Bush kills Hubble rescue mission

[astrolabe]

Read it and weep:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6853009/


WASHINGTON - The White House has eliminated funding for a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request and directed NASA to focus solely on deorbiting the popular spacecraft at the end of its life, according to government and industry sources.

[Doodler]

The shuttle's too much a wild card and robotics are horrendously expensive and not likely to work anyway. It was inevitable.

[um3k]

Is there any way we can change this?

[kucharek]

Is there any way we can change this?

Not with the current price tag.

[um3k]

Is there any way we can change this?

Not with the current price tag.
Well that really f'ing sucks.

[Jigsaw]

Find some way to tie it in with Homeland Security, and you'll be amazed at how fast they'll find some money for it.

I'm such a cynic.

[Evan]

Give them time on it pointed at Earth.

[Nicolas]

1 billion dollars (Dr Evil..) is a lot of money IMO. The telescope won't need a deorbit module fixed (what is the cost of that BTW?) until the end of the decade. Does it mean that it will work untill then? If it continues to work anyway, I haven't got really big problems with not spending 1 billion dollars on it. The new generation of Great Observatories is coming along anyway. But I thought it could stop working as soon as 2006...

Just attach the thing to the ISS and play with it from that position :D

[pumpkinpie]

Wow. I'm floored.
:cry:
Is this really the end, or could it just be the inspiration for a bigger, stronger, campaign from all of us and everyone else we know to get it BACK in the budget? Let's get to work!

[The Bad Astronomer]

Well that really f'ing sucks.

While I agree with the sentiment, this language is against the FAQ. Consider yourself warned.

[ngc3314]

1 billion dollars (Dr Evil..) is a lot of money IMO. The telescope won't need a deorbit module fixed (what is the cost of that BTW?) until the end of the decade. Does it mean that it will work untill then? If it continues to work anyway, I haven't got really big problems with not spending 1 billion dollars on it. The new generation of Great Observatories is coming along anyway. But I thought it could stop working as soon as 2006...

Just attach the thing to the ISS and play with it from that position :D

People already hashed over the impossibility of co-orbiting HST with ISS last year, so I'll leave that off.

Current estimates for the 50%-probability time to failure of the HST gyros would make it inoperable maybe 18 months from now. There are plans, now almost sure to be implemented quickly, to go to a mode with 2 gyros plus the star trackers to continue operations with reduced pointing stability and tighter scheduling constraints. This stretches operations by leaving one byro "spare" for the next actual failure. The telescope will almost surely be dead by 2010, from decline in battery efficiency if nothing else. And I'll be the umpteenth to say that JWST is a followon but not replacement - it addresses a few key questions well, but has no ultraviolet capability and only a smidgen at the red end of the optical band. It's a different discussion as to how much these capabilities are worth, but in current plans they are being lost for at least a decade, and maybe more.

Alright, everybody, 3.5 hours until the deadline for proposals in what might really be the final year of Hubble operations...

[John M. Dollan]

I'm not certain that such a mission would be economically feasible in any case. Why spend the money to maintain an instrument when it has already been matched, and in some cases exceeded by ground-based systems, while more advanced orbital designs are being planned?

I'll miss Hubble, there is no doubt about it. And it's a shame that it couldn't be brought down safely (IIRC, the shuttle returning with that in its hold would be so much more of a flying brick than it already is). But to be realistic, maintaining Hubble would be like spending $3,000 to fix and maintain a 386 computer, while Pentium Iv's and V's are available and cheaper.

Yeah, I'm sure I'll catch hoolies for this opinion...!

...John...

[John Kierein]

If these solar flares keep coming and get bigger, maybe the atmosphere will swell up so much that Hubble and the Space station will re-enter sooner than predicted.

[George]

...money for a mission to attach a propulsion module to Hubble needed to deorbit the spacecraft safely with a controlled re-entry into the Pacific Ocean.

As a wise man once said....related thread (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=376748&highlight=hubble#376748)


I feel that if we are going to go to the trouble of sending a booster to Hubble, we should boost it into a higher orbit, so that when we come to our senses, we can repair it and get more use from it!

What if Bill Gates decides to conduct one-up-manship? :)

[Andromeda321]

Oh man... :cry: :cry: :cry:
Not like I expected many people to ok the $1 billion price tag but I was hoping for a miracle I guess... Hubble was what, $1.5 billion at launch?

[Nicolas]

What I did not adress in my first post is that I too will miss Hubble.
But I don't want Hubble to stand in the path of other major missions. 1 billion (it never occured to me that Bill gates and Billion share there first name :D) dollars is such an enormous amount of money to patch up the old observatory. I mean, that would jeopardise the equivalent of about 2 (not extended) MER missions...

I am in doubt if Hubble still is worth that, if you had to choose. I mean, if there was extra budget, no problem. But NASA is low on money anyway, and I'm not sure if I'd put reparing Hubble on top then. And even with a larger budget, I would consider giving up Hubble and spending money on a new hightech observatory to replace it.

I am not outspoken choosing one option, each option has its pros and cons for me. Really hard decision.

[John M. Dollan]

Hubble's price tag was, I believe, 3 billion at launch....

...John...

[ToSeek]

Hubble's price tag was, I believe, 3 billion at launch....

...John...

$1.5 billion at launch (http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/news_media_resources/reference_center/about_hubble/glance.php), though that doesn't include the launch/deployment costs or the cost of operations.

I would like to see someone do a study on which of these options makes the most sense in terms of doing actual astronomy:

- Hubble servicing mission
- Remounting the replacement instruments on a new spacecraft
- Doing some other astronomy research altogether

[joema]

The planned 100 meter Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL) is projected to cost about $1.5 billion.

http://www.eso.org/projects/owl/index.html

[Swift]

Even if it is the logical thing to do, it's sad, and I've had a bad day in my real life (work :evil: ) - I needed some happy news :( .

Ok, so if a billion dollars is too much to spend on Hubble, someone explain to me how much we are spending on the ISS and the Shuttle missions to service/finish it and what is the payback/benefits from that :-? .

[John M. Dollan]

$1.5 billion at launch (http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/news_media_resources/reference_center/about_hubble/glance.php), though that doesn't include the launch/deployment costs or the cost of operations.

Ah, I sit corrected. I found my figure on a Discovery Channel site, via Google....

...John...

[Doodler]

The payback on the ISS is demonstrating we didn't blow 30+ billion out the airlock by putting it up there to begin with. :roll:

I'm biting my tongue about the ISS because something like it was eventually going to have to happen, even as a proof of concept. What has happened to it has not been entirely centered on the project itself, but its reliance on one nation barely able to afford it, and another nation with the only vehicle capable of doing the construction job that isn't truly a reliable piece of equipment. The ISS isn't a bad idea, its one suffering from poorly conceived execution.

[Swift]

The payback on the ISS is demonstrating we didn't blow 30+ billion out the airlock by putting it up there to begin with. :roll:

I'm biting my tongue about the ISS because something like it was eventually going to have to happen, even as a proof of concept. What has happened to it has not been entirely centered on the project itself, but its reliance on one nation barely able to afford it, and another nation with the only vehicle capable of doing the construction job that isn't truly a reliable piece of equipment. The ISS isn't a bad idea, its one suffering from poorly conceived execution.
I absolutely agree. The idea that humans have an orbiting spacestation makes me excited. But if we have to prioritize a limited NASA budget, then why isn't it on the table too? If I have to pick between the ISS and a couple of new orbiting observatories and another Mars lander, I say toss the ISS in the Pacific.

[George]

But why can't they just boost it out further? It will spare it's destruction and accomplish their goal - safety. :evil:

[Doodler]

I absolutely agree. The idea that humans have an orbiting spacestation makes me excited. But if we have to prioritize a limited NASA budget, then why isn't it on the table too? If I have to pick between the ISS and a couple of new orbiting observatories and another Mars lander, I say toss the ISS in the Pacific.

There's the rub, the ISS isn't just a US project. With Russia, Japan, Italy and a a few other ESA members throwing duckets in the bin, we're stuck with it. We chuck it in the Pacific and we've stomped on toes all over the globe.

That's probably the one logical point President Bush has that he can stand on with his policy of going quick and dirty to get the station "core complete". So long as theres work to be done on it, a substantial portion of NASA's budget is held hostage by international agreements. Now, on the one hand, you can say "If Dubya doesn't care about stepping on the international community's toes everywhere else, why not here?", on the other hand, he is towing a hard line internationally where he feels he has to, if he were to kill the ISS (and essentially, pulling NASA off the station is the equivalent of killing it), then he'd be doing even more damage. President Bush isn't afraid to make hard choices, but that doesn't mean he's going to do damage just for the sake of doing damage. Like I said, the ISS isn't an evil thing, its just overtaken by circumstances. Once complete, the shuttle really isn't necessary (ok, there are cases where it would be NICE to have it, but there are workarounds) and he can honestly, if regretfully, look at the ISS partners and say they did the job called for while also respecting the safety of the people who have to use the shuttles. At the same time, he's also freeing up NASA's budget to work on other projects.

The shuttles weren't going to last forever, and the idea that we had them and they were what we were stuck with was hamstringing development of alternatives. We were resting on our laurels and praying they didn't rot out from under us and they did anyway. Like it or not, even though I've said it here they'd have no trouble finding volunteers to fly it, the shuttle is NOT the long term solution. The design is fundamentally flawed and will likely never be considered "operational". Yes, spaceflight entails risk, but that risk has to be managed and mitigated where possible. Its acceptable that there are environmental issues that might conceivably threaten a mission, but at no time should those threats be from the vehicle you're flying in.

A truly effective Hubble repair mission was, by the accepted opinion of all parties involved, going to be dependent on the space shuttle, and that option just wasn't acceptable to the powers that be. (Please note the lower case usage, no conspiracy implied) Robotic missions could not claim any reliable chance of success, nor was there any real cost effective reason to consider them. The idea that a mission could be sent that would most likely not do the job at all was just as unacceptable as the idea of completing the mission and killing the crew on return.

[mike alexander]

Reminds me of the coda on the tombstone:

I expected this, but not so soon

[junkyardfrog]

Read it and weep:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6853009/


WASHINGTON - The White House has eliminated funding for a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request and directed NASA to focus solely on deorbiting the popular spacecraft at the end of its life, according to government and industry sources.

Grrr.

:(

I don't like this decision, but I suppose it's the only one they could make.

And I REALLY don't like that blackhole for dollar$, otherwise known as the ISS.

[BigJim]

Ok, so if a billion dollars is too much to spend on Hubble, someone explain to me how much we are spending on the ISS and the Shuttle missions to service/finish it and what is the payback/benefits from that :-? .

I absolutely, completely agree with this. We've put an obscene amount of money into ISS and what science have we gotten? The rhetoric about how it's going to discover some new drug to cure cancer or some ultrafast computer chip frankly makes me sick. I think we need a permanent human presence in space. But not on the ISS.

In addition, I am wholly unconvinced of the necessity of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to send Hubble- or other large spacecraft such as CGRO or TRMM - into the Pacific. When you do the math, the probability that some piece of the spacecraft comes down and hits someone is akin to the probability of being struck by lightning. I agree; if you're going to boost it somewhere, boost it up.

Third, I now wonder how committed the President really is to his space agenda. Until now I thought that this might actually be the time that we get back to the Moon. Now I'm not so sure. If this is the support they show for Hubble then who knows what they're really thinking? Personally, I think that the space vision, while a greand concept, has been severely wounded, perhaps fatally so, because it came hand-in-hand with the decision not to service Hubble.

And just a thought - say O'Keefe hadn't cancelled the mission in the first place and Hubble had been serviced in 2007 by the Shuttle. I honestly wonder whether anyone would have cared. Space reporters for the general media (wince) only report on failures, for the most part. Cassini-Huygens? Works fine. We haven't heard it about it since the 10 seconds it got at SOI and the 8 seconds it got on January 14. Mars rovers? Haven't heard about them since landing (except for Spirit's overreported flash memory problem). Those missions work fine, so no one cares about them. If O'Keefe hadn't cancelled the servicing mission, he wouldn't have given the new space vision and the Bush administration such a bad rap in the space community.

[pghnative]

if you're going to boost it somewhere, boost it up.


Just out of curiosity, would this work? I thought that once the gyro's were gone, you couldn't prevent the Hubble from pointing in the wrong direction (e.g. the Sun), and frying it's optics and/or instruments.

Or is there a "safe" mode it could be parked in.

[joema]

During the post-Columbia accident hearings, lawmakers asked NASA administrator O'Keefe many times what justification is there for manned space operations, given the risk.

Over and over he pointed to the ONGOING Hubble servicing capability as proof of that justification. He mentioned it MANY times.

If it turns out manned operations are not capable of performing that function for an acceptable price, it appears one of the primary justifications for ongoing manned operations has evaporated.

[mike alexander]

I'm terribly afraid that this is the beginning of a fairly sustained retrenchment by the US in this area. To cut budgets efforts will be scaled back and/or stretched out and/or cancelled entirely. Without enthusiasm, I'm betting that

Moon/Mars manned exploration is dead (I was never convinced it was alive, anyway)

Pluto/Kuiper Express will be cancelled

Webb telescope will not launch before 2020

The ISS will never be completed

There will be no post-shuttle manned vehicle before 2020. I would not be surprised if there is none for the indefinite future.


I will be ecstatic to be proved wrong on all counts.

[um3k]

Pluto/Kuiper Express will be cancelled
Um, that already happened. New Horizons (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/) is the current Pluto mission.

[SkepticJ]

Now who was it that said if a civilisation wasn't growing in knowledge it is dying? Samuel Golden wasn't it? Sure wish he and a president like JFK were in office. Sigh. Stupid, stupid people(Bush and lots of other people)

[mike alexander]

Um, that already happened. New Horizons is the current Pluto mission.

Please consider by comment updated. The New Horizons mission will be cancelled.

[John M. Dollan]

Now who was it that said if a civilisation wasn't growing in knowledge it is dying? Samuel Golden wasn't it? Sure wish he and a president like JFK were in office. Sigh. Stupid, stupid people(Bush and lots of other people)

To be fair, the ONLY reason why Kennedy was able to push the Moon landing (white elephant though it turned out to be, at least as far as further space expansion goes), was because of the Cold War and the heightened fear that the Soviets would gain the Moon before we could. They had already beaten us in every other race towards the Big Black (first satellite, first animal, first spacecraft to escape Earth's gravity, first impact of the moon, first to image the Moon's farside, first man in space, first man to orbit the planet, first flyby of other planets, first woman, and on and on and on), and it looked like they were well on their way to landing on the Moon first, as well.

Today, we have nothing like this propelling us forward. Even the Chinese push into space really hasn't threatened us much; if anything, our nation is applauding the Chinese effort, as we should be.

But it also isn't really fair to say that we're doomed to space-stagnation. The current Mars program is moving along wonderfully, regardless of the failures in the late 90's. Cassini is, obviously, a success. The Prometheus project seems to be gaining much momentum. The gathering of knowledge, right now, is moving at a pace unparalelled in the history of astronomy.

As far as a manned presence in space, had we actually moved on to the logicval conclusion that Apollo offered, we would be far ahead of our current position. The truth is, I believe, our current manned failure is the result of our past unwillingness to pursue anything that did not generate national positive PR. Current events are just an extension of this.

...John...

[JonClarke]

Mike, have you got the slightest evidence for your pessimism?

Jon

[beskeptical]

Here is my political opinion since this is one time it is appropriate.

First, I think the science community should make the decision, not the administration. It may be difficult to identify who qualifies as the science community but it's a moot point because it will never happen anyway.

Now for the rest, you'll have to bear with me. This is not intended to be a Bush tirade, only a reality check. I have put several caveats in parentheses to ward off criticism that my comments are too political. However, there are politics involved here that override any true assessment of the costs and benefits of keeping Hubble. What is the point of discussing the reasons to keep or dismantle Hubble if the final decision will be based on politics, not cost/benefit.

The Bush administration has committed itself to not raise taxes nor cut back the tax cut. Is there any doubt with Bush Sr.'s infamous "read my lips" debacle that Bush Jr. can in no way raise or reinstitute taxes without significant political consequences. In addition, I have a quote from Cheney somewhere that says in effect, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter".

But neither of those two issues, ignoring the deficit and being stuck with a certain tax plan, were initiated with the forethought of the Iraq war costs. (http://costofwar.com/)

So why is this key those of you who think the administration is basically honest may ask? (This is not a comment that any other administration would be different as that is beyond the relevant point here.) The reason is the current administration has a consistent record of manipulating information to their advantage in lieu of providing correct or honest information. (Anyone wishing references or further justification of this claim is welcome to discuss it at The Skeptic Friends Network forum on this thread. (http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3780).)

It isn't going to matter one bit what scientists' opinions are. Cutting the Hubble budget is one place the administration can decrease spending that is irrelevant to them and to their concerns of any significant protest or for that matter notice. In other words, they'll be cutting the budget anywhere and everywhere the objectors will be few in number and the public will be unlikely to pay attention.

Now maybe that is OK or not OK depending on whether or not you want your taxes spent on space exploration. I, for one would prefer to spend it exploring space as to spend it exploring new weapons systems. But that isn't going to happen until the administration changes. (Whoops, politics slipped in there. #-o Sorry.)

[Spacewriter]

I'm not certain that such a mission would be economically feasible in any case. Why spend the money to maintain an instrument when it has already been matched, and in some cases exceeded by ground-based systems, while more advanced orbital designs are being planned?

I'll miss Hubble, there is no doubt about it. And it's a shame that it couldn't be brought down safely (IIRC, the shuttle returning with that in its hold would be so much more of a flying brick than it already is). But to be realistic, maintaining Hubble would be like spending $3,000 to fix and maintain a 386 computer, while Pentium Iv's and V's are available and cheaper.

Yeah, I'm sure I'll catch hoolies for this opinion...!

...John...

Only because it's pretty clear that you don't have complete knowledge of how useful this observatory really is.

[beskeptical]

Mike, have you got the slightest evidence for your pessimism?

