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No Money For Hubble Service Mission
Posted by
michael
on Fri Jan 21, 2005 04:51 PM
from the sacrifices-have-to-be-made dept.
from the sacrifices-have-to-be-made dept.
starexplorer writes "SPACE.com is reporting that the White House has eliminated funding for servicing the Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request. After many options 1, 2 were explored, is this the death knell for Hubble?"
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Hubble on eBay (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hubble on eBay (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Hubble on eBay (Score:3, Funny)
any company can start taking ground photos etc from hubble and make things profitable.
would be fun to buy space junk and run linux on their CPUs..... http://hubblecontrol.sf.net...
Re:Hubble on eBay (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Hubble on eBay (Score:5, Interesting)
Except, of course, it currently has no de-orbit capability, hence the plan to go there and add it. But, if you already have to go there...
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Re:Hubble on eBay (Score:5, Informative)
Not really unable to move, but unable to be controlled.
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Sell it to another space program (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Hubble on eBay (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, and as long as we can end the auction before the next gyro goes out, we can even provide free delivery with a controlled de-orbit...
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Re:Hubble on eBay (Score:4, Interesting)
NASA calculated that that servicing mission,whether robotic or shuttle, would cost over one billion dollars US. The only "market" that could pick up that kind of tab (or anything close to it) would be the Japanese or European space agencies. Private companies have a hard time just getting a sattelite into orbit. The Russians might have the technology, but they could not realistically fund the mission.
According to This source [miis.edu], the total annual budget for the ESA is 2.7 billion Euros. The Japanese budget according to This source [slashdot.org] was around 1.3 billion US Dollars in 1998. So we are talking about asking them to take on a project that would cost them between 30% to 80% of their total annual space budget.
The probability of success of a robotics mission is IMHO extremely low. You would be hard pressed to build a robot that could service hubble if it was sitting on the ground, much less orbiting in zero G in the cold of space.
Assuming the Japanese and Europeans decided they wanted to pool resources and take on this relatively huge project, then farm it out to the Russians for the launch platform and manned mission (because they are the only ones that have that technology), what would be the end result? Another 5 years or so of science. (remember, we have a new telescope that will be online 5 years or so after Hubble goes dark.) The rewards just don't seem to be worth the effort.
I love the science as much as anyone, but for the most part, the great view of the universe from space isn't going away. It will still be there in 5 years, or 10 years, or however long it takes us to get the next great telescope into space.
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Death for Hubble? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if we count on the government to fund Hubble, yes.
Perhaps a private party will either donate, or advertise.
This cosmic picture was brought to you by Budwiser.
Re:Death for Hubble? (Score:5, Insightful)
Significant research is very risky and rarely profitable--and never reliably profitable in the way that normal business investments are. Yes, there are enormous long-term benefits, but the current CEO will have cashed out all of his stock dividends a long time before major research produces any results. There is a fundamental mismatch between the long-term perspective of pure research and the short-term perspective of a business that will have to show its profit numbers to the SEC at the next quarter--at which time the investors will sell their shares if that company is "wasting too much money" on research.
America is becoming the land of the ignorant. Proud, boastful, even aggressive ignorance.
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Re:Death for Hubble? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not too late. The pendulum swings back and forth. The US was stuck in the same if not worse conservative ignorant situation in the late 50's - early 60's. Then the pendulum swung back with a vengeance. I think the same will happen again when people realize where the policies of the current administration are taking this country.
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Re:Death for Hubble? (Score:5, Interesting)
Judging by your statement, I am quite sure you do not live in the United States.
As for my credentials, I was born in South Dakota, I've lived in 3 states, I've vistied about 25 of them. I've managed to visit about 5 foreign nations from Europe to Asia. I'd like to think that makes me a pretty good judge of culture shifts.
When I drive from Pennsylvania into Maryland and Washington, D.C., I do not feel as though I am passing some geographical flux of cultures.
Drive from Virginia to North Dakota and listen to the accent of the gas station attendants. Look at the condition of the roads, houses, and the styles of public buildings or churches. The change is amazingly cool.
Similarly, the public schools in Florida work just like those found in Maine
How frequent are the private schools, and if they work the same, but Main's are better, are you saying the people in them are different? That would suggest a local culture.
And if I wind up in court in Missouri, I have the same fundamental rights as I would in California.
Not true. Each state has its own constitution and provides very different fundamental rights. For example, the Massachusents Constitution does not provide an express right to bear arms. The Constitution of South Dakota has always declared such right in detail. Or are you limiting your understanding of "fundamental rights" only to those expressed in the federal consitution?
