Safety Concerns and the HST

[Dave Mitsky]

Is safety the real reason that NASA is not planning on servicing the HST?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/02/09/s...reut/index.html

Dave Mitsky

[setiman]

I sent you private email on this, but in essence NASA is using safety as a ploy to allow them to close down the shuttle program and thus have more money for the President's new Space Vision. The catch is, if you read the President's full statement on his Vision, the HST is an important element.

Hubble and eventually, the follow on deep space telescope James Webb Space Telescope (a million miles out into space in an orbit) go where it will be a very, very long time before man ever goes. Hubble sees things that happened 25 million years ago and earlier at distances in excess of 10 billion light years. We should live so long traveling that far in a manned program.

For All, if you wish to support Hubble, contact the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics today or tomorrow. They are reviewing NASA's decions about the shuttle support for HST.

For all there is to ever know about Hubble and what it sees, visit HubbleSite.org. Just unbelievable.

[DippyHippy]

I agree... NASA is just making excuses because it's going to be more trouble than it's worth (in their eyes) to maintain the HST. But as the public backlash has shown, the decision has proven to be extremely unpopular - I think they greatly underestimated the amount of public support the HST has - and deservedly so!

[Dave Mitsky]

It seems likely that W is not really expecting NASA to return to the Moon and construct a base there on a measly $12 billion budget. But there is enough money to complete the politically important ISS, especially when a number of plannned science missions are axed and the HST is abandoned.

Dave Mitsky

[jce1975]

Right now, if you go to www.moontomars.org and then "contact us", you can state how you feel about the "New Vision" and other things such as Hubble. You message is guaranteed to be read ... supposedly.

[setiman]

Hubble's planned service duration was until 2010. I think this only required two more shuttle support flights, unless there was a problem.

The real scary thing is that HST gets shut down, and the President's big plan gets delayed or cancelled (after the election) due to other issues. In that case we have nothing (no shuttle, no HST, and maybe no space station). I am hoping the House Subcommittee (I wrote to them as well as Bush) realizes this and does something to change NASA's decision ($$&#036.

[setiman]

Ooops, I meant to add. I can understand Sean O'Keefe's hesitancy to commit the shuttle for anything. I can see him with nightmares over losing another shuttle, its crew and the HST in the process. I do not think this will happen, but I cannot fault the man from worrying considering the President is his boss. He is not Jim Webb so we are not going to see that kind of management style.

Hey, I'll go, and I bet the line of volunteers would circle the Earth.

setiman

[teeks99]

Originally posted by setiman@Feb 10 2004, 02:08 PM
Hubble sees things that happened 25 million years ago and earlier at distances in excess of 10 billion light years.

FYI, These don't equate.

The second one is the one that is more correct. Hubble sees stuff about 10 Billion light years away. Since Hubble sees light, and light moves at the speed of light, and a lightyear is the distance light travles in a year, Hubble sees stuff about 10 Billion years old.

Most of the stuff it looks at isn't nearly this old thoguh. Hubble has been used to take pictures of mars.

[setiman]

Yes, I had the same initial confusion. I took the information direct from the hubblesite.org. I will go back and check to see if I was wrong and post a correction or an explanation whichever.

I think for a given event such as a supernova or collision of nebulae the time in millions of years is based on the event. In which case for that event, the distance was equal to or less in light years. I have HST images that go back 8 billion light years. Inside that span lots of events have occured within say a given galaxy.

setiman

[setiman]

This is an attempt to explain the difference between the light year distance of an observed galaxy and the time line of events that have occured within that galaxy. All of which has been observed and photographed by the HST. Here goes:

The subject is NGC 1569 which is 7 million light years distant, It resides in the constellation Camelopardalis. This particular galaxy is quite young (relatively) and its a birth place of new stars, 25 million years ago it had a birthing frenzy that produced a large number of new blue white stars.

Now there we have the disparity between the age of an event and the light year distance of the subject (which is also an age factor). This can be confusing, but it is still beautiful that the HST can record both the NGC and some of its events. By the way this star birth event occured about the time that our earliest ancestors began crawling around on Earth.

I hope this helps and I apologize if my earlier posting was confusing.