JonSince I agree with Mike and my post is opinion as well, I will ask your question another way. Is the budget cut for Hubble going back into NASA for other projects or is it going back into the General Fund?

[beskeptical]

..... Cassini is, obviously, a success. ....
...John...Three words, European Space Agency. I know there was a lot more to your post which I agree with some of, but this comment needed saying. It's easy to assume all science advances are US successes.

[Parrothead]

..... Cassini is, obviously, a success. ....
...John...Three words, European Space Agency. I know there was a lot more to your post which I agree with some of, but this comment needed saying. It's easy to assume all science advances are US successes.

Actually, it's a joint project. Others could correct me, but my understanding is Cassini is mostly US, while Huygens is an ESA mission. As to the OP, I'll be an optimist and hope this part of the article plays out


These same sources, however, said they had not ruled out that the White House and NASA might be canceling the Hubble servicing mission as the opening gambit in the annual struggle that goes on every budget year, fully expecting that Congress will add money to the agency’s budget over the course of the year to pay for a mission that has strong public support.

[John M. Dollan]

..... Cassini is, obviously, a success. ....
...John...Three words, European Space Agency. I know there was a lot more to your post which I agree with some of, but this comment needed saying. It's easy to assume all science advances are US successes.

Cassini is NASA. huygens, however, is indeed ESA.

...John...

[John M. Dollan]

Only because it's pretty clear that you don't have complete knowledge of how useful this observatory really is.

Oh, I am quite aware of how useful the Hubble has been and continues to be. But that does not change the fact that it is swiftly being outmoded by ground and eventual space-based observatories.

The question is, would the 1 billion dollar price tag be used to keep an invaluable observatory going, or to maintain a sentimental icon?

...John...

[joema]

The question is, would the 1 billion dollar price tag be used to keep an invaluable observatory going, or to maintain a sentimental icon?
Multiply your question by 40 times and it applies to ISS :)

[John M. Dollan]

Multiply your question by 40 times and it applies to ISS :)

**chuckles** Seriously, though, I'm trying to remember. Wouldn't the ISS be considered more successful if there was a budgetary allowance for a full crew? The present crew compliment is just enough to keep the thing running, and nothing else, isn't it?

...John...

[beskeptical]

..... Cassini is, obviously, a success. ....
...John...Three words, European Space Agency. I know there was a lot more to your post which I agree with some of, but this comment needed saying. It's easy to assume all science advances are US successes.

Actually, it's a joint project. Others could correct me, but my understanding is Cassini is mostly US, while Huygens is an ESA mission. As to the OP, I'll be an optimist and hope this part of the article plays out
.....Ooops. My bad. Brain was so into recent Huygens stuff I spaced out.

[mickal555]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[The Bad Astronomer]

I find myself in a difficult position.

The cutting of money by the Bush administration may very well be simply a political move, yet debating the merits of it is relevant to this board. However, these types of discussions tend to disintegrate quickly. So I am alert on this thread, and I will fire a shot across the bow: keep this discussion civil.

[rockmysoul67]

I don't know much about Hubble, but after reading the former threads about the subject, I can see three points:


Hubble is not outdated.

Hubble is not just one telescop, it has different science instruments, who can work seperately. Even if some of the instruments Hubble aren't maintained, there is still a lot of data coming from Hubble for the years to come (from the instruments that still work fine).

The other (planned) space telescop is an addition to Hubble, not a replacement.


So what's the point of destroying the Hubble?

[mike alexander]

JonClarke asked me:


Mike, have you got the slightest evidence for your pessimism?

First, I noted it was only my opinion. Second, I respect the BA and will attempt to stay in neutral. Third, I'm not sure I can offer chapter and verse, so those asking me to defend this or that will probably come up empty. I'm looking back broadly over more than forty five years of personal interest.

What I've noticed in space exploration (we kind of grew up together, so I've seen most of it from the late 50's onward) has been an exponential rise, followed by a bit of a plateau, then a long decline. Manned spaceflight is using vehicles that are thirty to forty years old (!), and any replacement seems still in the concept stage (not forgetting some of the interesting failures). And the concepts are going back to designs even older. And it's not really going anywhere, except around and around.

The ISS still needs, what, over two dozen shuttle flights just to get the rest of the hardware up there? The original stuff is starting to break down before the last is up. Assuming it is completed, I don't believe it will be on the schedule now contemplated; shuttles always take longer, and no one is going to dare the slightest risk. Then, who supplies the ISS? Russia has shown that Progress capsules can't do it. Besides (OPINION) the ISS (nee' Freedom) was another Cold-War item, showing that the US could build a bigger one than the USSR.

I thought at the time and have not changed my (OPINION) that the Administration announcement of Moon/Mars stuff was at best a trial balloon. Great enthusiasm plus small money means no real program. The silence following the original announcement speaks to me. I will bet a sawbuck that it is never mentioned again in a serious manner at the top.

There is pretty good news on the unmanned front lately, and I hope it keeps up. But things like the JWST have a way of being a lot harder to do and taking a lot longer than planned. P/K EW, or New Horizons, is still far away (New Horizons sounds like a day-care center for kids, anyway).

I am not happy about this. As I slide deeper into middle age I'm grimly amused that I really thought that there would at least be a permanent station on the moon by now. What I completely missed in my young naivete was that most people aren't that interested and never were, and that rah-rah only works so far.

I spent Titan Friday watching everywhere (and especially here) instead of working, and had to go in over the weekend to catch up. Waiting for a picture, some data, just the thrill, still, of a new world. One other guy in the lab was sneaking peaks, too. Most people didn't care.

[TheGalaxyTrio]

What I completely missed in my young naivete was that most people aren't that interested and never were, and that rah-rah only works so far.

It will become interesting to the average person when it become easier and cheaper.

What the average person sees in manned space flight is an elite club of people who get to go a few miles above the Earth riding very expensive toys. Yeah, compared to entitlements, it's small, but many more taxpayers can make an argument for Medicaid than they can for fixing the Hubble. They see nothing for themselves in manned space travel. Maybe that's selfish, but I don't think we are, as a nation, selfish (see: tsunami donations). But there's a point where any group of people get tapped out, and there's a lot of taps.

It's also difficult to be inspired about space exploration when it's clear we are progressing into the 21st century still shackled with filthy and miserable memes that should have been eradicated a century ago. There are malignant cancers infesting the collective mind of humanity, and they need to be dealt with. People can't get inspired about a spaceplane effort if they are wondering if their own commuter plane is going to wind up as part of an unplanned urban renewal project because some misguided robocretin had a viscious fairy tale hammered into his brain during his formative years in some theofacist wonderland.

Even within the space fan community (right here, for example) there is no consensus, and alternatives have been mentioned. Ground based adaptive optics ARE reaching Hubble levels. Our innovation might just make the issue obsolete before 2005 is done. Who knows?

I read the book "Red Thunder" last year, and I think John Varley had it right. We just need a better method of propulsion. A person with a little money and hired expertise can build a spacecraft in a rented warehouse. All you need is a propulsion system. That's the rub. But if someone comes up with one, and it becomes possible for an average person (not an overrated pop star or bumblehead actor or some other overcompensated oxygen converter) to go into space, then the average person might start to care. Heck, Burt Rutan's team is almost there. Ain't the private sector great?

I'm sorry if this rambled and made no sense. I'm starting recovery stage of the worst flu I have ever had. I actually called the doctor because I seriously thought I was going to die Monday because of the way I felt and the "105.1" on my digital thermometer. It's down to 99.8 now, but I'm a still incoherent and also depressed about what I have to make up at work next week. Stay away from this flu, people. I'm a healthy, in-shape 39 year old, and it flattened me like a semi-truck. Bloody nasty thing! I beagn to wonder if it was West Nile or freaking SARS.

[beskeptical]

I find myself in a difficult position.

The cutting of money by the Bush administration may very well be simply a political move, yet debating the merits of it is relevant to this board. However, these types of discussions tend to disintegrate quickly. So I am alert on this thread, and I will fire a shot across the bow: keep this discussion civil.I am honestly trying. :-# :)

[KB3GIO]

Ya gotta admit...a billion dollars is a lot. Well, it is for most of us. That's 1/3 of NOAA's annual budget...and it doesn't really have a whole lot to do with protecting lives and property. It's hard for us to get money to improve storm prediction and storm warning processes, yet we're constantly under public scrutiny about how bad we do (but we don't have the financial ability to fix it). But the gov't was going to fund a billion dollars to NASA for the hubble telescope? Is it really a wise way to spend a billion? Granted, I understand we waste money in this country on worse things all of the time...but if we're going to change it has to start somewhere.

[Kaptain K]

I asked this question on another thread some time ago:

I feel that if we are going to go to the trouble of sending a booster to Hubble, we should boost it into a higher orbit, so that when we come to our senses, we can repair it and get more use from it!
The BA answered it on C2C tonight. In essence, if we boost it high enough to keep it from being dragged back down, it winds up in the Van Allen belt and the electronics get fried! Thanks BA.

[Padawan]

Sad news :(

[Doodler]

I'll repeat again, since its not sinking in.

You cannot put the Hubble telescope and the ISS in the same bucket for consideration. We're tied to the ISS till its done, because its not just an American project. The White House cannot just order NASA to deorbit it and spend the money to save the Hubble. Get. Over. It. What do you want? Want the President to break another international agreement? Haven't people been riding him because of that nasty little habit? Now that its suddenly "science" hanging in the balance, its suddenly ok? We're starting to sound like a special interest group lobbying Congress.

While you're deriding the ISS, please keep in mind you're feeding a HUGE red herring. The ISS situation matters not one whit to the issue with the Hubble. Its the unreliability of the space shuttle at the core of the Hubble situation. So if you feel the need to gnaw on the weak link in the chain, please do us a favor and gnaw on the right one.

[mike alexander]

GalaxyTrio wrote:


It will become interesting to the average person when it become easier and cheaper.

I used to believe that. I no longer do.


We just need a better method of propulsion.

I could not agree more! But there are worlds in 'just', and the horizon looks as far away as ever in practical terms. We also need a cheap, light spacesuit and negative calorie foods.

KB3GIO wrote:


Ya gotta admit...a billion dollars is a lot.

Yes it still is. For the foreseeable future putting people in space will cost more per than a lot of other things. Without some emotional rush in return it's hard to keep support at reasonable levels.

Doodler wrote:

...well, I'm not sure to whom, but he was sure peeved. But does anyone really like being told


Get. Over. It.


our modern way of telling someone to... well, you know.
:-?

[Doodler]

Doodler wrote:

...well, I'm not sure to whom, but he was sure peeved. But does anyone really like being told


Get. Over. It.


our modern way of telling someone to... well, you know.
:-?

Just responding to the posts that take advantage of the opportunity to mudsling at the space station. Its completely unrelated to the Hubble situation. And I didn't mean anything more than what's implied. By breaking it like that, its the only way I know of truly emphasising the message without unleashing the kind of invective that could get me banned.

[Evan]

Sorry BA, but it is pretty hard to keep this from being political. Where is all the money going? [stirs pot] [[ danger of being banned]]

[mike alexander]

I suspected as much. :)

[joema]

...The ISS situation matters not one whit to the issue with the Hubble. Its the unreliability of the space shuttle at the core of the Hubble situation...
ISS is involved because NASA admin O'Keefe said all shuttle flights must be reserved for ISS construction, hence none available for HST.

However the real problem is money more than shuttle reliability. The argument is tenuous that a single HST servicing mission is more risky than 25 or so ISS missions.

There are many ascent failure modes that preclude ISS inspection of shuttle thermal protection or shuttle crew taking refuge in ISS (one argument for ISS only missions).

One of these has already happened. STS-51F in 1985 had a failed engine resulting an in abort to low orbit. Had that been an ISS mission they wouldn't have reached it.

[Doodler]

...The ISS situation matters not one whit to the issue with the Hubble. Its the unreliability of the space shuttle at the core of the Hubble situation...
ISS is involved because NASA admin O'Keefe said all shuttle flights must be reserved for ISS construction, hence none available for HST.

However the real problem is money more than shuttle reliability. The argument is tenuous that a single HST servicing mission is more risky than 25 or so ISS missions.

There are many ascent failure modes that preclude ISS inspection of shuttle thermal protection or shuttle crew taking refuge in ISS (one argument for ISS only missions).

One of these has already happened. STS-51F in 1985 had a failed engine resulting an in abort to low orbit. Had that been an ISS mission they wouldn't have reached it.

Which is the second arguement for ISS only missions. They aren't risking any failure on any mission other than those NASA has no other choice but to use the shuttle for. If it weren't for ISS, the shuttle would not fly again, ever.

[R.A.F.]

...We're tied to the ISS till its done...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the ISS is essentially "done" right now. Unless the decision to kill the crew return vehicle (CRV) has been reversed (and no one told me :)) the 2 ISS astronauts spend almost all their time simply keeping the ISS alive.

[Doodler]

...We're tied to the ISS till its done...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the ISS is essentially "done" right now. Unless the decision to kill the crew return vehicle (CRV) has been reversed (and no one told me :)) the 2 ISS astronauts spend almost all their time simply keeping the ISS alive.

Yeah, I won't disagree with you. The only way around that is to have the Russians fly three up there again and make up the supply difference with more unmanned ships.

Maybe if they finish it with the shuttle, they can ground it and move on to the CRV and other ships. Who knows.

[Spacewriter]

Doodler,

HST is also an ESA mission, albeit the US pays more than ESA.

[Doodler]

Doodler,

HST is also an ESA mission, albeit the US pays more than ESA.

In checking the NASA website, I'm not seeing any ESA references. Is this something they've got on board, or are they helping foot the bill to keep it running? From what I read, the Hubble was purely American in origin.

[John Kierein]

I'm sorry if this rambled and made no sense. I'm starting recovery stage of the worst flu I have ever had. I actually called the doctor because I seriously thought I was going to die Monday because of the way I felt and the "105.1" on my digital thermometer. It's down to 99.8 now, but I'm a still incoherent and also depressed about what I have to make up at work next week. Stay away from this flu, people. I'm a healthy, in-shape 39 year old, and it flattened me like a semi-truck. Bloody nasty thing! I beagn to wonder if it was West Nile or freaking SARS.
My theory is that they give flu shots to the wrong people. They should be given to the young and healthy; not the old. My grandmother died in the 1919 flu epidemic in her late 20s. Most of the millions who died were of a similar age. The old folks survived. My grandmother was well one day, sick the next, dead the third. Left 3 small children. The old folks have had so many flu shots they are already immune to the worst symptoms.

[Nicolas]

I never heard anything about ESA being involved in Hubble.
They are involved in the ISS, but that's another story.

[The Bad Astronomer]

ESA built one of the original cameras as well as the original solar panels. I'm sure they did more as well.

Hubble and ISS are tied together for many reasons:

1) They both need the Shuttle

2) The CAIB said the Shuttle cannot be used to fix Hubble because it cannot reach ISS from there

3) NASA funds both, so money that goes to one, perforce, cannot go to the other

4) Both are political powderkegs, with a large base of people involved (which means powerful Senators are involved)

If ISS tanked, then perhaps NASA would no longer fly the Shuttle. Or maybe they would find another use for it; after all, we have no other man-rated launch vehicle right now. But to simply say ISS has nothing to do with Hubble is not correct.

This situation is far from simple, as I was trying to point out last night on C2C. The Bush administration really cannot just say "Don't rescue Hubble", because Congress has to weigh in as well, and Senator Mikulski does bear some weight. O'Keefe must play this game for a few more weeks until his replacement takes over. I don't envy him. He may want to please Bush, and he may want to please Congress, and he may want to please the people over whom he is responsible at NASA, and these may all be mutually contradictory events. I don't envy him, or his replacement.

[kg034]

...We're tied to the ISS till its done...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the ISS is essentially "done" right now. Unless the decision to kill the crew return vehicle (CRV) has been reversed (and no one told me :)) the 2 ISS astronauts spend almost all their time simply keeping the ISS alive.

Yeah, I won't disagree with you. The only way around that is to have the Russians fly three up there again and make up the supply difference with more unmanned ships.

Maybe if they finish it with the shuttle, they can ground it and move on to the CRV and other ships. Who knows.

Well, the ESA is also building a supply vehicle. (http://www.esa.int/export/esaHS/ESA4ZJ0VMOC_iss_0.html) If only they can get the Arianne 5 working again.
personal choice (yes, nobody asked for it)....hst or iss, i go for the latter. sadly, it seems that both are gone.

Where is all the money going?

[ToSeek]

I'm sorry if this rambled and made no sense. I'm starting recovery stage of the worst flu I have ever had. I actually called the doctor because I seriously thought I was going to die Monday because of the way I felt and the "105.1" on my digital thermometer. It's down to 99.8 now, but I'm a still incoherent and also depressed about what I have to make up at work next week. Stay away from this flu, people. I'm a healthy, in-shape 39 year old, and it flattened me like a semi-truck. Bloody nasty thing! I beagn to wonder if it was West Nile or freaking SARS.
My theory is that they give flu shots to the wrong people. They should be given to the young and healthy; not the old. My grandmother died in the 1919 flu epidemic in her late 20s. Most of the millions who died were of a similar age. The old folks survived. My grandmother was well one day, sick the next, dead the third. Left 3 small children. The old folks have had so many flu shots they are already immune to the worst symptoms.

But that's one of the things they say is notable about the 1918/19 epidemic: that it hit young people disproportionately. That's not the way flu usually works.

What I can't understand is why one of my friends who is a firefighter/EMT is not supposed to get a flu shot even though she's frequently exposed to sick people and could easily become a carrier.

[Doodler]

ESA built one of the original cameras as well as the original solar panels. I'm sure they did more as well.

Hubble and ISS are tied together for many reasons:

1) They both need the Shuttle

2) The CAIB said the Shuttle cannot be used to fix Hubble because it cannot reach ISS from there

3) NASA funds both, so money that goes to one, perforce, cannot go to the other

4) Both are political powderkegs, with a large base of people involved (which means powerful Senators are involved)

If ISS tanked, then perhaps NASA would no longer fly the Shuttle. Or maybe they would find another use for it; after all, we have no other man-rated launch vehicle right now. But to simply say ISS has nothing to do with Hubble is not correct.