Right-wing politics is in the roots of America now. It's not just another opinion. It's a religion in itself and it is indeed sweeping the United States, which is not so much a collection of states these days as it one giant creature that is currently trying to decide which side of the fork to walk down.
I live in North Dakota and I don't have cable TV. I haven't noticed much of a change.
Being wrong is frowned upon - but STAYING wrong is a virtue somehow. And it is certainly proud and boastful - that's how it sells, because so many people don't think for themselves.
You're right. I do recall President G.H.W.Bush state that he was signing a law prohibitng flag burning when he knew it to be unconstitutional. I still haven't figured out that one.
I also encounter folks all to often who will say without blinking, "I don't know anything about [Insert issue here], but I'm voting for this guy because he's out to help me."
I think, however, that this just illustrates that people in large groups tend to be stupid... whatever their culture.
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Re:Death for Hubble? (Score:5, Insightful)
Every single time Hubble images an object more than 5000 light years away, it PROVES that God did not create the universe 5000 years ago. There are arguments to support this, of course, but none of them form any basis in scripture. The most logical argument, of course, presented pretty much unanimously by Biblical Scholars, is that the absolute accuracy in the depiction of time-periods as documented in the Bible, has been lost to translation or antiquity (take your pick - since ancient Hebrew is, effectively a dead language, though it bears a striking resemblence to modern Hebrew - ancient Hebrew, particularly when dealing with numerical concepts that didn't exist in that time-period, is open for interpretation).
Thus proving Scriptural Inerrency false, Humanity benefits by eliminating the Fundamentalist Religious Forces that have held our race back with ignorance, bigotry, and endless conflict.
And the great thing is - we can all, as individuals, still Love God. If we want to. We just won't be compelled by scripture to hate and war with eachother anymore.
1. Name one discovery that Hubble has made that has benefited humanity or has the potential to in the next 300 hundred years.
By imaging worlds around other planets, Humanity may one day be compelled to try visiting one. Could this be beneficial? I dunno, ask the dead spirit of Christopher Columbus.
By gathering the data used to demonstrate universal expansion, we may one day solve the puzzle of so-called "dark matter" and it's relationship to gravity and expansion of the universe, which might lead to the technical mastery of the Gravitational Force itself. Mastery of the Gravitational Force would have astounding implications for all areas of transportation. To say the least.
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Re:Death for Hubble? (Score:5, Insightful)
The President only requests money. Congress allocates is. They've overriden this president many times regarding NASA's budget. (The White House has tried to kill the New Horizons mission to Pluto on at least one occasion. Congress put the money back.)
This isn't the end of HST. That doesn't really depend on Bush, that depends on Congress.
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Re:Death for Hubble? (Score:5, Informative)
In other words, this could just be a gambit to drum up support and funding from congress.
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Just replace the Hubble (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just replace the Hubble (Score:5, Informative)
The problem arises from the fact that Hubble will die without servicing before then.
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Re:Just replace the Hubble (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention Hubble and JWST don't see all the same frequencies on the radiation spectrum, so even once JWST goes up, we won't be able to see everything Hubble could.
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Re:Just replace the Hubble (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Just replace the Hubble (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep. I guess not being on the CC for every NASA Hubble memo & report might just leave us out of the loop on some parts of NASA internal discussions. Not surprising.
You don't think that perhaps, "Lauch a new one," was their first choice, and the maintenance requests were initiated because it was the cheaper, easier, more reliable, and more likely to get approved option?
would involve zero risk.
You mean, "except for total loss due to [insert unrecoverable failur
Re:hubble double (Score:4, Informative)
That abstract begins, "A no-new-technology HST-class observatory with COS and WFC3 as its core instruments
There's also a brief article about this [newscientist.com] at New Scientist.
I'm not crazy about this idea, for a bunch of reasons, but it is under active investigation.
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Replacement mission -"HOP" (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/groups/ astro/Colin%20HOP_final_noBudget.pdf
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Wha? (Score:4, Funny)
aaaah Political doublespeak... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I see this posted... Now admittedly 1 billion is a pretty big price to save Hubble (would probably be more practical just to send up a new one) but is there a newer one in the near Horizon even?
Politics and space mix badly...but then again what else is new...
Re:aaaah Political doublespeak... (Score:5, Informative)
More like a new and different one. If you actually compare the two you'd notice that the JWST doesn't see everything the HST can, not even close to the same wide range of spectrum. It sees primarily in IR.
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Re:aaaah Political doublespeak... (Score:3, Insightful)
But this isn't about entitlement programs for pointy headed scientists, it's about the security in the free world. Bush has only 4 years to get us embroiled in a war with Iran*, and he's already feeling a budget pinch.
