NASA to Reconsider Hubble Decision 331
blamanj writes "It's not dead yet. With cries of opposition coming in from all quarters, NASA has decided to review its earlier decision. Adm. Hal Gehman, chairman of the board that investigated the Columbia shuttle breakup last year, will 'review the (Hubble) matter and offer his unique perspective,' NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said"
Cost ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, if they turn it round to face us, they could use to to find terrorists and stick it on the war against terror budget
Bring it down if you don't continue using it. (Score:2, Insightful)
If they decide to not continue operating the Hubble it'd be nice to see it in the Smithsonian or on loan to other museums. Having that unique piece of equipment within arms reach of kids may give them the spark to pursue a career in science or at least make them appreciate it.
A phoney mock-up won't do, it have the real thing there: pits, warts and all. One of my earliest museum memories (very early 70's?) from our provincial museum [manitobamuseum.mb.ca] was "Sputnik" on display. I remember being in awe of it until my mom told me it wasn't the real Sputnik. It was a let down, like realizing Santa isn't real. Being told a few bones in otherwise complete dinosaur skeletons wasn't nearly as bad, at least most of the bones were legit.
hubble gone? (Score:3, Insightful)
One of my most favorite hobbies is looking at images brought back from the hubble on a friday night since I have no life outside of
Re:Unique perspective? (Score:1, Insightful)
We have plenty of time to save the telescope. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I dont understand (Score:5, Insightful)
The concept seems so simple, but the reality is much more complex. IANARS (I am not a rocket scientist), but orbital mechanics just don't work at all like you're used to things working on earth (or in Star [Trek|Wars]).
For one thing, if you give an orbiting object a push "up", that doesn't send it away from the planet! It just puts it in a higher orbit, and probably an elliptical one at that. An ellipse (oval) seems fine, but the Earth probably is at a focus, not the "center". If you've lowered the close point (perigee?) into the atmosphere, you've got big trouble.
Hubble simply doesn't have the sort of thruster that could boost it into a higher, more stable orbit. There are proposals to strap on a booster to do that job, but you've either got to send someone up to attach it, or find a foolproof way of doing it robotically. Remember, Hubble wasn't designed to be reboosted by anything but the shuttle!
And things go wrong -- remember the time the Shuttle crew had to build a flyswatter-looking thing to flip a switch on a satellite they'd just launched. More recently, of course, there's Mars, the Ship-Eating Planet.
Advice (Score:5, Insightful)
As a former intel geek myself, I'd say the answer is a resounding "no"... Pay the extra money to keep my current source while you build and deploy a new one for me to use.
I agree, you don't understand (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Let it return to the Earth. Probably the cheapest possible option.
2) Spend money and risk lives to push it farther out into space, possibly into Lunar orbit. This means that when it breaks down, it cannot be repaired because we do not have a system of getting people to it reliably.
3) Donate it to some other organization. Tell me about this organization that will spend $100s of millions to maintain the Hubble. If they cannot or will not spend the money, result #1 will occur.
If you want to focus on a waste of resources, look at the ISS. What a boondoggle.
Re:Is repairing the Hubble worth 5 astronaut's liv (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer had always better be YES when it comes to scientific research and exploration. If the answer was NO, we'd still think the world was flat, if we'd even exist at all.
Re:I dont understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bring it down if you don't continue using it. (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is that the increased weight means more heat build up as you come in through the atmosphere. All this talk about risking lives to get something for a museum is completely justified, you only have to remember the yellowy streaks over Texas last year to remember that.
Re:I dont understand (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not possible to carry the amount of fuel it would take to reach both the ISS and Hubble on the current shuttle.
Off Topic: I just finished watching HBO's "From the Earth to the Moon" miniseries that they produced a few years back. It was enlightening, inspiring, and amazing to see how much NASA did in such short time, in addition to how much risk was involved. Will someone please tell exactly when NASA lost their balls?
Why not boost Hubble to space station orbit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Note, this suggestion isn't original; I think Bob Parks made it somewhere in What's New. [aps.org]
Tooting my own horn dept: as I said here, [slashdot.org] Bush's Mars plan is wildly underfunded, and that unless there's serious funding the Mars plan is at best a publicity stunt, and at worst a president micro-managing NASA in a way that will get rid of the few remaining actual science programs. Decomissioning Hubble is exhibit A for that argument.
In answer to the original question, "Is repairing the Hubble worth 5 astronaut's lives?" I'd just like to say that I'll go. I'll risk my life for science (and maybe the adventure of a lifetime in LEO).
Re:Homer in a speedo (Score:3, Insightful)
"Furry Frenchwomen" ?
Frenchwomen might have loads of drawbacks but they most often are elegant unlike the ubiquitous fat Yankee whores.
I personally prefer the Suissesses : Italian Charm + French elegance + German fitness.
Re:NASA can't do much without the shuttle... (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if that's true, the Mars missions reused a lot of the hardware and software designs from the 1997 Mars Pathfinder/Sojourner missions. (i think the timescale from project approval to launch was 3 years, btw). If a robot were to be sent to fix Hubble, you would basically be starting from scratch. The design constraints are also completely different, so you can't really use the Mars Exploration Rovers as examples.
