Hubble Getting an Upgrade 31
instinctdesign writes: "The New York Times (free registration of course) is running a story on the planned upgrades to the one of NASA's greatest successes, the Hubble Space Telescope. Here is a quote from the article about the plans: 'Tasks include adding a new primary camera, replacing the telescope's electricity-generating solar arrays, replacing the main power switching controller, replacing a critical pointing device and installing an experimental cooling system in hopes of reviving a dormant instrument.'"
Can't they use Hubble ... (Score:2, Funny)
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Evil Attraction
Actually, they are... (Score:2, Informative)
more information about spy satellites [fas.org]
-Mark
Re:Can't they use Hubble ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Can't they use Hubble ... (Score:1)
True, but they could point it at the darkside [amazon.com] of the planet, and if the President is any kind of authority, then we know for a fact that Osama is on the darkside [amazon.com].
Some thoughts (Score:3, Interesting)
By the way, isn't NASA supposed to launch a successor to the Hubble in 2006? Is that still in the plans? The Hubble is wonderful, but it was built in something like 1981 (after which it sat in storage for a decade, deforming the mirrors). Just think what can be done with technology from the 2000's.
The trouble with the mirror (Score:1)
Apparently this caused the mirror to be cut wrong, and they had to fix the problem by reversing the error in miniature, with a set of three small mirrors.
So even leaving it in storage couldn't have done that much to it, it was stuffed from the start.
No, it was stuffed by politics (Score:2)
Re:No, it was stuffed by politics (Score:1)
The stupid part is that the "stuffed" instrument wasn't the only one used to test with. Another instrument indicated that the mirror may be flawed, but it was of lesser precision than the other. They went with the results of the more precise one. Too bad it was screwed up.
Successor to Hubble is NGST (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Some thoughts (Score:1)
Looking at what they are replacing I would say there wouldn't be much of a difference between the upgraded hubble and technology from the 2000's... I don't know a lot about this but I would say that most of the important stuff has been replaced within the last couple of years?? But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't launch anything new of course... I'm looking forward to that too
Eh? (Score:3, Funny)
So, Is The New One An Opitcal, Or Wireless Mouse?
Re:Eh? (Score:1)
The US decided to use an optical mouse for the pointing device on the Hubble, but the Russian designed Hubbliski which never got off the ground due to lack of funding simply used a brown stick.
Wait a minute (Score:1)
In 50 years (Score:2)
Re:In 50 years (Score:2)
Is this article... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Upgrade, but in the wrong direction (Score:2)
there's more info on the hubble web-site... (Score:1)
Anyway, here's the link [hubblesite.org].
Reported does not make it true (Score:2, Informative)
As far as getting the same results with radio telescopes, well I guess you should take some science courses, and perhaps an elective in photography.
Re:More taxpayers cash flushed down the lavatory (Score:3, Informative)
If you we take the US Census Bureau as an authority then the current US Population is about 286.5 Million.
$15,000,000,000 / 286,500,000 = $52.36, or almost exactly $1/week per American.
Plus, I find these statistics of cost per American pretty irrelevant, since the poorest 20% of Americans don't pay income tax and therefore are contributing nothing to run NASA. On the other hand, the Bush tax cuts passed last year by repealing the inheritance tax gave Bill Gates a $30B tax cut, enough to pay NASA's whole budget for two straight years!