This situation is far from simple, as I was trying to point out last night on C2C. The Bush administration really cannot just say "Don't rescue Hubble", because Congress has to weigh in as well, and Senator Mikulski does bear some weight. O'Keefe must play this game for a few more weeks until his replacement takes over. I don't envy him. He may want to please Bush, and he may want to please Congress, and he may want to please the people over whom he is responsible at NASA, and these may all be mutually contradictory events. I don't envy him, or his replacement.


1) No arguement there.

2) Agreed, even though its been pointed out there, there are no guarantees even if you were on an ISS rendevouz friendly trajectory.

3) I didn't think this was a "we can't afford to repair it" so much as a "we can't risk going there personally to repair it" issue. If it were just a cost issue, I don't think there'd be too much opposition to bumping an ISS payload and sending a shuttle to the HST. In fact, I'd call it a sure fire go for launch if it were just a matter of money.

4) As a constituent of Senator Mikulski, I'll go on the record stating that even though I don't vote for her, I respect her for the fact that she's a pistol when she finds a cause to fight for. Even if she can't drum up the support to overturn the decision to de-orbit Hubble, she will fight tooth and nail to keep it operational as long as possible.

[TheGalaxyTrio]

The old folks have had so many flu shots they are already immune to the worst symptoms.

It doesn't work that way. The elderly are the hardest hit by influenza. Besides, it's normally not a problem because we normally have adequate shots for all.

As for the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, it was extremely virulent, so all age factor bets were off. It hit the 20 to 40 age group hard, but that is an aberration for influenza, and you don't make policy based on higher sigma cases. It's a W shaped curve when plotted. There's the usual peaks for the babies and elderly, but also the 20-40 peak. It's so dramatic that there almost HAS to have been some external factor at play.

Other factors such as WW1. Many people in that age group were in conditions ideal for the virus to spread. It was a hardy virus- it managed to reach Eskimo villages. By the end 25% of the USA had caught it with a mortality rate of 2.5%, which is spectacular for a flu.

Ah. Found a graph! With a dotted line comparison as a bonus!

http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/nats104/spanishflu.gif

[Jigsaw]

If these solar flares keep coming and get bigger, maybe the atmosphere will swell up so much that Hubble and the Space station will re-enter sooner than predicted.
::: splort :::

[Ilya]

I thought at the time and have not changed my (OPINION) that the Administration announcement of Moon/Mars stuff was at best a trial balloon. Great enthusiasm plus small money means no real program. The silence following the original announcement speaks to me. I will bet a sawbuck that it is never mentioned again in a serious manner at the top.

You owe me a sawbuck. In September Bush (who has not vetoed a single bill yet) threatened to veto any bill which de-funded Moon/Mars program. Considering that NASA budget is always rolled with VA and Housing and Urban Development budget, plus the fact that his campaign was heading downhill, he was taking serious risk with such veto. At the end, Bush got what he wanted.

BTW, I was skeptical about Bush's Moon/Mars initiative at first. But his firm stance with the House committee convinced me his is serious. And so is his manner :)

[Spacewriter]

Ilya,

He'll only support Moon/Mars as long as it funnels money to people who vote for him/Republicans.

[Ilya]

Ilya,

He'll only support Moon/Mars as long as it funnels money to people who vote for him/Republicans.

And these people are...? Texas is solidly Republican, he did not NEED to throw Texans Moon/Mars program. California is solidly Democrat, they will not be swayed. Florida is a "swing state" but Floridians who get the money from Moon/Mars vote Republican already. Sorry, but this initiative gained no votes for Bush. Most likely it cost him a few.

BTW, even if you are right, then Bush must support it indefinitely -- because it will continue funneling said money for decades!

[ngc3314]

I never heard anything about ESA being involved in Hubble.
They are involved in the ISS, but that's another story.

ESA was a 15% partner in HST from before it was named Hubble. They provided the original Faint-Object Camera and solar arrays (whose floppiness kept them from laughing too loudly over the mirror fiasco). They provide at least 15% of STScI staffing (at ESA expense) and maintain a European support facility (ST-ECF) colocated with ESO in Garching. On paper, astronomers from ESA member states are guaranteed 15% of HST time, so there is always ESA representation on review panels. Every time I've looked, the Europeans did better than 15% anyway, simply from teh size and expertise of their astronomical community.

This arrangement worked well enough to be continued with JWST. Not only is ESA providing an instrument, but to keep the costs within the cap mandated for NASA, they'll even deliver on-site with an Ariane V.

[Evan]

The shuttle is still an X rated craft. It does NOT have certification as an airworthy aircraft.


Pegasus launch vehicle is a winged
vehicle used to place payloads in Earth
orbit and is subject to CSLA licensing.
Similarly, the Space Shuttle has wings
but is not regarded as an aircraft (nor is
it subject to licensing because its
operation is deemed to be by and for the
Government and therefore exempt from
the CSLA).

here (http://ast.faa.gov/files/pdf/FAA_Suborbital_Definitions.pdf)

Everyone who flies on it understands the dangers involved. They willingly risk their lives. They are volunteers. Have a look at the statistics of the test flight programs in the fifties and sixties. At times they were losing a pilot every few days. The current space program stands on their shoulders.

What has happened? Are we no longer as a society willing to allow people to risk their lives by their own choosing to further human knowledge? If so then we are doomed to a future of featureless mediocrity. What has happened to the spirit of exploration? Many people in the past chose a one way trip to North America with no chance of return, the Solutreans, the Clovis people and later modern Europeans. Many died. Some persevered and succeeded. None of us (and I mean ALL of us) would be here in North America if it were not for these exceptionally risky adventures.

If this is no longer an acceptable risk for any member of society to take then we may as well drink some purple koolaid.

[W.F. Tomba]

In September Bush (who has not vetoed a single bill yet) threatened to veto any bill which de-funded Moon/Mars program.It's true that he hasn't vetoed anything, but he has threatened to veto many things. It's a standard tactic for him, not a sign of a particularly strong commitment to this program.

[Ilya]

In September Bush (who has not vetoed a single bill yet) threatened to veto any bill which de-funded Moon/Mars program.It's true that he hasn't vetoed anything, but he has threatened to veto many things. It's a standard tactic for him, not a sign of a particularly strong commitment to this program.

However, threatening to veto a politically sensitive (VA/HUD) funding bill during election year over a program with no critical constituency IS a sign of such commitment.

[Nicolas]

ngc3314 wrote:

ESA was a 15% partner in HST from before it was named Hubble. They provided the original Faint-Object Camera and solar arrays (whose floppiness kept them from laughing too loudly over the mirror fiasco). They provide at least 15% of STScI staffing (at ESA expense) and maintain a European support facility (ST-ECF) colocated with ESO in Garching. On paper, astronomers from ESA member states are guaranteed 15% of HST time, so there is always ESA representation on review panels. Every time I've looked, the Europeans did better than 15% anyway, simply from teh size and expertise of their astronomical community.

This arrangement worked well enough to be continued with JWST. Not only is ESA providing an instrument, but to keep the costs within the cap mandated for NASA, they'll even deliver on-site with an Ariane V.
Thanks for the info, I didn't know that.

kg034 wrote:

If only they can get the Arianne 5 working again.
As far as I know, the Ariane 5 is fully working at the moment? It launched 3 times in 2004.

[junkyardfrog]

If this is no longer an acceptable risk for any member of society to take then we may as well drink some purple koolaid.

I believe you've overlooked NASCAR....

;)

[kg034]

..snip..
kg034 wrote:

If only they can get the Arianne 5 working again.
As far as I know, the Ariane 5 is fully working at the moment? It launched 3 times in 2004.

Thanks, I stand corrected (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Launchers_Home/SEMXK0474OD_0.html)#-o
Well, partially :)...Apparently, there's an ATV version, the Ariane 5 ES ATV (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Launchers_Access_to_Space/SEM20W67ESD_0.html), and the new heavy-lift version Ariane 5 ECA (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Launchers_Access_to_Space/SEM0LR2PGQD_0.html). I guess ECA version is what got stuck in my mind. I guess we'll find out about the ECA in 3 weeks (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Launchers_Home/SEMHEZ374OD_0.html).

BTW, speaking of the ATV, and hijacking the thread, it seems to be capable of more than twice the cargo weight of the Soyuz/Progress vehicles. If the Europeans can get this going reliably, perhaps the iss is not sunk afterall.....any comments from the other side of the pond?

[Staiduk]

If I might throw in a couple of truly worthless cents.... :)

1) If the option is to boost Hubble up or down; is there really any point to boosting it up; other than sentimenal value? By that I mean boosting it into a higher orbit buys it time to be fixed/upgraded; and surpassed by other more powerful systems. Besides; if people are worried - as in this quote:

In addition, I am wholly unconvinced of the necessity of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to send Hubble- or other large spacecraft such as CGRO or TRMM - into the Pacific. When you do the math, the probability that some piece of the spacecraft comes down and hits someone is akin to the probability of being struck by lightning. I agree; if you're going to boost it somewhere, boost it up.
...of the cost of hooking on a module and sending it into the drink well - doesn't boosting it up mean going up and hooking on a module as well? And IIRC boosting a vessel up is a whole lot harder and more costly than bringing it down, it seems to me.

The Hubble is a tool. A wonderful; beautifully designed tool with a great deal of sentimental value; but then, so were steam engines. When a better tool becomes available, you use it instead.

Look; as far as I can see NASA is dying, if not dead. It's ground to a halt; gasping along on broken toys and billions of dollars for no real return. It is clear to me personally that a government-funded program like this cannot be the future of space exploration - it's too ponderous; too cautious in the face of funding, too hidebound to go out and take the risks needed. Perhaps with SS1 the true future of space is coming - once big business gets into the swing of things - as I believe they will once a market becomes available - people will have a solid reason for being up there; that reason being profit - the strongest driving force in our civilization at the moment.
Or so I like to think, anyway. :)

[Diamond]

Although people seem very attached to the Hubble, earth-based technology has practically superceded Hubble in nearly every way. Other than the loss for UV astronomy (which isn't going to be fixed with the James Webb anyway), I'd rather we stop spending large amounts of money that could be better used in other projects.

Hubble has done a fantastic job and there's data for a whole generation of astronomy doctorates already produced, but we need to stop being nostalgic and think about a post-Hubble future.

[synthomus]

Although people seem very attached to the Hubble, earth-based technology has practically superceded Hubble in nearly every way. Other than the loss for UV astronomy (which isn't going to be fixed with the James Webb anyway), I'd rather we stop spending large amounts of money that could be better used in other projects.


For instance in OWL (http://www.eso.org/projects/owl/index.html), the OverWhelmingly Large (100 m!) telescope mentionned earlier by joema. Pricetag: only 1 billion $ something, the equivalent of one Shuttle mission. It should be capable of targeting the Holy Grail of present-day astronomy, the detection of biomarkers on earth-like, or perhaps even not earth-like, planets around other stars.

[George]

I asked this question on another thread some time ago:

I feel that if we are going to go to the trouble of sending a booster to Hubble, we should boost it into a higher orbit, so that when we come to our senses, we can repair it and get more use from it!
The BA answered it on C2C tonight. In essence, if we boost it high enough to keep it from being dragged back down, it winds up in the Van Allen belt and the electronics get fried! Thanks BA.

Thanks, Kap. I was wondering about this.

So, being the hard-head that I am, would it be possible to attach a rebooster which, after attachment, could be engaged whenever necessary to hold orbit, as opposed to a boost into "rad land".

As I understand, the thermosphere (where Hubble soars) is somewhat weaker on satelites during solar minimum. Since we are almost at solar minimum, will that also minimize orbit decay risks for Hubble?

[The Bad Astronomer]

If this thread turns partisan, I will lock it. Period.

[synthomus]

Perhaps with SS1 the true future of space is coming - once big business gets into the swing of things - as I believe they will once a market becomes available - people will have a solid reason for being up there; that reason being profit - the strongest driving force in our civilization at the moment.
Or so I like to think, anyway. :)

If you defined profit in a broader than purely monetary sense, then I think yes, there could be some private boost for scientific space exploration. Yet that would mainly be Paul Allen-style patronage, which is a noble thing but very rare. His engagement for the Allen Telescope Array yields him heavenly profits that, like it's mostly always the case in space science, have no monetary equivalent.

Richard Branson on the other hand, even if he stood on the moon in a few years' time, it would be a giant leap for a man but a small step for space exploration.

That "true free market" approach is much too ideological simplistic to cope with all the environmental limits in space let alone here on Earth. Refined concepts still imply dialectical thinking.

[beskeptical]

I have started a flu thread here (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=403089#403089) so I could answer the posts on page 3 without hijacking this thread.

[ToSeek]

...of the cost of hooking on a module and sending it into the drink well - doesn't boosting it up mean going up and hooking on a module as well? And IIRC boosting a vessel up is a whole lot harder and more costly than bringing it down, it seems to me.


The only difference is the direction of the acceleration, and possibly there's slightly more delta-V required to boost it up than down. Other than that, there's no real difference. Actually, if anything, it might be harder to de-orbit since the goal is to aim it for a specific spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But that's not really very hard, either.

[joema]

...The ISS situation matters not one whit to the issue with the Hubble. Its the unreliability of the space shuttle at the core of the Hubble situation...
ISS is involved because NASA admin O'Keefe said all shuttle flights must be reserved for ISS construction, hence none available for HST.

However the real problem is money more than shuttle reliability. The argument is tenuous that a single HST servicing mission is more risky than 25 or so ISS missions.

There are many ascent failure modes that preclude ISS inspection of shuttle thermal protection or shuttle crew taking refuge in ISS (one argument for ISS only missions).

One of these has already happened. STS-51F in 1985 had a failed engine resulting an in abort to low orbit. Had that been an ISS mission they wouldn't have reached it.

Which is the second arguement for ISS only missions. They aren't risking any failure on any mission other than those NASA has no other choice but to use the shuttle for. If it weren't for ISS, the shuttle would not fly again, ever.

The main safety argument articulated by NASA for ISS only missions is that ISS facilitates (a) tile inspection, and (b) safe haven in case of tile damage.

Neither of those are reliable, as STS-51F illustrates. It's easily possible an ISS-bound mission might not reach ISS due to an abort to orbit, abort once around, etc.

NASA never objected to the incremental risk of one HST mission, rather that the HST destination did not afford the inspection and safe haven options. Yet those options are not reliable for the ISS destination, hence that argument was somewhat weak.

With the new announcement the objection switches from safety to money.

However a robot mission to HST is still needed for deorbit/reboost.

[Evan]

Phil (the BA),

What is your problem?


The Bush administration has asked NASA not to service Hubble again, and instead to concentrate on dropping it safely into the Pacific ocean at the end of its lifetime. This may be a political ploy to gain ground later, but it strikes me as having a ring of truth to it. I have mixed emotions, personally: I used Hubble for many, many years, and it has done more to bring the beauty and awe of astronomy to the public than almost anything else. However, a new mission to refurbish it would cost over a billion dollars in real money, and that might be best spent other ways given NASA's limited budget (of course, I think NASA's budget should be doubled, but that is sadly not going to play here). I also fear that this might be another thrust in the "men not machines" debate going on in space circles these days. Either way, we'll have to see how this plays out in the coming few weeks. The national budget (including NASA) will be made public in early February. In the meantime, you can discuss this topic on the Bad Astronomy Bulletin Board,

No one here is going any further than you have on this site. Why can we not say what we feel on this OPEN forum that you have provided? I know it is your party, but as a webmaster myself I think that when you open a forum to the general public then you must tolerate expression of opinion as long as it does not violate the law. Otherwise just shut this whole thing down.

[Staiduk]

...of the cost of hooking on a module and sending it into the drink well - doesn't boosting it up mean going up and hooking on a module as well? And IIRC boosting a vessel up is a whole lot harder and more costly than bringing it down, it seems to me.


The only difference is the direction of the acceleration, and possibly there's slightly more delta-V required to boost it up than down. Other than that, there's no real difference. Actually, if anything, it might be harder to de-orbit since the goal is to aim it for a specific spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But that's not really very hard, either.

Hmmm - I don't know the math; but that doesn't seem right to me. :)
If one wants to boost it into a stable higher orbit; one needs to accellerate it along its current course; then acellerate it again at its apogee (?) to circularize the orbit. Easy enough I suppose with current technology. Dropping it OTOH requires burning retrogade just enough that it slows down at a particular point in its orbit. - they've done it with shuttles, capsules and a whole whack of other things including the two former space stations IIRC - Mir and Skylab and the odd LEM or two. Much less usage in fuel; it would seem to me, though the amount of fuel used is admittedly the smallest factor in the problem. Determining where exactly to burn is of course as you say easy as well - if they can throw a major curve-ball, wind it around a few planets, add in a bank-shot or two and bullseye Titan; bellyflopping in the Pacific would be a piece of cake! :D :D
(Youse guys know the math a lot better than I do; Ijust play Orbiter way too much. :D If I'm wrong; I'd really appreciate knowing how exactly. :) Thanks.)
Overall; it still seems to me that de-orbiting the craft would be the best course; but of course I could be wrong. :)


P.S.
Evan:
PLEASE don't antagonize the mods! This is a TRULY fascinating conversation; and I'd like to see it continue. It's the BA's board; he makes the rules. As far as discussing politics; what Dr. Phil was stating in the quote you provided was political strategy - which is a long cry from partisan argument that has popped up now and then.
I think what he's saying is that there's no way to totally remove politics from the discussion - after all; all top-level decision making is inherently political in nature - just as in my field of expertise; one cannot discuss military theory without branching into the Great Game. However it can be done without bashing the current administration; no matter how....whoops; I'll stop there. ;)

[Evan]

Staiduk,

I am apolitical. I have no wish to see this topic or this board shut down. I also have made no political comment except for a very sideways reference to where the money is going. That is not to be construed as a political comment, just a matter of fact.