First off, I don't understand why people say the Soyuz is more safe than the shuttle. That might be so, but they have very similar safety records; both have two missions lost with complete loss of life; and they have roughly the same number of missions. Also, it's difficult enough to get 2 objects in LEO to meet at a point; now you're talknig about 3? The Hubble, the Soyuz, and the "workhouse rocket." Very, very difficult.
Personally, I think NASA should sign off on one "special" shuttle mission that won't follow the CAIB recommendations (patch for RCC/tile damage, second shuttle ready to fly..). NASA, the White House, and the astronauts will sign a deal acknowledging the inherent risks. Of course, if the shuttle is lost on the Hubble mission, there probably won't be enough shuttles left to finish the ISS....
Re:Space now belongs to developing countries? (Score:2, Insightful)
War is a wasteful enterprise, and no amount of spin can change that.
The reason only 500+ US soldiers have died is because we value life so highly.
Right. The war to end all wars. The war to end all killing. Got it.
Re:Space now belongs to developing countries? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I dont understand (Score:3, Insightful)
The world is full of people that do risky things for a living: stock car drivers, miners, steeplejacks, soldiers... the list is endless.
There's a line from _The Godfather_ that I like. One of the characters was a mafia enforcer, a demonic, barely contained, fearsome hulk of a man. Don Corleone observed that once in a while you run into a man who is hell-bent to die. Paraphrased: "Such a man can help you. And you can help him."
Re:Ditch Hubble and build another one (Score:1, Insightful)
Dream on! It would take at least that long just to secure the funding to do it. The NGST was initially proposed back in the 90s and it's still 7 years away. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush -- HST is delivering results today, NGST and any Hubble follow-on are way out on the horizon and who knows if they will deliver anything useful at all? Lord knows HST had enough unanticipated technical difficulties. Not to mention that ten years from now, adaptive optics for Earth-based telescopes will be kicking Hubble's butt anyway.
Re:Space now belongs to developing countries? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This could have been "planned", you know (Score:3, Insightful)
1 - There was no noticable reaction from the Bush administration or Congress about the news that the Hubble mission would be cancelled.
2 - If you're going to raise an outcry for more budget increases, shouldn't you keep up the pressure until the new budget is created? The time between outcry and decision to re-evalute the Hubble mission was very short; it seems like more of an internal decision than a result of waiting for politicians to react to the negative press.
3 - On the subject of public reaction, most negative press about the Bush space program seems to be taking the stance of: "We can't afford what we're doing already, why go to the moon?" rather than the Hubble-related: "Look what Bush's change in focus made NASA do!"
I think it's worth keeping an eye on, but I don't think it's the most likely explanation.
Re:Let it die (Score:2, Insightful)
At this point, Hubble works great and, if you go up and service it once, it will do so for the next decade. So why throw it away and hope that the next big thing goes up soon and without a problem. I say keep it around, spend a few hundred mil on repair and upgrade in a few years and then you can turn around and rent it out or sell it at a damn good price. It would still be pretty damn useful even if it was the second best space based telescope in 10 years.
Re:Cost ? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's just it. Dubya is not spending any money on his Mars ploy^H^Han, he's leaving the real spending to some future president. All he's done is put a drop-dead date on the shuttle program that is earlier than NASA would have done otherwise.
So now we don't have very many shuttle missions left and we've got mission rules that say thou shalt not fly unless you've got a bailout site (ISS) or a repair kit (costs money to develop). With that constraint set, abandoning Hubble is a reasonable response.
Hint: Based on his actions, Dubya doesn't give a rat's a** about science, and doesn't understand why anybody else does.
Re:Unique perspective? (Score:3, Insightful)
Chaired it, actually. He probably has a better insight into the capabilities and limitations of the shuttle program (which would have to be used in the event of any HST maintenance or rescue mission) than all but a handful of NASA engineers.
Disclaimer: I worked for ADM Gehman for a couple of years when he was the J3 (Operations) at USACOM (now morphed into JFCOM). Super guy, both thorough and thoughtful, totally unflappable.
What NASA needs these days (Score:3, Insightful)
Hubble:Obsolete :: You:Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
As soon as you build a major 'scope, people are lined up to use it
So, Hubble will never be "obsolete", since even old, old 'scopes on Earth are being used.
It's time for you throw-it-out boneheads to wake the fuck up from your Western dream (actually a "nightmare") of conspicuous consumption. You cannot afford to continue building things and then throwing them away when they fail to contine to excite your techie bone. Hubble can be used up to a certain limit in the degradation of the mirror's aluminizing layer
Use it up, make it last, wear it out. The old New English sayings ring true today.
Government vs. Private (Score:2, Insightful)
The rush to take the government out of everything ignores how many great achievements throughout history never would have happened without government sponsorship. Erik the Red, Columbus, Balboa...all government sponsored. Goddard developing the liquid-fuelled rocket? Significant government (and university) sponsorship. Breaking the sound barrier? Government. And of course the Apollo moon landings and the existence of the HST...no private organization would ever have accomplished those, for there was no profit in any of them.
Everyone's rush to privatize things always seems to ignore how much poorer we'd be without government sponsorship of exploration. I sure don't want to live in a world where we only do anything because it's profitable. When endeavors naturally become commodities (automobiles, flight, etc.), then privatization makes sense in order to encourage reliability and cost containment. But when we're in the initial stages, which we definitely still are with space, the government plays a crucial role.
-Kurt