't.
So if you think it is the other guys fault you want to rip out his recorder so you can use it as evidence. But if it is your fault, you want the right to destroy your own recorder?
Don't you see anything fundamentally wrong with this?
I have difficulty calling it spin when every non-American media source shares a similar viewpoint.
Political relations between the U.S. and Canada have changed significantly (for the worse)since Bush took over. Our countries have always had a great relationship, however now Bush refuses to visit Canada despite repeated invites, and he has not asked Canada to visit either. Instead he has banned some Canadian imports and placed illegal tarrifs on others. It is clear he does not like us, so yes Canada does have an interest in this election.
Your other comments correctly show some of our differences but that is not why we do not like Bush. In fact your comments prove my point -you have no idea why the world doesn't like Bush. Maybe it's time you find out the real reason before you make another four-year mistake.
The last thing I want is some media reporter deciding what I should and should not read. If they trimmed it for content that's fine, but say it is trimmed and provide a link to the full unedited transcript.
And that's the problem - you only know what is going on in your own country.
For instance did you know that according to a recent poll if Bush and Kerry were running in Canada, 90% of Canadians would vote for Kerry? Or in London, Bush was voted "Movie Villain of the Year" for his screen role in 9/11 (beating out Doctor Octopus, Leatherface and Gollum among others).
These are Americas allies, yet they can't stand Bush-they see him as dangerous. This is not media spin or the result of influence by the Democrats as the Republican party would have you believe. This is how the world feels. (Actually if your friends and allies feel this way imagine how the rest of the world feels).
Most Americans cannot understand this attitude because American media only portrays one side. Read some foreign media sources and learn the truth for yourself.
I read the CNN article too, and it is nowhere sear the full transcript. How do I know? Because I also read the NYTimes, Canadian and British newspapers, and of course Slashdot.
I did not claim you had no freedom in the US. I said you were in danger of losing it.
I never mentioned the Patriot act. Geez, its not hard to tell you are a republican.
Again never mentioned it. My only experience with the Department of Homeland Security was when my friends dad (who's Indian) put up a for sale sign on the contents of his apartment in Chicago (he was moving back to Canada). An FBI agent showed up to the sale and asked him who be was, where he worked, what he was doing, why he was leaving... I guess because he was non-white (the agent thought he was Pakistani) he was automatically suspicious.
And people should not blindly follow someone just because he is their president.
Being outside of the US, I can see how the US media has become more and more censored over the years. Anything critical of US foreign policy or the government gets toned down or completely censored out. I visit the US frequently and if all I read was the US media, I would be as clueless as you. Read other countries newspapers, as many as you can, so you can find out what is really going on.
Actually they are government funded, but not government run. There is a big difference.
News agencies have to be funded by something and having them funded by the advertising revenue of corporations ( and therefore policy set by corporations that threaten to remove their funding if they don't like something) is much more dangerous an my opinion than being government funded.
This is not even close to the full transcript. The full transcript contains a lot of taunting of the ineptitude of George Bush, in that after the president was informed of the attacks he chose to do nothing and keep listening to the story of the goat. Here's a direct quote of Bin Laden speech(translated): "He thought listening to a child about her goat .. was more important"
I find the American news media tends to self(?) sensor a lot lately, especially when the content is politically motivated. Try Canadian (CBC) or British (BBC) for the true story. If the US citizens don't start insiting on their rights of free speech, they are going to lose them without even realizing it.
Last time I was at the San Diego Aerospace museum, the shuttle model had an American flag on the robotic arm. I bet most Americans have no idea that arm is Canadian.