[Staiduk]

If you defined profit in a broader than purely monetary sense, then I think yes, there could be some private boost for scientific space exploration. Yet that would mainly be Paul Allen-style patronage, which is a noble thing but very rare. His engagement for the Allen Telescope Array yields him heavenly profits that, like it's mostly always the case in space science, have no monetary equivalent.

Richard Branson on the other hand, even if he stood on the moon in a few years' time, it would be a giant leap for a man but a small step for space exploration.

That "true free market" approach is much too ideological simplistic to cope with all the environmental limits in space let alone here on Earth. Refined concepts still imply dialectical thinking.

Excellent points. :) My belief however centers less around space exploration than it does space development.

Picture if you will - and here we head into S-F; but a likely possible course of action - that with SS1 a success and private industry now capable of extraplanetary flight companies ever looking for ways to get a leg up begin designing and building genuine spaceplanes for their own use. We have the technology; what we need is the will. Remember; we had the technology to sail across the Atlantic for a long time; but no-one wanted to try and/or believed it was even possible until some nutter had the cojones to work up a plan; sweet-talk Royalty into giving him the cash and then go out and do it. In an incredibly short time after that; huge freighters and warships roamed everywhere on Earth there was water - all people needed was to see it could be done.
Same thing here. If Boeing wants to get ahead of Airbus and design a plane that'll take people from JFK-Tokyo in 2 hours; they now know such a thing is possible; and just might go ahead and do it.
OK; so what about making money in space? What's there to profit from out there? Heck, I dunno - how about tourism? Imagine resorts on the Moon; or hotels in Earth orbit. Down the road; how about low-G manufacturing/mining? If there's money to be made; perhaps 3M or a similar corp would make an attempt to capitalize? All it takes is someone with the imagination and drive to say 'Hey - he did it; we can do it too!!' and come up with a plan to make loads of bucks for it to happen. :)

On this planet; exploration has almost always been done in conjunction with business. Captains looked for new trade routes, new lands to conquer/plunder/trade with etc. Why should space be any different? :)
Cheers!

[The Bad Astronomer]

Phil (the BA),
What is your problem?


My statement on the front page is not partisan; both parties have made moves with political motivations counting first. It's within the boundaries of this forum to discuss political ramifications of policy as it pertains to astronomy, but not to start making swipes at "opposite" parties, whoever your opposite happens to be. There have been much more heavily-partisan posts in this thread, and I won't allow that here.

If someone posts, "Perhaps it's being cut to save money, which is a Republican plank" then that's okay, because it isn't overtly pro- one party or another. In reality, a post like that is an opening for partisan discussion, so I would ask people to think carefully before posting something like that. I wouldn't censor a post like that, but I'd be pretty unhappy if it instigated a flame war.

And to make it clear: I have very strong feelings about politics, and even partisan politics. But I also know that discussions about them (as with religion) almost inevitably lead to threads having much lower signal and much higher noise. This forum has one of the highest signal-to-noise ratios of any forum I have ever seen, and I'll be honest: I'm very proud of that. Of course most of it is due to the high intelligence of the posters here, but I will take some credit. My policy of how to post is enforced, and it keeps intelligent discourse possible.

[Jerod S. V2.0]

Phil/BA,

Can I say "this situation sucks" without getting myself banned? 8-[ :D

I'm by *no* means anything remotely approaching an astronomer -professional, amateur or otherwise. But what I am painfully aware of -and you pointed out in your news alert on the homepage- is the fact Hubble *has* given humanity its greatest, deepest and most stunning look(s) at the universe to date. No disrespect intended to any ground based technologies (or the individuals who designed, built, continue to use, etc.) that have contributed to our overall body of knowledge, but...Hubble is the culmination of everything that has come before it in terms of humanity's ability to gaze into outer space and collect information. To simply let it die the death and plunge it into the Pacific Ocean seems a tremendous waste.

That being said...am I correct in my understanding that there is a more powerful 'next generation Hubble' (the moniker of which I cannot recall just now to save my soul) slated for deployment long about 2010 or thereabouts? Hope this is the case and I'm not just confused about something I vaguely recall hearing about a couple years ago. Love this BB. =D> I don't say much, but it's always a pleasure to visit, read and learn.

[Nicolas]

Can I say "this situation sucks" without getting myself banned? 8-[ :D

As far as I understood the FAQ, you are perfectly allowed to have that opinion and post it here(if that was your opinion on Hubble getting no sevice at least :)). I would take care of the language a bit though.

It's not like I'm shocked or anything, but my experience is that the BA is a man who (rightfully) draws strong lines to keep his board on its high level. The last thing I (and most of us I guess) want is that this board is turned into GLP 2.0 or something like that. It is just easier to ban all bad words, it is the only clear line. And there are plenty ways to get your strong thoughts across without them.

[synthomus]

This forum has one of the highest signal-to-noise ratios of any forum I have ever seen, and I'll be honest: I'm very proud of that. Of course most of it is due to the high intelligence of the posters here, but I will take some credit. My policy of how to post is enforced, and it keeps intelligent discourse possible.

I strongly support that policy. Probably most of us who made up their minds to join the BABB and to invest some of their time in contributing to it have an interest in that we extend our competitive position among related boards. Less well behaved fori inevitably start getting too self-referential and wrapped up in their own reality sooner or later.

As a schoolkid I observed and statistically charted sunspots on a daily basis while I had a 2-year old feral fraternal brat at my side which made it often kind of an ordeal. I certainly have learned to cherish high signal-to-noise ratios since then!

[W.F. Tomba]

On this planet; exploration has almost always been done in conjunction with business. Captains looked for new trade routes, new lands to conquer/plunder/trade with etc. Why should space be any different? :)There are no Indies in space.

Not only is there no one to conquer or trade with out there, there is no place in the Solar System where humans can even survive without elaborate and expensive technological help. How quickly do you think Europeans would have conquered the globe if, on their earliest voyages, they had found nothing but dead, barren, uninhabited desert? Would they even have bothered to keep exploring?

I'm not saying we'll never do it, just that the profitmaking possibilities are not really comparable to the New World ca. 1500. A better comparison would be Antarctica.

[WTP]

Check this out for suggestions on saving Hubble
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961

BTW, the Russians have a space shuttle of their own, they just haven't used it. It's called the Buran. Perhaps we could offer the Russians usage of the telescope in exchange for them servicing it.

Heck, we could even offer it to the Chinese. The PR benefits alone would be worth it.

[kucharek]

Check this out for suggestions on saving Hubble
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961

BTW, the Russians have a space shuttle of their own, they just haven't used it. It's called the Buran. Perhaps we could offer the Russians usage of the telescope in exchange for them servicing it.

Heck, we could even offer it to the Chinese. The PR benefits alone would be worth it.

Buran flew one time some 15 years ago. The infrastructure isn't any longer there and the shuttle's themselves are tourist attractions in amusement parks. No way to get those flying again.

[Nicolas]

Not wanting to Hijack the thread, but IIRC Energia still has its launch pad, and there was untill the roof collapse at least one complete Buran orbiter at Baikonour. Some say it was destroyed in the collapse, but it appears like that is not the case, and there are at least 2 complete orbiters. There is little conclusive info on Buran, and if there still would be complete orbiters, they would have been mothballed for a long period of time already. Let's hope they learned a lot while developing them, at least the effort hasn't been for nothing in that case. A Flight test orbiter and a mockup are in amusement parks indeed.

Besides, the Buran orbiters are property of Kazachstan now, they got them from Russia in exchange of some years of using Baikonour (instead of paying rent).

[rleyland]

On this planet; exploration has almost always been done in conjunction with business. Captains looked for new trade routes, new lands to conquer/plunder/trade with etc. Why should space be any different? :)There are no Indies in space.

Not only is there no one to conquer or trade with out there, there is no place in the Solar System where humans can even survive without elaborate and expensive technological help. How quickly do you think Europeans would have conquered the globe if, on their earliest voyages, they had found nothing but dead, barren, uninhabited desert? Would they even have bothered to keep exploring?

I'm not saying we'll never do it, just that the profitmaking possibilities are not really comparable to the New World ca. 1500. A better comparison would be Antarctica.


Alaska may be a better match... we will go when we figure out how to collect the resources that are abundant, for a cost that is practicable. Antarctica would be more "developed" if we found something there that we needed. Alaska had gold, and has oil.

There may not be "peoples" out there to trade with, but there is certainly plenty of resources to gather, mine etc.

The analogy is still quite apt. :-)

cheers,
Robbo

[edit for spelling]

[Staiduk]

On this planet; exploration has almost always been done in conjunction with business. Captains looked for new trade routes, new lands to conquer/plunder/trade with etc. Why should space be any different? :)There are no Indies in space.

Not only is there no one to conquer or trade with out there, there is no place in the Solar System where humans can even survive without elaborate and expensive technological help. How quickly do you think Europeans would have conquered the globe if, on their earliest voyages, they had found nothing but dead, barren, uninhabited desert? Would they even have bothered to keep exploring?

I'm not saying we'll never do it, just that the profitmaking possibilities are not really comparable to the New World ca. 1500. A better comparison would be Antarctica.


Alaska may be a better match... we will go when we figure out how to collect the resources that are abundant, for a cost that is practicable. Antarctica would be more "developed" if we found something there that we needed. Alaska had gold, and has oil.

There may not be "peoples" out there to trade with, but there is certainly plenty of resources to gather, mine etc.

The analogy is still quite apt. :-)

cheers,
Robbo

[edit for spelling]

Exactly - it's easy to say 'there's nothing there' or 'it's not possible'; which was the common thinking dearing the 1400's. But as back then in a world filled with imaginative thinkers; someone will figure out a way to profit from going out there. When he/she does; people will go.
Look; I said earlier NASA is dying. It's too bad - it's a good organization filled with good people but because of funding concerns, government oversight etc. CYA is the dominant consideration. Space exploration/development won't really happen unitl it's in private hands, IMO. :)

[morpheus]

With the $152 billion currently committed to Iraq, we could have had half a dozen Hubbles not to mention a couple of Mars missions. :evil:

[Candy]

Not to pick on morpheus, but could any of you posters to this thread be President for even one day?

Put yourself in Bush's shoes! :o

[V-GER]

Hubble will be greatly missed but there will be other, more effective telescopes so this not an irreversible damage.
Aren't there already earthbound telescopes capable of the same resolution?

[joema]

Aren't there already earthbound telescopes capable of the same resolution?
That is an excellent question and highly relevant to this discussion.

If anyone can authoritatively comment that would be good.

Here's what I know: Some earthbound telescopes can surpass Hubble (in resolution) on highly limited objects, using IR wavelengths (not visible).

It's one thing for adaptive optics to compensate for atmospheric distortion on bright point-source objects.

The real trick is doing that: (a) for complex objects (b) for visible wavelengths, not IR (c) for objects not adjacent to a bright guide star, which requires a laser-created artificial guide star

In theory all of the above are achievable, but to my knowledge not quite yet (collectively on one telescope). I think Keck has a prototype system. Here's some info on the Keck system:

http://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/news/lgsao/lgs_ao.html

http://cfao.ucolick.org/EO/internshipsnew/faber.pdf

If it's built the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope with advanced adaptive optics would have 40 times Hubble's resolution, and a limiting magnitude of 38, vs Hubble's 29. It could resolve the Apollo hardware on the moon, and planetary images would rival the Voyager probes.

Whether it gets built and the adaptive optics make that progress remains to be seen.

http://www.eso.org/projects/owl/

The Giant Magellan Telescope will be 25 meters:

http://www.gmto.org/

[Evan]

Very inflammatory thread.
Put yourself in Bush's shoes!

To quote a Canadian politician, comment (http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/11/21/moron021121)

Who is really running the show??? Remember, I, as a US citizen, am apolitical. If the US really has an interest in exploring space then there would be no question about funding. It is less than one percent of the US budget. How about five percent, or even ten?

[V-GER]

Evan wrote:

Who is really running the show???

Good question, I wouldn't put the blame too much on Bush's head. I haven't seen any statistics
but I dare guess that his predecessors haven't been all crazy about space exploration either.
Besides if the manned Mars flight eventually happens then Bush just might be remembered
as the one who instigated it all like Kennedy with the moon flight.

[The Bad Astronomer]

Hubble's advantage is not just resolution. It is also above the atmosphere, which means it can see in the IR and UV (which can be absorbed by air), as well as no sky glow so it can see fainter objects.

And resolution does count. Right now, adaptive optics only works on small fields of view, while the Advanced Camera on Hubble is several arcminutes on a side.

[Evan]

The major advantage of Hubble and any other space based observatory is the ability to "stare" at a target. This is not possible from earth based telescopes, no matter how advanced they are. See here (http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1996/01/)

[W.F. Tomba]

Alaska may be a better match... we will go when we figure out how to collect the resources that are abundant, for a cost that is practicable. Antarctica would be more "developed" if we found something there that we needed. Alaska had gold, and has oil.

There may not be "peoples" out there to trade with, but there is certainly plenty of resources to gather, mine etc.

The analogy is still quite apt. :-)You're right, the Alaska analogy is apt, but I was referring to the analogy that is usually made between space exploration and the vast waves of European exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Take Magellan's voyage around the world. It finished with only one out of the original five ships (and without Magellan), yet it still made a profit. That shows you what kind of money was to be had in the Far East for those willing to risk the trip.

In Alaska, on the other hand, the Russians tried to make a colony in the late 1700s. They never made much money off it and ended up selling it to the United States. After that, it remained largely undeveloped, despite the Gold Rush. Oil was discovered in Alaska in (I believe) 1900 or 1901, but was not exploited on a large scale until the 1950s. This is why Alaska didn't become a state until 1959. Today, although it supplies a large chunk of America's oil, Alaska's population and economy are still among the smallest of the fifty states.

Yes, profit-driven development of Alaska has occurred, but most of it had to wait until we had already developed ways to bring great amounts of oil safely home from the remotest regions of the Earth---and until political problems in the Middle East forced America to look for more domestic oil. The wave of European exploration and colonization could not have begun with places like Alaska. With space exploration, it's as if we are Europe and Alaska is the entire world. There may be valuable resources out there, but it will require an enormous amount of industrial development just to go and get them, and there is no region of "easy money" to get us over that hump. Societies with the money and power to go into space will find it easier and cheaper to get their resources from Earth, and I don't see that changing for a long time.

[ToSeek]

Not wanting to Hijack the thread, but IIRC Energia still has its launch pad, and there was untill the roof collapse at least one complete Buran orbiter at Baikonour. Some say it was destroyed in the collapse, but it appears like that is not the case, and there are at least 2 complete orbiters. There is little conclusive info on Buran, and if there still would be complete orbiters, they would have been mothballed for a long period of time already. Let's hope they learned a lot while developing them, at least the effort hasn't been for nothing in that case. A Flight test orbiter and a mockup are in amusement parks indeed.

Besides, the Buran orbiters are property of Kazachstan now, they got them from Russia in exchange of some years of using Baikonour (instead of paying rent).

It's very difficult to launch from Russian sites and get into an orbit with the inclination of Hubble. That's why the ISS is at a much higher inclination than any other US satellite that doesn't need to be in a high-inclination orbit. I don't know if Buran would be workable unless it could be launched from KSC or the ESA launch site in French Guiana.

[Tom Ames]

Not to pick on morpheus, but could any of you posters to this thread be President for even one day?

Put yourself in Bush's shoes! :o

I think that morpheus' point might have been the cost of the magnificent window into the universe that is Hubble is trivial when compared to many other items that our government chooses to spend our money on. The excuse that it's too expensive to save Hubble only works when you ignore the context in which that decision was made.

It's perfectly reasonable to express an informed disagreement about federal budget priorities. And "it's a hard job" should not be used as an excuse to shield politicians from criticism of their policies.

(Although no such criticism will occur on this board, of course!)

[joema]

The major advantage of Hubble and any other space based observatory is the ability to "stare" at a target. This is not possible from earth based telescopes, no matter how advanced they are. See here (http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1996/01/)
Don't quite understand what you mean by this. Earthbound telescopes can take multi-night images.

If the OWL telescope is built it will have 1,700 times Hubble's light gathering, so would only need a fraction the exposure time.

Do you mean sky glow as limiting magnitude?

To my knowledge the only two fundamentally unsolvable problems for earth bound telescopes are (1) can't do deep IR or UV and (2) sky glow.
It appears all the other issues with adaptive optics will eventually be solved, even for wide field of view and visual wavelengths.

I'm not sure what the limiting magnitude imposed by sky glow at the best possible terrestrial site is.

Here's another good article on large telescopes:

http://www.stsci.edu/stsci/meetings/HSL/presentations/Nelson.PDF

[synthomus]

While it's rather sad to loose Hubble there are great alternatives like OWL on the horizon which even promise long term advantages. So the demise of Hubble is the least evil resulting from the implementation of the Bush space initiative.

What really scares me though are the overall consequences an implementation ot that space plan will have. The initiative only perpetuates the kind of manned space flight voodoo science (ever thought about why they launch Shuttles from the Caribbean?) NASA has practized for far too long. While the initiative gets promoted as innovative and far reaching in reality it's just an encouragement to keep on spending on the same level for the next decades of low earth orbit at the cost of great robotic space exploration.

I'm happy at least to see Sean O'Keefe leaving as he took part in the culture of hypocrisy within NASA.

[Doodler]

The Hubble's big edge is flexibility. Multinight images are one thing, but the Hubble's ability to stay on target consistently and constantly is a huge advantage. Being above the atmosphere was its original selling point, and its still a huge one even as adaptive optics on the ground catch up with its clarity. But no ground based telescope could have done the Deep Field and Ultra Deep Field surveys with the level of detail that Hubble did. Over a million seconds of exposure were used to create those images. Nothing on the ground could compete with that. That and that it can target nearly anywhere, except through the moon sun and Earth means it can literally point and shoot (with time allowed for maneuvering) at any phenomena your heart desires.

I don't envy anyone tied to this mess, because there is no happy ending to it.

[Evan]

joema,

I think Doodler answered your question quite well.