Want to know more - visit http://www.hubblesite.org


setiman

[Skywise]

Originally posted by setiman@Feb 11 2004, 08:54 PM
... I can understand Sean O'Keefe's hesitancy to commit the shuttle for anything. I can see him with nightmares over losing another shuttle, its crew and the HST in the process. I do not think this will happen, but I cannot fault the man from worrying considering the President is his boss. He is not Jim Webb so we are not going to see that kind of management style.

Hey, I'll go, and I bet the line of volunteers would circle the Earth.

I think that it is a combination of safety and money concerns for NASA. HST servicing missions are among the most technical, and therefore riskiest, missions. The training for servicing missions alone is horrendously expensive, but the missions themselves are wrought with risk, spacewalks beings some of the riskiest of activities.

[QUOTE]

I think you may have a bit of a misperception about just how complex the shuttle system is. When I graduated with my degree in Aerospace Engineering in 1993, my fellow students and I were all well aware that there was a 50/50 chance that a second shuttle would be involved in a catastrophic accident by the year 2000. I maintain that NASA has done a phenomenal job with the shuttles, all things considered.

This is just my opinion, but... even if an engineer or engineers knew the damage to Columbia was going to (or even possibly going to) lead to its destruction during re-entry, it's entirely feasible that it was kept quiet as they *KNEW* there was nothing that could have been done about it. That will never come out, I'm sure (and I hope that it does not come out, if it is even true), but... I do see it as a possibility.

But that's a discussion for another forum topic that I need to stick my nose into at some point.

Getting back to the HST and the financial aspect of servicing missions - I say that NASA should ask the public and private sector that want to use the telescope to fund them. That line of volunteers you mention would have numberous individuals jumping queues, just to be able to help keep the HST up and running, I'd bet.

- Skywise

[setiman]

Arguing on relative risk in anything to do with manned spaceflight is essentially fruitless. You are right that they are all seriously risky. The concern is where to spend the risk. Sashaying back and forth from a moon base that may never come into existence or continuing serious deep sapce research through the HST and later the Jame Webb Space Telescope these are the real concerns. Supporting both are high risk. Which will yield the greatest scientific return for each ounce of rsik? That is the real question.

I am also hesitant to match my 18 years in aerospace design and mission planning and management against your more recent education. I am sure we both can contribute to good ideas for both manned space flight and deep space research.
Regardless, the final decision is going to be made by totally untrained, inexperienced politicians who will most likely ignore everything both you and I have to say.

setiman

[Skywise]

What an incredibly honest, accurate, and (most of all) sad statement about where/how the final decision is/will be made. More often than not, the opinions of the people that actually know enough to make the decisions are entirely ignored or over-ruled. (What was it that lead to the Challenger disaster when several engineers told them not to launch becuase it was/had been too cold?)

- Skywise

[Spacemad]

Originally posted by setiman@Feb 11 2004, 08:54 PM
Ooops, I meant to add. I can understand Sean O'Keefe's hesitancy to commit the shuttle for anything. I can see him with nightmares over losing another shuttle, its crew and the HST in the process. I do not think this will happen, but I cannot fault the man from worrying considering the President is his boss. He is not Jim Webb so we are not going to see that kind of management style.

Hey, I'll go, and I bet the line of volunteers would circle the Earth.

setiman

I think we would all agree with this posting of yours, Setiman, as none of us would like to see the destruction & death of another space shuttle & its crew.

Nonetheless, it would seem that a trip to Hubble would be of little more risk than a trip to ISS, according to a report recently made public of some internal documents referring to the risk factor of a new mission to Hubble.

As for the line of volunteers no doubt we, here in the forum, would be the first in the queue! :P

[setiman]

It is really great to hear others in support of saving the Hubble. As to the risks, they are the backbone of aerospace progress. Aviation has been in my blood since I was 5 years old, when my father took me on my first flight - in a Ford Tri-motor out of Prescott, AZ. We have gone from the tri-motor and earlier designs to where we are today. Along the way there have been many unfortunate losses of crew and craft. Always a sad event, but to my knowledge not one of those sacrifices were wasted. Each one has moved us father along the progress of aerospace science.

A classic example, August Raspet, PhD was professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Mississippi State University. He was a leader in the development of the use of laminar air control for improved lift at low air speeds and altitude. I was to go to Mississippi State at Dr. Raspet's invitation to finish my studies. Before I could get there he was killed testing a new employment of the ducted fan principle. A sad loss of a brilliant mind, but his work lives on in airfoil design and other applications of laminal air flow.

setiman