It should go with out saying (but this is left wing hippy slashdot, so I'll say it anyway) that we can't afford puffery like "basic science" or "free education" or even "sav
Re:aaaah Political doublespeak... (Score:4, Informative)
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Crash it... (Score:4, Funny)
Space needs more popular support (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm an avid supporter of all things space-related (paying member of Planetary Society, etc) but I find most articles written about the Hubble telescope and space in general pretty boring. Until someone inspires the world with a lofty goal that will push technology or knowledge forward significantly, I think you can expect this type of stagnation or actual devolution.
Re:Space needs more popular support (Score:3, Informative)
Be careful about generalizing your likes and dislikes to the rest of the world.
When will it end. (Score:3, Funny)
Taco Bell's second chance! (Score:3, Funny)
NASA, PLEASE, don't miss the bulls eye now! I want my free burrito!
We ought to sell it before it is salvaged... (Score:5, Interesting)
And, no doubt, if we just leave it up there the Chinese and/or the EU will most certainly claim salvage rights and send up a repair crew.
The Chinese would claim it, if for no other reason than to make clear to the world what is becoming increasingly obvious: the USA lacks the desire (funds?) to maintain its status as a space faring nation and is being replaced by China as the space faring super power.
Large Binocular Telescope (Score:4, Informative)
...is this the death knell for Hubble? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the end, the bugetary decisions are up to Congress. They have the power to restore the Hubble funding to the budget.
Supernova 1987A (Score:3, Informative)
Pathetic (Score:3, Interesting)
Wasn't Bush proposing a trip to mars? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3381531
This is ideology, not budget (Score:3, Insightful)
Talk about ill planning (Score:4, Insightful)
But in the process, lets scrap perhaps the most successful space venture in human history.
Hubble has been the greatest achievement in NASA's history. Far from the high profile Moon Landing. but it's the better achievement:
1. Has made millions interested in space, and sciences through it's absolutely breathtaking images.
2. One of the greatest feats of engineering servicing that thing.
3. It's been reliable and usable for YEARS
IMHO it more than earned a repair, and an upgrade.
It's been NASA's true achievement. The mars rovers have been great, they did a lot. But nothing has outperformed like Hubble.
Paypal button on homepage? (Score:4, Funny)
(just kidding)
Re:Too bad...if only NASA had (Score:3, Insightful)
He was right on the spot.
The current RNC admin spends $150+ billions on a crusade to conduct a democracy-for-oil campaign and caused the death of 1500 young soldiers, but can't spend $10 million on HST?
Come On !!! You, Mr.Moderator, are a f*ckin' Rep.
Re:Too bad...if only NASA had (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
Turn it around and say that the President decided to spend one billion on some program that you don't personally have any interest in, and all of a sudden it would be "Why spend a billion on that when there is a war going on in Iraq?"
Stop using both sides of the same arguement to bitch about the war. You don't support the war --
Re:Priorities (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe you were thinking of the cost of the upcoming war with Iran, but I have it on good authority that it's going to be a cake walk, and our soldiers will be greeted as liberators.
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Re:Finally! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a zero-sum game between humanitarian aid and science. Any language that supposes that it is leads you into trouble.
Re:Module to Hubble needed to safely de-orbit (Score:5, Informative)
After the Challenger disaster, plans to bring the Hubble back were dropped. Landing the shuttle with that much weight was found to be too risky.
After the Columbia accident, going to Hubble to repair it or deorbit it with a space shuttle was found to be too risky.
The Hubble was designed back when the shuttles were believed to be far more robust and expected to have a bit more carrying capacity. Going from the drawing board to a flight-worthy vehicle with a design that managed to be both revolutionary and out-of-date resulted in some difficult problems.
Eventually (as the Estes catalogs taught us in the late '60s) reusable is the way to go. But with the current state of engineering and finances, the Russians are doing a lot better with big, dumb, reliable, mass-produced single-use vehicles.
We desperately need a new space vehicle system that's safe, versitile, and cheap in terms of the cost of kg. to orbit. The new system is doable engineering wise, but probably dead politically.
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Re:Cheaper? (Score:3, Interesting)
Cost of Hubble in 1990 dollars: $1.5B
Cost of Hubble in 2004 dollars: $2.2B
That doesn't include launch costs. It would also probably take ~10 years to plan and build.
Re:What a negative view (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess this lesson here is that it is better to have security under a tyrant that the opportunity to live free. Why are 80% of Iraqis planning to vote? If the situation were truly so terrible, how could that be true?
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