Also, sky glow is a big problem as well as absorbtion of very important wavelengths by the atmosphere, something that cannot be overcome by any means on the ground. As well, the Moon renders nearly 4 months of the year useless for observing. I won't mention weather again.

[joema]

Maybe I'm just dense, but I still don't get the "ability to stay on target" argument for Hubble. Also Hubble is blocked by the earth about 50% of the time, so technically speaking terrestrial telescopes can stay on target longer. The only exception is a small sky region where Hubble isn't blocked, but that's very restricted.

I agree due to its small diameter it MUST have longer exposure times than larger ground based telescopes. E.g. the Gemini Deep Deep Survey was about 28 hr on a 8.1 meter telescope. It gathered as much light in 28 hr as Hubble Ultra Deep Field did in 11 days.

The 8.2 meter VLT has a limiting magnitude of about 28, which is roughly that displayed by the Hubble Deep Field.

The OWL telescope (if built) could capture as much light in 3.5 minutes as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field did in 11 days.

There's no question without advanced multiconjugate adaptive optics on terrestrial telescopes, Hubble is vastly superior in angular resolution. However virtually all new VLTs will have advanced AO, some eventually with multiple laser guide stars and wide field of view.

It's true no terrestrial scope could have done the HDF or UDF AT THAT TIME. But the issue is the future and how bad losing Hubble will be, not what Hubble could do 5 years ago vs ground-based telescopes back then.

If instead of "stay on target" you mean sky glow limits terrestrial telescopes to a certain magnitude, I can see that. Also no ground-based technique can overcome the spectral regions blocked by the atmosphere. However the blocked IR region will be handled by the Webb Space Telescope, which will be far more capable than Hubble in that area.

[Nicolas]

Joema:

Imagine your bike. Imagine its front wheel. That is the earth (2D version I know, but it doesn't matter here). On the tire (on the part that runs over the asphalt), you glue Hubble. Now glue it so it looks sideways. Turn your wheel (that's Hubble orbiting). Hubble always looks sideways, and is never blocked by your wheel. Now if you'd glue it so that it looks sideways but a bit downwards if you have it on the highest point of it's orbit, it's line of sight will cross your extended wheel axis somewhere in the distance. During it's "orbit" that intersection point will always be the same (your line of sight will form a conus). Focus on that point (the top of the conus), and you got continuously the same point focused.

To me, this description is the easiest to understand.

[joema]

Joema:
Hubble always looks sideways, and is never blocked by your wheel.
I appreciate the nice illustration, but I'm afraid the assumption is incorrect.

Most objects Hubble observes are blocked by the earth every orbit. Since Hubble is in a low orbit, the earth blocks about 1/2 the sky, plus there are further restrictions on minimum "limb angle" (how close to the earth it points) due to light scattering.

In addition Hubble is affected by the South Atlantic Anomaly, a radiation zone it goes through about 12 times a day, and spends about 15% of its time there. It generally must stop imaging while in that zone.

There are just two small regions called the Continuous Viewing Zones, near earth's poles where Hubble is unobstructed by the earth. The HDF and UDF were in those regions to maximize observing time.

http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q525.html

http://www.stsci.edu/hst/proposing/documents/cp/4_Observation_Types2.html

[morpheus]

I think that morpheus' point might have been the cost of the magnificent window into the universe that is Hubble is trivial when compared to many other items that our government chooses to spend our money on. The excuse that it's too expensive to save Hubble only works when you ignore the context in which that decision was made.

It's perfectly reasonable to express an informed disagreement about federal budget priorities.

Exactly. This afternoon's headlines prove my point - Reuters just reported that tomorrow the White House is planning to ask for an additional $80 billion to fund military operations. The 2005 military operations budget so far is a record $105 billion.

This puts the cost of Hubble into stark context. Lack of money is not the reason. The reason is lack of willpower to spend money on science and exploration. Human beings naturally favor the short term view.

[Nicolas]

Joema, what kind of orbit does Hubble have?

If he had a polar orbit, you could always turn him so the orbit axis went through the object he wants to observe. The only restriction then is the sun, and the earth itself for objects that are very nearby. I mean the only goniometric restriction. Radiation is something that has to be taken into account of course.

If you have information on the type of orbits Hubble does, please share them, I'm interested. EDIT: I didn't see your links, I'll check them out first.
EDIT after reading the linked items: those address the problems and possibilites of Hubble nicely. I still would like to know what kind of orbit Hubble has, in order to see visually why ha has that restrictions and why he has best sight near the poles. Besides, isn't the magnetic field also "hitting" earth at the North pole? how come it doesn't pose problems there, but does at the SAA? Any info is welcome.

[ToSeek]

Joema, what kind of orbit does Hubble have?


Hubble orbits the Earth at an altitude of about 353 miles (569 kilometers). It takes about 97 minutes to complete one orbit around the Earth. Hubble passes into the shadow of the Earth for 28 to 36 minutes in each orbit. The orbit inclines at a 28.5-degree angle.
- http://hubblesite.org/discoveries/10th/photos/slide05long.shtml

[Nicolas]

Thank you for the info.

On reflection: I could have known that, I guess:

The shuttle could visit Hubble for repairs. As far as I know, Hubble has no "massive" engines on board, that would allow to reboost it from an 28° inclination (shuttle orbit) to a polar orbit after repair.

Correct me if I'm wrong about this, this is just hasty posting (exams).

[Spacewriter]

There ARE objects that HST can stare at for many hours at a time -- that's how we got the deep fields.

[ToSeek]

Thank you for the info.

On reflection: I could have known that, I guess:

The shuttle could visit Hubble for repairs. As far as I know, Hubble has no "massive" engines on board, that would allow to reboost it from an 28° inclination (shuttle orbit) to a polar orbit after repair.

Correct me if I'm wrong about this, this is just hasty posting (exams).

Hubble has no thrusters at all (they might foul the optics), let alone ones that could support an orbital plane change.

[The Bad Astronomer]

Along the "poles" of Hubble's orbits are what are called the continuous viewing zones (CVZ): where the Earth doesn't block Hubble's view. The deep fields lie there. For most of the sky, the Earth blocks the view for some fraction of the orbit.

Ground based telescopes can stare just as long as Hubble does. It might take longer (no CVZ, and Hubble can observe during its "day"), though. Also, time on ground-based scopes is hotly fought after, so it would be difficult to schedule.

To repeat: Hubble's major advantages are threefold:

1) No air, so it can view IR and UV
2) No air, so no sky glow, allowing fainter objects
3) No air, so better resolution over the field of view

[George]

Hubble has no thrusters at all (they might foul the optics), let alone ones that could support an orbital plane change.

Is it not possible to give it thrusters? I would think some sort of orbit-holding rebooster might be feasible complete with gyros, if necessary. Why such little interest in this idea vs. a "debooster?" to send it's fried remains to the bottom of an ocean? #-o

[joema]

For attitude control (pointing) you can either use thrusters or reaction wheels. Reaction wheels are heavy flywheels that when spun turn Hubble in the opposite direction.

If you need lots of repositioning in general reaction wheels are better (no out-of-fuel problems) plus they avoid possible optic contamination.

However the KH-11 spy satellites are about the size of Hubble and they have robust thrusters that can significantly change orbital inclination and altitude. Don't know how they avoid the contamination problem.

[Nicolas]

George: holding it's orbit isn't the biggest problem. Apart from the gyro's, also batteries are declining, and a general servicing needs to be done (the thiing is constantly in hostile space). You can't "simply" attach new batteries: obviously you need to connect them to the internal electric circuit. EDIT to add: the Aw&ST article about the last Hubble servicing mission is interesting: it points out how paint was severely damaged (which can be a problem considering optics) and insulation material was ruptured by space exposure already back then. You don't just need to keep it up, you need to keep it up and running :)

ToSeek: how does Hubble change it's attitude? EDIT: toseeked :)

[George]

George: holding it's orbit isn't the biggest problem. Apart from the gyro's, also batteries are declining, and a general servicing needs to be done (the thiing is constantly in hostile space). You can't "simply" attach new batteries: obviously you need to connect them to the internal electric circuit. EDIT to add: the Aw&ST article about the last Hubble servicing mission is interesting: it points out how paint was severely damaged (which can be a problem considering optics) and insulation material was ruptured by space exposure already back then. You don't just need to keep it up, you need to keep it up and running :)

The main reason to attach the oribit-holding rebooster is to buy time for the Hubble. Even if it eventually fails to function at all levels, I would hope it could be preserved long enough to either upgrade it or bring her home.

If, as Kaptain K stated, a booster must be attached anyway, why not one that preserves not destroys. They could partialy offset the additional costs, hopefully, on the basis of eliminating the risk of hitting a populated site.


ToSeek: how does Hubble change it's attitude? EDIT: toseeked :)
Doesn't [it] have to want to change? :wink:

[Nicolas]

The main reason to attach the oribit-holding rebooster is to buy time for the Hubble. Even if it eventually fails to function at all levels, I would hope it could be preserved long enough to either upgrade it or bring her home.

Partially good idea, however I fear that in reality you spend a lot of poney on putting it in a higher orbit where it further declines untill it becomes that old and worn out that a repair/update would be even more expensive than it is now, so you'd need to attach yet another booster to get it down (unless the first booster was capable of doing both, which would increase the costs again...)

[George]

The main reason to attach the oribit-holding rebooster is to buy time for the Hubble. Even if it eventually fails to function at all levels, I would hope it could be preserved long enough to either upgrade it or bring her home.

Partially good idea, however I fear that in reality you spend a lot of poney on putting it in a higher orbit where it further declines untill it becomes that old and worn out that a repair/update would be even more expensive than it is now, so you'd need to attach yet another booster to get it down (unless the first booster was capable of doing both, which would increase the costs again...)

As the BA has mentioned, the Van Allen Belts are "higher up" and would fry the electronics. So, you just need to keep her where she's at. This would require less reboosting power.

The thermosphere at this altitude is suppose to be thinner, IIRC, during solar minimums. How much this would help the Hubble is unknown to me, but it should help some.

[Nicolas]

So you want a booster to keep it at its altitude. That still requires alaunching a booster and connecting it to hubble, which is one expensive mission. Considering the Van Allen, it is indeed the best thing to keep it where it is now. The solar minimum doesn't really help Hubble, it only minimizes further degrading. In a way you could call that helping maybe...

Still I don't believe that in some years time there suddenly will be someone who wants to give the money to repair Hubble, certainly not if we keep developing other telescopes in the meantime.

[Hamlet]

A primer on the Hubble Attitude Control System can be found here (http://hubblesite.org/sci.d.tech/nuts_.and._bolts/spacecraft_systems/pointing/).

[George]

So you want a booster to keep it at its altitude. That still requires alaunching a booster and connecting it to hubble, which is one expensive mission.
But isn't that also required to "deep six" it? The question becomes - how much more cost to hold it as opposed to send Hubble down?


Still I don't believe that in some years time there suddenly will be someone who wants to give the money to repair Hubble, certainly not if we keep developing other telescopes in the meantime.

Maybe the rebooster could bring Hubble to a lower orbit when servicing is available.

The newer scopes will be weak in the visible range. I do not know the latest on a true replacement for Hubble and a realistic "when".

There is also the sentimental thing. Astronomy would be wise to keep Hubble. A few ladies helped purchase an old grocery store here in San Antonio in order to preserve it - The Alamo. It probably would have become a needed parking lot downtown, otherwise. :-?

I think science needs to preserve these giant moments with tanglible goods. We shouldn't just look to Mars for opportunity. :wink:

[George]

A primer on the Hubble Attitude Control System can be found here (http://hubblesite.org/sci.d.tech/nuts_.and._bolts/spacecraft_systems/pointing/).

Thanks. Nice link.

I would hope a rebooster could provide an on-board replacement system.

[ngc3314]

Joema:
Hubble always looks sideways, and is never blocked by your wheel.
I appreciate the nice illustration, but I'm afraid the assumption is incorrect.

Most objects Hubble observes are blocked by the earth every orbit. Since Hubble is in a low orbit, the earth blocks about 1/2 the sky, plus there are further restrictions on minimum "limb angle" (how close to the earth it points) due to light scattering.

In addition Hubble is affected by the South Atlantic Anomaly, a radiation zone it goes through about 12 times a day, and spends about 15% of its time there. It generally must stop imaging while in that zone.

There are just two small regions called the Continuous Viewing Zones, near earth's poles where Hubble is unobstructed by the earth. The HDF and UDF were in those regions to maximize observing time.



Minor quibble: the CVZs are zones around the poles of HST's orbit. They sweep out regions near declinations +62 and -62 degrees, as the direction of the 28.5-degree inclination of its orbit (with respect to the terrestrial equator) precesses under the influence of (mostly) the oblateness of the Eartth. This means that a given object won't always be available for continuous viewing, but a variety of fields will spend more or less time in these regions where they are continuously accessible. This explains why the HDFs and HUDF are near these declinations; I think a planetary-transit survey of 47 Tucanae took advantage of its excellent (but not quite continuous) accessibility.

[Jerod S. V2.0]

Anybody have an answer for the question I posed long about page four of this thread pertaining to the next generation of Hubble-style telescopes? (I.e., is there going to be one, what is it called and any idea on the time frame for deployment -assuming such a device exists?)

I sincerely hope there will be something as such and I hope there will be an allocation of necessary resources to such an endeavor...since a considerable amount of the technology we routinely use today came about as a direct result of the space program, it seems reasonable to me that further financial investment and subsequent research in this field (including a next gen. Hubble) has the potential to deliver additional cool and/or useful technologies into the hands of humanity. To say nothing of further advancing our knowledge of astronomy, physics, etc.

So...next generation Hubble, yea or nay?

[joema]

Jerod, you're probably thinking about the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). At 6.5 meters it will be much bigger than Hubble.

Although often described as Hubble's replacement, it's really not. JWST will be optimized for infrared. Also (probably due to the IR) it will only have angular resolution of 0.1 arc seconds, about 1/2 of Hubble. That's still very good, by far the best IR telescope ever. It will likely make many amazing discoveries.

But it's a technically ambitious project -- a lot of sophistication crammed into a small, lightweight package. It requires active cryogenic cooling. There's a lot that could go wrong.

It won't be in low earth orbit but about 1.5 million km from earth in what's called an L2 Lissajous orbit, so there's no possibility of a shuttle service mission.

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

[Nicolas]

So you want a booster to keep it at its altitude. That still requires alaunching a booster and connecting it to hubble, which is one expensive mission.
But isn't that also required to "deep six" it? The question becomes - how much more cost to hold it as opposed to send Hubble down?


Still I don't believe that in some years time there suddenly will be someone who wants to give the money to repair Hubble, certainly not if we keep developing other telescopes in the meantime.

Maybe the rebooster could bring Hubble to a lower orbit when servicing is available.

The newer scopes will be weak in the visible range. I do not know the latest on a true replacement for Hubble and a realistic "when".

There is also the sentimental thing. Astronomy would be wise to keep Hubble. A few ladies helped purchase an old grocery store here in San Antonio in order to preserve it - The Alamo. It probably would have become a needed parking lot downtown, otherwise. :-?

I think science needs to preserve these giant moments with tanglible goods. We shouldn't just look to Mars for opportunity. :wink:
That first remark was referring to my thughts before, about keeping it in orbit now, nobody servicing it, and needing yet another booster mission to finally send it down (which assumed the first booster was built on the cheap so it wuld not be capable of keeping it in orbit AND deorbiting it later)

Second thing: preservation is important. If you stop using the shuttles, you need to preserve one. We still have Saturn V's lying around. However, the enormous price of returning Hubble is just not worth it IMO. Preservation always costs money, but you have to be realistic. You can't freeze time, and you surely can't spend a huge amount of money on it. I'm totally against not spending any money to preserve some things (like building a shelter for the SaturnV) but getting Hubble back down is beyond what I feel is realistic preservation. On a side note, my University (and mainly my faculty) has won the Solar race the lst two times. Their first solar car "Nuna" (and possibly the second as well) used real solar panels that had been returned by the shuttle from space to power their comms system. So in fact it was a gimmick, the engine power panels were more modern variants.

[Doodler]

Ya know, we're missing an interesting opportunity here. Instead of grousing about the end of a remote orbital telescope, why not see about shaking the bushes and trying to drum up enough scratch to have something mounted on the ISS? Possibly some loss of viewing flexibility, but its still orbital, incredibly accessible, and might finally give that white whale a reason not to be de-orbited right after the final bolt is attached.

[George]

... the enormous price of returning Hubble is just not worth it IMO. Preservation always costs money, but you have to be realistic. You can't freeze time, and you surely can't spend a huge amount of money on it. I'm totally against not spending any money to preserve some things (like building a shelter for the SaturnV) but getting Hubble back down is beyond what I feel is realistic preservation.
What I would like to see is a cost analysis. Is it really "too much squeeze for the juice"? The cost of the return trip may not be near what you think. Most shuttles come home empty. However, if the shuttle could be positioned near the Hubble at the time of their payload unloading, they could swing over and load it up. Truckers call it a "back haul". They don't like coming home empty as a return load becomes nearly all profit.

The Hubble is very special, IMO. It accomplished the dream of amateur and professional astronomers - a scope in space. It operates in the visible spectrum (like my little guy), making it our "super eye in space". The drama of it's story is special and the victory over the struggles are quite a story in itself.

Most importantly are it's accomplishments.

Apollo gave us only our fist step. Pioneer to Cassini have revealed our front yard. Hubble has opened the door to the entire universe. Of course, Palomar and others are hardly lacking in credit, but Hubble is "out there in it". Like a cameraman at a football game viewing from the sidelines moving stand vs. the view from a blimp. The Hubble gives us a little better view of the faces.


On a side note, my University (and mainly my faculty) has won the Solar race the lst two times. Their first solar car "Nuna" (and possibly the second as well) used real solar panels that had been returned by the shuttle from space to power their comms system. So in fact it was a gimmick, the engine power panels were more modern variants.
8) Is that the race in Australia?

[Nicolas]

That is the race in Australia indeed. I've already seen plans for NUNA3 (they've asked us to join but I really want to finish my study without delay)

Bringing Hubble home in a non-dedicated shuttle mission is a good proposal. However the shuttle only flies to the ISS. Doesn't it take garbage with it on the return? Or is their still room enough? And is it THEORETICALLY possible for the shuttle to do this mission? If I'm correct it would be the first time the shuttle brings back a satellite? Or did they do it with that "expose" mission as well in the 80's (the one that researched the effect of the space environment on materials and was much longer than planned in space due to Challenger)

[Nicolas]

On a side note, my University (and mainly my faculty) has won the Solar race the lst two times. Their first solar car "Nuna" (and possibly the second as well) used real solar panels that had been returned by the shuttle from space to power their comms system. So in fact it was a gimmick, the engine power panels were more modern variants.

#-o
What I forgot to type, was that those were HUBBLE solar panels!

[ToSeek]

... the enormous price of returning Hubble is just not worth it IMO. Preservation always costs money, but you have to be realistic. You can't freeze time, and you surely can't spend a huge amount of money on it. I'm totally against not spending any money to preserve some things (like building a shelter for the SaturnV) but getting Hubble back down is beyond what I feel is realistic preservation.
What I would like to see is a cost analysis. Is it really "too much squeeze for the juice"? The cost of the return trip may not be near what you think. Most shuttles come home empty. However, if the shuttle could be positioned near the Hubble at the time of their payload unloading, they could swing over and load it up. Truckers call it a "back haul". They don't like coming home empty as a return load becomes nearly all profit.


The only place the shuttle is going to fly to any more is the ISS, and the ISS orbit isn't compatible with Hubble's.

[Nicolas]

That's what I was asking with theoretically possible: can the shuttle go from the ISS to Hubble. The answer appears to be "no". That would mean a dedicated launch, in which case you could as well give it that servicing anyway. Thank for the info ToSeek.

[George]

That's what I was asking with theoretically possible: can the shuttle go from the ISS to Hubble. The answer appears to be "no". That would mean a dedicated launch, in which case you could as well give it that servicing anyway. Thank for the info ToSeek.

But if a destruction booster, being planned, is upgraded to a booster which can hold orbit, then we extend the use of the Hubble. When a shuttle can be utilized for return, the booster can be used to bring the Hubble down to a shuttle-matching orbit.

How much more would it cost for this "salvation" booster? #-o

[Spacewriter]

Along the "poles" of Hubble's orbits are what are called the continuous viewing zones (CVZ): where the Earth doesn't block Hubble's view. The deep fields lie there. For most of the sky, the Earth blocks the view for some fraction of the orbit.

Ground based telescopes can stare just as long as Hubble does. It might take longer (no CVZ, and Hubble can observe during its "day"), though. Also, time on ground-based scopes is hotly fought after, so it would be difficult to schedule.

To repeat: Hubble's major advantages are threefold:

1) No air, so it can view IR and UV
2) No air, so no sky glow, allowing fainter objects
3) No air, so better resolution over the field of view

Thanks for the summary, BA. I had written up a long msg that I then lost when we had a power blip... grr...

[aurora]

This may have already been mentioned (I apologize for not reading all 7 pages of this thread), but it seems rather incongruous to me that the US intends to focus on sending humans to the Moon and Mars, but is unable to send a human to a satellite in low Earth orbit.

I guess it would be funny if it wasn't so sad. :-?

[Nicolas]

NIce remark, Aurora :)

[Doodler]

This may have already been mentioned (I apologize for not reading all 7 pages of this thread), but it seems rather incongruous to me that the US intends to focus on sending humans to the Moon and Mars, but is unable to send a human to a satellite in low Earth orbit.

I guess it would be funny if it wasn't so sad. :-?

Since the Moon/Mars missions won't be in space shuttles, we stand a fair to middlin' chance of getting the astronauts in question back in one piece. Unlike Columbia's crew, who's body parts were still being scraped off the ground several months later.

Wouldn't it be a great, "Honey, I'm home!" to have someone's skull plow through a kitchen window at several hundred miles an hour?

Now THAT would be funny, if it weren't so sad.

[aurora]

Since the Moon/Mars missions won't be in space shuttles, we stand a fair to middlin' chance of getting the astronauts in question back in one piece.

Are you really saying that a brand new delivery system (which will need to exceed escape velocity) will result in safer missions and a better safety record than the space shuttle (which has been been improved over time)?

:o

[Nicolas]

Doodler,

What do you see as "a fair to middlin' chance"? 50%? 75%? 90% 95%?

It's just that the shuttle's reliability is like more than 98%.
Challenger was plain stupidity, Columbia was very sad, the shuttle ain't that good a design compared to what it could have been, but I think it deserves better than those remarks.

[CJSF]

All I have to say is, when one of the extended Moon or Mars missions ends in death of the crew, we can pretty much kiss US manned spaceflight 100% good-bye, if the current political thinking holds. I think it's disgraceful we haven't ALREADY flown the shuttle to ISS and Hubble. Heck, I'd have volunteered to go in a completely unmodified STS a day after Columbia's loss, if I could have.

CJSF
:evil: :evil: :evil:

[Doodler]

Since the Moon/Mars missions won't be in space shuttles, we stand a fair to middlin' chance of getting the astronauts in question back in one piece.

Are you really saying that a brand new delivery system (which will need to exceed escape velocity) will result in safer missions and a better safety record than the space shuttle (which has been been improved over time)?

:o

Darlin', and old heap like Apollo would do a better job. A modern heap like the Soyuz, does a better job. An amateur heap like SpaceShipOne does a better job. I don't care when it was designed, I do care HOW its designed. Its a great feat of technology, but the shuttle's got some serious flaws. Flaw #1, it kills people at odd intervals. Being a reusable craft has required design compromises that a one-off vessel can hold the line on and operate more safely. Its a great idea, but the materials technology used to make it work just isn't 100% reliable yet.

[Nicolas]

Doodler:

Apollo managed to kill a complete crew without even sstarting a countdown to liftoff. Oops maybe we should stop using pure oxygen. Apollo 13, now THAT was a holiday ride.

I don't want to say that Apollo was rubish and the Shuttle is perfect, but I think your view is extremely biased.

[Doodler]

Doodler,

What do you see as "a fair to middlin' chance"? 50%? 75%? 90% 95%?

It's just that the shuttle's reliability is like more than 98%.
Challenger was plain stupidity, Columbia was very sad, the shuttle ain't that good a design compared to what it could have been, but I think it deserves better than those remarks.

I was being mildly facetious. What I was pointing out, via sarcasm, was that a ship designed for a one off mission, which the first long term missions elsewhere will likely be, can use different design criteria that put the survival of the crew as a paramount goal, with the integrity of the vessel beyond doing its immediate job of no consequence.

Apollo, Soyuz and the other capsule missions were never intended to be used beyond the mission they flew on, that was it. The ships could be made in such a manner that beyond getting the crew home in one piece, they were expendable. Heat shields that fried once and were useless weren't an issue. Engines that had to be torn apart and rebuilt weren't an issue.

Reusable ships are a nice idea, but until they can be made as rugged as the older one off ships, they're a risk.

FYI, I'd still fly in a shuttle myself, because I know the risks and accept them. That doesn't mean they're the best ship that can be built.

[Swift]

Since the Moon/Mars missions won't be in space shuttles, we stand a fair to middlin' chance of getting the astronauts in question back in one piece.

Are you really saying that a brand new delivery system (which will need to exceed escape velocity) will result in safer missions and a better safety record than the space shuttle (which has been been improved over time)?

:o

Darlin', and old heap like Apollo would do a better job. A modern heap like the Soyuz, does a better job. An amateur heap like SpaceShipOne does a better job. I don't care when it was designed, I do care HOW its designed. Its a great feat of technology, but the shuttle's got some serious flaws. Flaw #1, it kills people at odd intervals. Being a reusable craft has required design compromises that a one-off vessel can hold the line on and operate more safely. Its a great idea, but the materials technology used to make it work just isn't 100% reliable yet.
I am not an expert about the reliablility of space hardware, but Apollo didn't have a spotless record either (3 dead in ground test, 3 almost lost in space). The USSR had problems too, though I don't know if that was with Soyuz. Any way you look at this stuff, it is dangerous. Like everything else in life (including my commute everyday) it comes down to risk-benefit analysis.

[Doodler]

Doodler:

Apollo managed to kill a complete crew without even sstarting a countdown to liftoff. Oops maybe we should stop using pure oxygen. Apollo 13, now THAT was a holiday ride.

I don't want to say that Apollo was rubish and the Shuttle is perfect, but I think your view is extremely biased.

Yeah, it is a little. I think there's a point in time when you look at a concept, review what its accomplished and what kind of future it has and ask if holding onto it is worthwhile. I'm not saying never fly the shuttles again. I am saying be ready to ground them when we no longer need them and move on.

[Nicolas]

Maybe this sidestep should better be moved to the shuttle return to flight thread?

[Doodler]

I am not an expert about the reliablility of space hardware, but Apollo didn't have a spotless record either (3 dead in ground test, 3 almost lost in space). The USSR had problems too, though I don't know if that was with Soyuz. Any way you look at this stuff, it is dangerous. Like everything else in life (including my commute everyday) it comes down to risk-benefit analysis.


It was Soyuz, an older generation of them. One crew was lost on a Salyut mission when the undocking procedure released a seal and emptied the cabin atmosphere into space. I believe another crew was lost to a failed chute opening, but I'm not 100% certain of that.

In any event, it wasn't my intention to hijack this post. I was responding to a specific post about the issues of sending a crew to the Moon or Mars versus putting them in orbit to repair a telescope.

Its apples and oranges. Different missions, different kinds of spacecraft.

[joema]

I am not an expert about the reliablility of space hardware, but Apollo didn't have a spotless record either (3 dead in ground test, 3 almost lost in space). The USSR had problems too...Any way you look at this stuff, it is dangerous....
Absolutely correct. Besides the well-known problem, Apollo 13 came very close to catastrophic failure during ascent. The early inboard engine cutoff on the SII 2nd stage was caused by pogo vibration so severe it almost caused structural failure, although that wasn't understood at the time. The huge steel cross beam to which the inboard engine was attached was vibrating at 68 Gs at the attach point. Only because of the extra design margins Von Braun's team insisted on did the vehicle even survive.

No launcher has a perfect reliability record. The 2nd unmanned Saturn V launch almost didn't make orbit and would have likely caused an in-flight abort had it been manned.

Despite having a launch escape system lives were lost on both Apollo and Soyuz.

[The Bad Astronomer]

Since the Moon/Mars missions won't be in space shuttles, we stand a fair to middlin' chance of getting the astronauts in question back in one piece. Unlike Columbia's crew, who's body parts were still being scraped off the ground several months later.

Wouldn't it be a great, "Honey, I'm home!" to have someone's skull plow through a kitchen window at several hundred miles an hour?




Doodler, this post is in extremely poor taste. This is the second time you have skirted the edge of the FAQ. Don't do it a third time.

[Maksutov]

Haven't posted until now since I find this whole thing quite depressing.

For what it's worth, there's a show on the Science Channel tonight at 7 PM CST called "Hubble and Beyond: Telescopes in Space". The capsule describes it as "Saving the Hubble Telescope" with an original airdate of January 25, 2005 (today). I wonder if they've incorporated anything about the current administration's attempt to abandon the HST.

:evil:

[Jerod S. V2.0]

Jerod, you're probably thinking about the James Webb Space Telescope...

Joema,

Hey, thanks for the post and the link. Had a chance to browse through some of what's there and it does indeed seem to be a pretty sweet deal. My only gripe (which there is nary a thing anyone can do about) is the launch date. 2011, for cryin' out loud! Granted, it's a mere seven years away (and I find as I get older time -or my perception thereof- seems to accelerate), but it might as well be an eternity.

If JWST is geared more towards the infrared and will be focusing primarily on studying the oldest galaxies, stars and so forth, we're still essentially without a Hubble-style 'scope in Earth orbit...right? When the nice folks who e-mailed me about the hundreds of billions of dollars a long lost, heretofore unknown relative left me in a Swiss bank account finally give me control of said account, I'm going to finance the survival of Hubble. (Yes, I know the e-mail was a scam. No, I didn't take the bait...but I did play the dumb American card and annoy them for a while. :evil: :lol:) Anyway, thank you again, Joema. =D>

[synthomus]

Since the Moon/Mars missions won't be in space shuttles, we stand a fair to middlin' chance of getting the astronauts in question back in one piece. Unlike Columbia's crew, who's body parts were still being scraped off the ground several months later.

Wouldn't it be a great, "Honey, I'm home!" to have someone's skull plow through a kitchen window at several hundred miles an hour?




Doodler, this post is in extremely poor taste. This is the second time you have skirted the edge of the FAQ. Don't do it a third time.

In my humble opinion I think it was just a healthy sarcasm which seems appropriate given the gigantic waste of lives, money and reason the Shuttle was.

[Doodler]

Since the Moon/Mars missions won't be in space shuttles, we stand a fair to middlin' chance of getting the astronauts in question back in one piece. Unlike Columbia's crew, who's body parts were still being scraped off the ground several months later.

Wouldn't it be a great, "Honey, I'm home!" to have someone's skull plow through a kitchen window at several hundred miles an hour?




Doodler, this post is in extremely poor taste. This is the second time you have skirted the edge of the FAQ. Don't do it a third time.

In my humble opinion I think it was just a healthy sarcasm which seems appropriate given the gigantic waste of lives, money and reason the Shuttle was.

Its alright. Its Phil's board, his opinion is final. I'm stepping out of this one because the nature of the debate and my own nature aren't mixing well.

[George]

This may have already been mentioned (I apologize for not reading all 7 pages of this thread), but it seems rather incongruous to me that the US intends to focus on sending humans to the Moon and Mars, but is unable to send a human to a satellite in low Earth orbit.

I guess it would be funny if it wasn't so sad. :-?

Hmmm....what if we boost the Hubble to orbit Mars. They will see it and decide to return it home. We can include a temp shield for the Van Allen Belts, some Hubble baseball caps and pens (sweetners), additional fuel to cover the additional thrust needed to get home, a strobe for easy visual locating and some extra bungee chords for spare tie-downs. :wink:

[Maksutov]

This may have already been mentioned (I apologize for not reading all 7 pages of this thread), but it seems rather incongruous to me that the US intends to focus on sending humans to the Moon and Mars, but is unable to send a human to a satellite in low Earth orbit.

I guess it would be funny if it wasn't so sad. :-?

Hmmm....what if we boost the Hubble to orbit Mars. They will see it and decide to return it home. We can include a temp shield for the Van Allen Belts, some Hubble baseball caps and pens (sweetners), additional fuel to cover the additional thrust needed to get home, a strobe for easy visual locating and some extra bungee chords for spare tie-downs. :wink:
That's one option.

Another one would be, if a perfectly good piece of astronomical equipment is sentenced to death by short-sighted individuals and organizations, then, perhaps as its swan song, Hubble could be directed toward the center of the Solar System, and as a result of its deathbed photographs, we could see what color the Sun is.

One thing I've noticed about this whole sorry story is how closely the current administration's approach to the space program parallels that of the Nixon administration's termination of Apollo, even down to proposing an expensive Mars mission (Spiro Agnew speech after Apollo 11) which would, by having little or no chance of being supported by Congress, effectively destroy space exploration.

It's like déjà vu all over again. Anyone remember NASA's Office of Exploration?

[Maksutov]

[edit]Thanks for the summary, BA. I had written up a long msg that I then lost when we had a power blip... grr...
UPS (http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/lookLearn.do?c=0&edOid=105616&cat=-13011&com.broadvision.session.new=Yes&ct=0&BV_Sess ionID=@@@@1840511551.1106787309@@@@&BV_EngineID=cc cjadddjkgkdjdcfngcfkmdffhdffh.0)

[George]

Another one would be, if a perfectly good piece of astronomical equipment is sentenced to death by short-sighted individuals and organizations, then, perhaps as its swan song, Hubble could be directed toward the center of the Solar System, and as a result of its deathbed photographs, we could see what color the Sun is.
Shucks, won't work as Hubble will fry it's "eyes" before it can achieve this ultimate in astronomical achievement. Nevertheless, I like your visionary tactical thinkin. :)

[In regards to your quest for solar color, rest easy, as this Friday I will receive enough bonus to advance far beyond the current expenditure of $50 for improved equiment for the experiment. Let our determination, and pecuniary peculiarity, resound in the White House halls so they may be spirited to follow suit in advancing proportional sums for Hubble's salvation.]


One thing I've noticed about this whole sorry story is how closely the current administration's approach to the space program parallels that of the Nixon administration's termination of Apollo, even down to proposing an expensive Mars mission (Spiro Agnew speech after Apollo 11) which would, by having little or no chance of being supported by Congress, effectively destroy space exploration.

It's like déjà vu all over again. Anyone remember NASA's Office of Exploration?
Nice point, Yogi.


Still....I would like to know how much more it would cost for a "salvation" booster to control the Hubble till it's done, then lower it to a shuttle orbit. [-(

[Spacewriter]

[edit]Thanks for the summary, BA. I had written up a long msg that I then lost when we had a power blip... grr...
UPS (http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/lookLearn.do?c=0&edOid=105616&cat=-13011&com.broadvision.session.new=Yes&ct=0&BV_Sess ionID=@@@@1840511551.1106787309@@@@&BV_EngineID=cc cjadddjkgkdjdcfngcfkmdffhdffh.0)

Got several, thanks. Said power blip didn't turn off my computer or the UPS, but for some reason my computer decided to reboot itself in response and thus my msg was lost...

[Nicolas]

(Nice UPS/ pc have you got! What an advantage, you can actually immediately start retyping the lost data without having to wait till the power's back! :wink: :D )

What I was wondering concerning Hubble, is the visual waveband an interesting one? We use other wavebands to detect heat or radiation sources. Does that make the visual band redundant or does it have it's own specific sources? (apart from our love for visual band images :))

[George]

(Nice UPS/ pc have you got! What an advantage, you can actually immediately start retyping the lost data without having to wait till the power's back! :wink: :D )

What I was wondering concerning Hubble, is the visual waveband an interesting one? We use other wavebands to detect heat or radiation sources. Does that make the visual band redundant or does it have it's own specific sources? (apart from our love for visual band images :))

Each band of the spectrum as advantages and disadvantages. Stars in, and near, the class of our sun radiate strongly in the visible spectrum. Much can be revealed from this portion of the spectrum.

Scopes, such as Spitzer and the future Webb, are designed for the longer wave "band". This is great for seeing "warm" objects such as stellar accretion disks and for penetrating regions of space where visible objects are blinded. However, resolution is harder to obtain with longer wave light.

Often, multiple instruments and filters go with these scopes. I think Hubble has 4, but at least one is down, I think.

Others here are well versed in the details. Hope this helps.

[ToSeek]

Often, multiple instruments and filters go with these scopes. I think Hubble has 4, but at least one is down, I think.

Hubble's current instruments are: Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), Near Infrared Camera and Multi Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), and The Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). However, STIS has failed. Hubble has room for five instruments, with the fifth slot currently being taken up by the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR), Hubble's "glasses," which aren't actually needed any more because all the current and future instruments have the corrections built in.

[Nicolas]

Thanks for the info, both.

[um3k]

future instruments

:cry:

[Spacewriter]

(Nice UPS/ pc have you got! What an advantage, you can actually immediately start retyping the lost data without having to wait till the power's back! :wink: :D )




That's the first time the machine has actually done that. Normally during an outage it just hums along, but these power blips were strangely weird -- the power didn't go all the way off, just sort of "browned out" and then we had several loud clicking noises. That's when my system rebooted itself. I was pretty surprised.

But this is off-topic.

[Nicolas]

Are there any future instruments for Hubble already built and ready? If so, could they be placed in another telescoepe (yet to build or not)?

[Mistermystery]

If I would own the hubble, this would a good moment to consider selling to someone else. I mean, if the mission could be saved, it's only logical option in my opinion is that someone else then NASA will pay the bill. Why not offer it for a cheap price to ISA, or ESA? Or perhaps the Russians/Chinese? With of course the obligation to repair and service it for a few years...

Oh well, it's a shame that it needs to go. I can't wait for newer deep-space missions, allthough with the whole Mars craze that is going on right now I'd reccon that it will take a few years for that to happen.

[ngc3314]

Are there any future instruments for Hubble already built and ready? If so, could they be placed in another telescoepe (yet to build or not)?

Yes - the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) and Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3), both last seen sitting in a clean room at Goddard Space Flight Center. COS has a particularly compelling scientific justification, in making possible UV spectroscopy of objects too faint even for the late STIS. There is a plan under some level of study to sidestep the HST servicing issue by building the Hubble Origins Probe (HOP), a similarly-sized telescope using newer technology. My guess was that this should cost $300 million, since the instruments exist, and it figures that estimates floating around are near $750 million. That still comes in about three times lower than either orbiter or robotic servicing.

It is not clear to me, though, how seriously this project is still on the table. Nobody can go forward with anything using COS and WFC3 until the die is cast, since there is only one of each.

Edit two minutes later: Bwahahahahaa - I managed to beat ToSeek to that by mere seconds!

[ToSeek]

Are there any future instruments for Hubble already built and ready? If so, could they be placed in another telescoepe (yet to build or not)?

The new instruments are just about ready to go, and there is a proposal in to launch them as part of their own spacecraft if there's no Hubble servicing mission.

[Nicolas]

And in which way do those instruments depend on the lense (sp) used? I mean, do they carry their own lenses, if not do are they capable of being "fed" by 1 type of lense only, or do they have advantage of bigger lenses? Also, they are calibrated for the difficiencies in Hubble's lense. I hope that is a software calibration, so they can work on other lenses as well?

[joema]

Info on Hubble Origins Probe: http://www.pha.jhu.edu/groups/astro/Colin%20HOP_final_noBudget.pdf

Good article "The Case Against Hubble". It considers pros/cons of servicing, other options like Hubble Origins Probe, O'Keefe's involvement, etc. http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hubble-04p.html

[um3k]

I'm willing to let Hubble Space Telescope go if Hubble Origins Probe gets the go-ahead.

[ngc3314]

Info on Hubble Origins Probe: http://www.pha.jhu.edu/groups/astro/Colin%20HOP_final_noBudget.pdf



Ooohh. HOP now includes European and Japanese instrumental participation, in the form of a very wide-field imager and an integral-field spectroscopy unit (i.e. provides spectra at points fully sampling a small rectangular region). These make it a very compelling mission. It would definitely get my vote, were anyone in authority to ask.

And I notice that it includes its own deorbit engine.

[Doodler]

HOP sounds like fun, but here's the kicker. Is it upgradeable, or is it fly till it breaks, then burn it?

[ToSeek]

HOP sounds like fun, but here's the kicker. Is it upgradeable, or is it fly till it breaks, then burn it?

The latter, just like every other spacecraft except Hubble. And if it were upgradeable, how would you upgrade it?

[Nicolas]

and what is the expected lifetime of HOP (or can it "easily" be serviced)? If it holds some years, I would choose HOP above HUbble for the same money.

[Doodler]

And if it were upgradeable, how would you upgrade it?

Never underestimate the power of optimism. Skylab flew ahead of a space shuttle that was supposed to support it. There's nothing particularly wrong with flying a long duration satellite with upgradeable capability in the event of either a breakthrough in materials sciences which can add new life to the shuttles (and perceived reliability in the public's eye), or a new automated vehicle capable of accomplishing the mission. Just because robotics aren't effective now, doesn't mean they will always be ineffective. Give'em 5 years with a reasonable budget, and I'm pretty sure the answer is there to be found. If they take the lessons learned with HST and put them to work in HOP, then you've got about that much time before circumstances should require a service visit. If not, hey, you got your five years of solid science out of it.

[George]

I'm willing to let Hubble Space Telescope go if Hubble Origins Probe gets the go-ahead.
That's the problem - you can't let it go. If you do, it's orbit will decay and it can crash a party like no other.

Therefore, a booster of some sort must be attached to Hubble to either....

1) "deep six it" (as seems to be the only plan so far).
2) boost it up into a higher and safer orbit (but the Van Allen Belts will likely fry the electronics as per the BA's earlier post).
3) control the Hubble (auxilliary stabilization units).
4) de-boost it to a lower orbit so we can haul it home.

I would like to see a "combo meal" approach including items 3 & 4. Maybe UT will step in and help so it can be a McDonald's combo meal. :P

My list above is thick with assumptions, however. Can a future shuttle safely handle a return-home payload the size of Hubble? Can auxilliary stabilizers be located on a booster realistically?

I still have not seen sound arguments for or against the original proposition Kaptain K made, namely, if you're gonna send up a booster anyway to control it's destruction, why not send up a booster, instead, that would save it. [-(

[joema]

...Just because robotics aren't effective now, doesn't mean they will always be ineffective...
Good point. In fact you could argue robotic servicing IS effective now, just not for vehicles designed for human servicing (like Hubble).

If you were to design an orbital telescope for ROBOT servicing, the access points, subsystem design, cables, plugs, etc. would be very different.

Designed thusly it probably could be serviced by a much cheaper, less sophisticated robot, with much higher probability of success.

The canceled Hubble service mission could have a silver lining. Without the cancellation it would likely be difficult to get backing for a servicing robot. The argument would be "that's why we have astronauts", etc.

This is a pivotal moment -- from this point forward you must indefinitely assume manned servicing is unavailable.

I would suggest continuing with research on robotic servicing, not for Hubble, but for all future needs. Any future orbital vehicle possibly needing servicing should be designed for robotic servicing, not human servicing. If any justification is needed for this, it's the Hubble situation.

[Doodler]

...Just because robotics aren't effective now, doesn't mean they will always be ineffective...
Good point. In fact you could argue robotic servicing IS effective now, just not for vehicles designed for human servicing (like Hubble).

If you were to design an orbital telescope for ROBOT servicing, the access points, subsystem design, cables, plugs, etc. would be very different.

Designed thusly it probably could be serviced by a much cheaper, less sophisticated robot, with much higher probability of success.

The canceled Hubble service mission could have a silver lining. Without the cancellation it would likely be difficult to get backing for a servicing robot. The argument would be "that's why we have astronauts", etc.

This is a pivotal moment -- from this point forward you must indefinitely assume manned servicing is unavailable.

I would suggest continuing with research on robotic servicing, not for Hubble, but for all future needs. Any future orbital vehicle possibly needing servicing should be designed for robotic servicing, not human servicing. If any justification is needed for this, it's the Hubble situation.

Another avenue to approach to aide a robotic maintenance program is modularity. Within, or even on, the body of the telescope, design the mating points for new pieces with some level of accomodation for the day they have to be removed and replaced. Some of the pieces they had to change on the Hubble had me wondering what they were thinking when they designed them like that. Particularly the itty bitty screws they had on the access plates and connectors. I kept thinking "did anyone try assembling this thing in spacesuit gloves before it was cleared to launch?" Even though parts could be swapped out, it just looked to me like they were designed with no real consideration to the specific issues to be found swapping them in orbit.

[ngc3314]

Some of the pieces they had to change on the Hubble had me wondering what they were thinking when they designed them like that. Particularly the itty bitty screws they had on the access plates and connectors. I kept thinking "did anyone try assembling this thing in spacesuit gloves before it was cleared to launch?" Even though parts could be swapped out, it just looked to me like they were designed with no real consideration to the specific issues to be found swapping them in orbit.

Those particular bits were ones that were definitely not designed for on-orbit servicing. Lots of bits were nicely modular, tested with suit gloves. The real tricks have been in redoing interior electronics that were never considered as candidates for servicing. (Like switching GHRS wiring, and in the event of SM4 there is a similar but yet more tedious possible fix. But no one is keen on asking a robot to undo 150 screws and not have one drift onto the instrument...

[The Bad Astronomer]

FWIW, I was just interviewed by a reporter for the Boston Globe about this. It should appear online on Tuesday.

[George]

FWIW, I was just interviewed by a reporter for the Boston Globe about this. It should appear online on Tuesday.
Could be worth a lot. I guess we'll no more Tuesday. :)

[The Bad Astronomer]

We'll know a lot more on Feb. 7 when the national budget is released.

Anyway, in the Globe interview, I made an, um, unusual analogy. You'll see. 8)

[Doodler]

Some of the pieces they had to change on the Hubble had me wondering what they were thinking when they designed them like that. Particularly the itty bitty screws they had on the access plates and connectors. I kept thinking "did anyone try assembling this thing in spacesuit gloves before it was cleared to launch?" Even though parts could be swapped out, it just looked to me like they were designed with no real consideration to the specific issues to be found swapping them in orbit.

Those particular bits were ones that were definitely not designed for on-orbit servicing. Lots of bits were nicely modular, tested with suit gloves. The real tricks have been in redoing interior electronics that were never considered as candidates for servicing. (Like switching GHRS wiring, and in the event of SM4 there is a similar but yet more tedious possible fix. But no one is keen on asking a robot to undo 150 screws and not have one drift onto the instrument...

I watched one of those missions on NASA TV ages ago. At the time, some of the astronauts didn't seem to be too keen on having been asked to do it either. :) The balancing act they had to do to line those screws up was pretty painstaking.

[Captain Kidd]

Isn't this it? (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/budget.html) Or is it a preliminary version? (Or somebody got cute and put the 2004 version, with the 4's changed to 5's in there as a placeholder?)

From Overview of the President’s 2005 Budget (HTML) (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/overview.html):
The President’s 2005 Budget continues to support and advance three overriding national priorities: winning the war on terror, protecting the homeland, and strengthening the economy.

The President is committed to spending what is necessary to provide for our security––and restraining spending elsewhere. Since September 11, 2001, more than three-quarters of the increase in discretionary spending has been directly related to our response to the attacks, enhanced homeland security, and the War on Terror. The President’s 2005 Budget continues this spending trend: significant increases in funding our security programs combined with a dramatic reduction in the growth of discretionary spending unrelated to security.

The President’s Budget:

*

increases defense spending by 7 percent to support our military around the world, while pursuing the transformation of our military to ensure America has the best trained and best equipped armed forces in the world;
*

increases homeland security spending by 10 percent to strengthen capabilities created to prevent future attacks; and
*

holds the rest of discretionary spending to 0.5 percent growth, while continuing to increase funding for key priorities such as the President’s No Child Left Behind education reforms.


NASA's page (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/nasa.html)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Sean O’Keefe, Administrator

www.nasa.gov 202–358–0000

Number of Employees: 18,900

2005 Discretionary Budget Authority:
$16.2 billion

Key Components: Nine major field centers, more than 60 operational spacecraft, one International Space Station orbital laboratory, and three Space Shuttle orbiters. But that reference to O'Keefe being the Administrator confuses me...

But then the whole thing confuses me anyways, I work for a self-contained (i.e. no funding) government agency and our FY cycle is October 1 to October 1, we're already a quarter into it.

I found it after hunting some stuff on Amtrak, national air carriers contiune to lose money and get government subsidies (American Airlines recently posted their 18th straight quarter loss) and yet Amtrak's budget, according to this document, has been slashed to where it's less than $1 billion ($900 million). Sorry abou drifting off topic and hijacking.

[sarongsong]

...Put yourself in Bush's shoes! :o
C-SPAN interview (http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/a/w/1151/1-28-2005/20050128100016_39.html):
"...Lamb: "The longer you're in this White House, with all those that have gone before you, do you see ghosts of past presidents?"

Bush: "Well, I quit drinking in '86. ... It's just really hard to project back into somebody else's shoes. So, no, I guess I don't see ghosts." #-o

[ToSeek]

Hubble Trouble: Saving Telescope May Require Non-Governmental Solutions (http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_hubble_050128.html)


Before the recent selection of a company to research the robotic repair system, Skycorp, a satellite company, had offered to create a solar-electric space tug, an ion-rocket powered stage that, when launched to rendezvous with Hubble, dock with the spacecraft and gradually move it into the ISS’s orbit, a major orbital plane change of about 30 degrees. (This could not be accomplished using a chemical stage.) As noted by Dennis Wingo, author and founder of Skycorp, about a year ago, a similar system is being developed by industry to rescue and extend the lifetime of expensive Comsats. The vehicle would have been assembled at the space station manually due to the large solar arrays needed for the ion engine.

[pghnative]

I dont get it. The article first says:


Skycorp had offered to create a solar-electric space tug, an ion-rocket powered stage that, when launched to rendezvous with Hubble,...
but then says

The vehicle would have been assembled at the space station manually due to the large solar arrays needed for the ion engine.
The first sentence implies a relatively simple launch, dock and lift operation. The second implies a launch to OSS (presumably by shuttle), assemble (presumably by astronauts), use ion engine to change to Hubble's orbit, dock, then lift.

That seems like a lot of work, with a higher degree of risk.

Besides, this doesn't get around the fear that if robotic mission fails, you can no longer control a Hubble splash-crash. Whether you think that fear is justified or ridiculous, it is officially part of the equation.

[joema]

I thought the Skycorp proposal was ingenious. It avoids a dedicated shuttle mission to Hubble. It avoids the expensive and risky robotic repair. It positions Hubble near ISS where future servicing is easy. It used technology similar to a space tug already in development for ComSats.

Since NASA prices the Hubble servicing mission much higher than ISS servicing missions, it also avoids that cost, however artificial.

In short it avoided all of NASA's current objections to robotic or manned servicing.

I don't understand NASA's objection to assembling the space tug. They don't have enough experience with orbital assembly to put solar panels on the tug? They're building an entire space station!!

[ngc3314]

The American Astronomical Society mailing list just pointed out that there is a hearing of the House Science Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 1000-1200 EST, dealing specifically with HST servicing. There is slated to be a webcast linked from www.house.gov/science. Witnesses to testify include STScI director Steven Beckwith; Lou Lanzerotti of the National Academy study committee; Colin Normal, principal investigator of the Hubble Origins Probe; Princeton physicist Joseph Taylor; Gary Pulliam of Aerospace Corporation; and Paul Cooper of MD Robotics. For someone without a personal stake, this could be interesting and informative. I'll see whether I can peek between my fingers.

[knoto]

Hi guys,
there are some reasons I rarely see when it comes to saving Hubble but I believe are worthwile to consider

#1 IT'S THERE! It's up there and working. All arguments telling that a new scope will be available soon omitt the fact that a new one has to launched and readied for operation. This (still) is a risky business as the Delta-4 showed last month.
#2 spectral window. The new telescope and the others work in a different frequency band so scrubbing Hubble equals loosing information in certain bands.
#3 Who ever came up with the 1 Billion figure? We shouldn't take this sum at face value. The replacement equipment is already built and a shuttle launch usually is in the 250-400 Mio regime. So, where did the remaining half a billion come from?

Knoto :lol:

[joema]

....Who ever came up with the 1 Billion figure?...The replacement equipment is already built and a shuttle launch usually is in the 250-400 Mio regime. So, where did the remaining half a billion come from? Knoto :lol:
Apparently NASA is using different accounting methods to price ISS missions vs the Hubble repair mission. That's mentioned in this article: http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_hubble_050128.html

The marginal costs to launch one additional shuttle mission is about $100-$200 million -- external tank, fuel, boosters, launch prep, etc.

However the shuttle program as a whole costs about $4 billion per year -- ground facilities, personnel, support, maintenance, etc. Those are ongoing costs whether the shuttle flies or not.

NASA can launch about four shuttle missions per year. They plan on retiring the shuttle upon ISS completion. A Hubble repair mission would delay shuttle retirement by 3 months. If you add all the shuttle program costs for that 3 month period, that's over $1 billion.

Not saying that's exactly NASA's reasoning, but it's something like that.

[The Bad Astronomer]

The Hubble article is up at the Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2005/02/01/hubbles_troubles/). My quote is on the second page. I don't remember saying that this would be a "beautiful fight" so I wonder if the reporter misheard something I said. I can't remember. Oh well.

[TriangleMan]

So if Hubble is not repaired within the next couple of years what will happen to astronomical research until the next space telescope launches in 2011? It would be a shame to have tons of research that relied on the Hubble to be held up for 4-6 years because of this. IIRC there is a lot of research out there now that can't be done with ground-based scopes.

[ngc3314]

So if Hubble is not repaired within the next couple of years what will happen to astronomical research until the next space telescope launches in 2011? It would be a shame to have tons of research that relied on the Hubble to be held up for 4-6 years because of this. IIRC there is a lot of research out there now that can't be done with ground-based scopes.

Keep in mind amid the doom and gloom that other space telescopes are cruising about - Chandra, Spitzer, GALEX, Integral, Swift, Rossi XTE, WMAP, and (although slowly recovering from another gyro event) FUSE. (I probably forget more in the high-energy realm). The concern is that whole swaths of science are best served with the particular combinations of wavelength range and spectral resolution which Hubble can do and nothing else at this point (including ground-based AO). We don't always need a particular figure of merit for a science goal - there may, as the Python says, be more than one way to do it, so you could get the same science results with 0.1" UV imaging or 0.025" near-IR AO imaging. The hue and cry comes (first, to my mind) from the fact that NASA HQ held so long to the ideal of a 20-year HST mission, and second, from the capabilities of HST that will not be replaced by anything now in the pipeline. The huggers would loosen their grip if there were a hint that some of the money would be directed to one of a number of proposed telescopes that would extend just these capabilities (Hubble Origins Probe, World Space Observatory, Bill's Personal Telescope for Spacesuited Visual Observation...). Such things have happened before, as in the retirement of the Kuper Airborne Observatory to free up funds to start work on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA, now somewhere between first light and first flight.

[Kaptain K]

"...It's like kicking a puppy."
Well put, BA! =D> =D> =D> =D>

[ngc3314]

The Hubble article is up at the Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2005/02/01/hubbles_troubles/). My quote is on the second page. I don't remember saying that this would be a "beautiful fight" so I wonder if the reporter misheard something I said. I can't remember. Oh well.

I feel so affirmed! One of the little thumbnail pictures in that montage is actually one of mine. No, no, you silly people, they didn't include NGC 3314, it's something different.

For those wanting a hint, (9,3)

The article does have a slightly odd collection of the quoted, some of whom ought to either know better or explain themselves better. And that includes a former head of the STScI public-information branch.

[George]

"...It's like kicking a puppy."
Well put, BA! =D> =D> =D> =D>
I agree, nice simile, BA.

BA...
"Beautiful fight" did seem a bit odd. "Dog fight" maybe, in light of your simile. :wink:

Hmmm....
See if you like this “dog fight” left hook...

Why don't we help the Kremlin in an offer to save the Hubble? Upon it's eventual return by them, they would keep it on display in Moscow. I would think much would be in English for those from the US and Europe who would want to view it (for a nominal exhibit fee).

Maybe they could do tours to the U.S. periodically. Certainly the Smithsonian would accommodate it in Washington. This would allow easy viewing for the White House staff and scientific advisors. Even the "Drum" in Austin will be able to host the Hubble, as well as, Sputnik models and other displays of Soviet/Russian space accomplishments.

I would be willing to bet they can find a lower-cost way to bring it safely to a lower serviceable orbit. Their final superior method to return it economically would also be a nice addition to their exhibit.

Here is a.... Save the Hubble site (http://www.savethehubble.com/). [I wish I had more time to study this.]

[I am not around here much due to the loss of my niece (Andrea Gent) in an auto accident near Austin. She was 19 and returning to A&M after visiting her UT friends. It can happend to any of us. She was 4.0 last semester. Be careful driving folks.]

[George]

I feel so affirmed! One of the little thumbnail pictures in that montage is actually one of mine. No, no, you silly people, they didn't include NGC 3314, it's something different.

For those wanting a hint, (9,3)

The article does have a slightly odd collection of the quoted, some of whom ought to either know better or explain themselves better. And that includes a former head of the STScI public-information branch.

Hen 1357? 1993. Is it really gold in color? :P

[ngc3314]

I feel so affirmed! One of the little thumbnail pictures in that montage is actually one of mine. No, no, you silly people, they didn't include NGC 3314, it's something different.

For those wanting a hint, (9,3)

The article does have a slightly odd collection of the quoted, some of whom ought to either know better or explain themselves better. And that includes a former head of the STScI public-information branch.

Hen 1357? 1993. Is it really gold in color? :P

Sorry, try again! That would be really nearby for my tastes...

[ToSeek]

Astronomers urge replacement for Hubble, not repair (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=16050)


The world faces a dilemma: how to keep the flow of science and discovery from the ailing Hubble Space Telescope alive. According to an international team led by Johns Hopkins University astronomers, the best answer may lie not in a robot-led or manned repair mission, but through the launch of a brand new, free-flying telescope called the "Hubble Origins Probe."

[George]

I feel so affirmed! One of the little thumbnail pictures in that montage is actually one of mine. No, no, you silly people, they didn't include NGC 3314, it's something different.

For those wanting a hint, (9,3)

The article does have a slightly odd collection of the quoted, some of whom ought to either know better or explain themselves better. And that includes a former head of the STScI public-information branch.

Hen 1357? 1993. Is it really gold in color? :P

Sorry, try again! That would be really nearby for my tastes...

Hmmmm....however, it did look a little dusty. :)

Would another hint be (10,3)? Probably not, the "Pillars of Creation" certainly would not be referenced at zero. :P

[woodworker]

I think that the inability and unwillingness to service Hubble is a sad admission that our capabilities in space are very, very limited.

Manned presence in space is not just for exploration: it is for daily life. And that means things like "work". If work cannot be done there, then there is little usefulness in Human presence there, since that presence will not be very competent, and too vulnerable (the skill sets practiced will be too limited for a human to be fully human, which would be a terrible waste, and loss).

It leaves a bad taste in the mouth... .

But NASA and Congress are to blame in betting the farm on the so-called "Shuttle" for too long, and at so high a financial cost.

So, if NASA -- and all of us -- must now lose Hubble as a result of (all) that, well, it's too late for lamentation to change the outcome. But not too soon to set a new national direction in space.

Still, what a waste of fine optics.

[joema]

I think that the inability and unwillingness to service Hubble is a sad admission that our capabilities in space are very, very limited.
That is an excellent point. The recent announcement had wording to the effect: with everything on NASA's plate including getting the shuttle flying again, it's too much to repair Hubble.
Huh? We've gone from moon missions (several of which were in concurrent processing) to being unable to launch a single repair mission?

The former "too unsafe" argument for cancelling the Hubble mission is inconsistent with NASA's current plans to fly the shuttle without completing all the CAIB recommendations, including inability to repair the exact same damage that doomed Columbia. http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/2770

That strongly implies safety was never a factor in cancellation of the Hubble mission, even initially.

OTOH as was posted above, many astronomers think the Hubble Origins Probe is better than fixing HST. http://www.astronomy.com/default.aspx?c=a&id=2862

[Van Rijn]

I think that the inability and unwillingness to service Hubble is a sad admission that our capabilities in space are very, very limited.
That is an excellent point. The recent announcement had wording to the effect: with everything on NASA's plate including getting the shuttle flying again, it's too much to repair Hubble.
Huh? We've gone from moon missions (several of which were in concurrent processing) to being unable to launch a single repair mission?


Please don't even THINK of comparing the "Do it or else" Apollo program with NASA of today. This isn't new: I was talking about the same thing after Challenger. Realistically, NASA isn't going to come out of its funk on its own. With luck, we will finally get some private space development, and NASA could eventually piggyback off of that.



The former "too unsafe" argument for cancelling the Hubble mission is inconsistent with NASA's current plans to fly the shuttle without completing all the CAIB recommendations, including inability to repair the exact same damage that doomed Columbia. http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/2770

That strongly implies safety was never a factor in cancellation of the Hubble mission, even initially.


You aren't thinking politically. First, flights to the ISS provide the astronauts a safe haven if tile damage is found. Not so for a flight to Hubble. Second, ISS is a much higher priority. Third, regardless of how unlikely it may be, if a shuttle WAS lost attempting to service the aging Hubble telescope, it would be political suicide. NASA can't possibly take that chance.

[ToSeek]

And even the safe haven use of the ISS is an issue. (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=1&u=/nm/20050203/sc_nm/space_shuttle_dc)

[Maddad]

With anyone who has viewed the incredible detail in a high resolution Hubble photograph, the issue of saving the Hubble Telescope or letting it crash in flames is not just an intellectual issue, but it is an emotional one as well. Hubble is expensive, and we do not live in a world of infinite resources. We must decide with our heads, at least as much as our hearts, what we should do with the funds that would be required to salvage Hubble.

We need to know how much the operation would cost, and what the chance of success would be. We need to know how long Hubble will last if we do not finance a mission to maintain it. We need to know the size of the gap that Hubble will leave between going blind and the time a suitable replacement picks up the slack. We cannot answer most of these questions absolutely. For instance, if we choose not to service Hubble then we cannot say how long it will stay operational. We can only guestimate.

While we consider these questions, we should consider what programs we would not fund because we spent the money on Hubble instead. It is useless saying that the cost of a few days of the war in Iraq could sponsor the mission because we cannot suspend those operations as a means financing Hubble. We have to ask where the money would come from, what we would not get, if we did get Hubble. We have to think with our heads.

Having said that, I also think with my heart. If Hubble goes down, then we will stop getting titanic pictures (1.8 megabytes and 4,600 x 3,600 pixels at http://www.maddad.org/astronomy/images/ngc-3370-01d.jpg ) like the spiral galaxy NGC 3370 which shows more beauty and detail than we could have ever imagined before. Remember though, the loss will only be for a short time.

[George]

I feel so affirmed! One of the little thumbnail pictures in that montage is actually one of mine. No, no, you silly people, they didn't include NGC 3314, it's something different.

I thought sure someone would nail it. NGC 1409.5 (avg.) here? (http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2001/02/)



And even the safe haven use of the ISS is an issue.
I was surprised to see such negative views from an astronaut and cosmonaut.

[ngc3314]

I feel so affirmed! One of the little thumbnail pictures in that montage is actually one of mine. No, no, you silly people, they didn't include NGC 3314, it's something different.

I thought sure someone would nail it. NGC 1409.5 (avg.) here? (http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2001/02/)



The very one! Or the very two, trying strenuously to become one (and probaby having just about finished the operation by now).

[pghnative]

And even the safe haven use of the ISS is an issue.
I was surprised to see such negative views from an astronaut and cosmonaut.
I'm surprised that you're surprised.

Think about it --- many people on this board think that the ISS is a waste of money, and that it is driven more by politics than science. Presuming that the astronauts / cosmonauts feel the same way, plus considering that all they do up there is eat, sleep, excersize, and fix the broken parts, plus considering that their lives are on the line for this political experiment, ---- I think it makes perfect sense for them to be frustrated.

Also, I think this internationalization of space enables individual astronauts to be more forthright --- A cosmonaut on MIR may quietly put up with living in a bucket-'o-bolts for the sake of national pride. But he/she will be more likely to complain about the ISS. Especially when the part/component/strategy being complained about is not from one's own nation.

<off topic rant> Can't we just start using one word for these explorers? I mean, Americans should call the Russians "astronauts", and the Russians should call the Americans "cosmonauts" (in Russian of course). </OT rant>

[George]

And even the safe haven use of the ISS is an issue.
I was surprised to see such negative views from an astronaut and cosmonaut.
I'm surprised that you're surprised.

...I think this internationalization of space enables individual astronauts to be more forthright --- A cosmonaut on MIR may quietly put up with living in a bucket-'o-bolts for the sake of national pride. But he/she will be more likely to complain about the ISS. Especially when the part/component/strategy being complained about is not from one's own nation.
That's a good point. Politics has played a huge role in all space programs. (This is why I am suggesting the Kremlin save Hubble. :) )

Also, considering their ages, these "nauts" might feel more free to be candid.

I still would like to see a clear reason why bringing Hubble down to this orbit is not an option. I don't think it would be "too much squeeze for the juice".



<off topic rant> Can't we just start using one word for these explorers? I mean, Americans should call the Russians "astronauts", and the Russians should call the Americans "cosmonauts" (in Russian of course). </OT rant> I agree, with other nations going up in the future, it could get complicated. :-?

[Hamlet]

I still would like to see a clear reason why bringing Hubble down to this orbit is not an option. I don't think it would be "too much squeeze for the juice".


If you're talking about bringing Hubble into the same orbit as ISS then I think the main problem is the delta-V neeeded to change Hubble's altitude and orbital plane.

Hubble orbits at about 570 km with an orbital inclination of 28.5 degrees.
ISS orbits at about 360 km with an orbital inclination of 51.6 degrees.

If you plug these numbers into this calculator (http://home.att.net/~ntdoug/smplhmn.html) you will see that it requires more than 3000 m/s of delta-V. The Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) on the Shuttle has a total of 700 m/s of delta-V (some of which is required for re-entry), so it is incapable of performing the manuever. We would have to design some sort of booster that would dock to Hubble and perform the required burn.

I don't know what this would cost, but I doubt it would be cheap.

[joema]

It's possible using a solar electric space tug. This is already being developed for reboosting Comsats.

http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_hubble_050128.html

[George]

Hubble orbits at about 570 km with an orbital inclination of 28.5 degrees.
ISS orbits at about 360 km with an orbital inclination of 51.6 degrees.

If you plug these numbers into this calculator (http://home.att.net/~ntdoug/smplhmn.html) you will see that it requires more than 3000 m/s of delta-V. The Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) on the Shuttle has a total of 700 m/s of delta-V (some of which is required for re-entry), so it is incapable of performing the manuever. We would have to design some sort of booster that would dock to Hubble and perform the required burn.

I don't know what this would cost, but I doubt it would be cheap.
Thanks Hamlet. The orbital plane presents a problem. I would still like to see the cost comparison from their current plan to send a booster to bring into the "deep six" vs. the cost to bring into some sort of serviceable orbiit. I am curious also to learn if the Shuttle could work at the intersection area of the various orbital planes.

Thanks, joema. It's great to see folks focused on meeting the challenge.

Any word from the Kremlin yet?

[cbsimkins]

Why not offer the Russians a prize for sending up a crew on a Russian rocket to repair the Hubble? I bet they would do it for a lot less than NASA could do it with the shuttle.

CBS

[kg034]

Why not offer the Russians a prize for sending up a crew on a Russian rocket to repair the Hubble? I bet they would do it for a lot less than NASA could do it with the shuttle.

CBS

The Russkies....no, they can't work on our equipment, they don't have a green card! :)

Seriously, any mention of any HOP production funding in the next years?

[ToSeek]

Gyro sacrifice may extend Hubble's life (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7051)


Engineers are testing whether the Hubble Space Telescope should clip its own wings in an attempt to survive as long as possible without a servicing mission. Preliminary results suggest the new, scaled-down operating mode will buy the telescope an extra year of life - possibly until the end of 2008 - without sacrificing too much science.
...
Fortunately, engineers at NASA foresaw trouble after the Columbia accident and began work on software that would allow the telescope to run on only two gyros, making the third a further standby. From 20 to 23 February, they conducted the first full-scale test of the new system by using data from only two gyros.

[Manchurian Taikonaut]

Thanks for the info, both.
Hubble will be gone
As for the great Voyagers it doesn't look so good
a lot of news sites have covered the Voyger cut
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/04/11/lost_in_space/
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/news/editorial/11363250.htm
http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=20229&highlight=&
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23500-2005Apr3.html
another big 12 cutbacks to come say the news sources

Thankfully we still have our European, NASA, Japanese and other
ground-based telescopes! Unless they'll be knocking them down with bulldozers next ?
I have a feeling that perhaps ESA might start doing some pushing with their space policy and the Euros for funding, Ulysses Probe was a joint NASA/ESA mission so the Europeans might bail this one out with some Euro and hopefully it won't get cut down or suddenly axed
here is some of the previous reports and data on this mission
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=34612
http://helio2.estec.esa.int/ulysses/archive/
http://www.jupitertoday.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=13697
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/120395_index_1_m.html#subhead6
Sadly I think it may already be over for Hubble

[Ilya]

Why not offer the Russians a prize for sending up a crew on a Russian rocket to repair the Hubble? I bet they would do it for a lot less than NASA could do it with the shuttle.

CBS

The Russkies....no, they can't work on our equipment, they don't have a green card! :)


I know you are joking, but NASA actually can not contract with Russia any more, thanks to Iranian Non-Proliferation Act. Those naughty Russians just won't stop selling nuclear technology to Iran...

Supply flights to ISS for the next few years were contracted before Congress passed the Act.

[Demigrog]

I'll bet I'm ToSeeked on this, but Mike Griffin plans to review the Hubble repair mission again (http://www.space.com/news/griffin_hearing_050412.html) based on results of the next shuttle flight.

[Launch window]

NASA Considering Deletion of Hubble Deorbit Module
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1050
There will be a Hubble Space Telescope meeting at NASA HQ next week. Among the items to be discussed is a new solar activity model which some people at NASA think will allow the Hubble to remain safely aloft for quite some time after a reboost from the visiting shuttle.

[publiusr]

Therefore the name of this thread should be Griff approves of shuttle mission to Hubble. The robot docking people had their chance with the DART debacle and they botched it...

--time for some MEN AT WORK signs in orbit.

[Launch window]

Final countdown: A maximum of 19 Shuttle flights left
http://www.flightinternational.com/Articles/2005/09/30/Navigation/177/201883/Final+countdown+A+maximum+of+19+Shuttle+flights+le ft+.html
Eighteen will be International Space Station (ISS) assembly and logistic flights and the nineteenth will be the Hubble space telescope repair flight.

Hubble Telescope's New Control Method
http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry377.html

[JonClarke]

Richard Branson on the moon would however be a giant step for space commerical development. Not to be despised either, if you want a sustained human presence in space.

Jon

[publiusr]

He's no more liekly to build a moon base than any of us. There is no stuff to the man. He is too easily distracted by other projects and has this "let's find another boring means of circumnavigation" fix. Let him kick aviation to the curb and build big rockets.