NASA Urged to Reconsider Shuttle Mission to HST 199
LMCBoy writes "Space.com reports today that the National Academies of Science has released its recommendation to NASA on the future of the Hubble Space Telescope. They conclude that 'NASA should take no actions that would preclude a space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.' They also say that none of the safety requirements of the CAIB report preclude a manned servicing mission to HST." Read on for more.
"The NAS recommendation would reverse NASA's previous position that a shuttle repair mission is ruled out for safety reasons. In the wake of strong criticisms of this decision, NASA has also been considering a robotic repair mission. The robotic mission would not risk human lives, but it relies on a number of bleeding-edge technologies that would have to be deployed on a very short timescale. HST's remaining gyroscopes are not expected to last beyond 2007."
Show me the money... (Score:5, Informative)
But what about the finacial concerns? I don't think NASA has the funding to allocate to a Hubble Repair mission... could the safety claims just have been a smokescreen to cover when the real reason was because they can't get the funding to do this?
Re:Shame (Score:3, Informative)
Some actual costs from NASA ... (Score:5, Informative)
And Hubble's second servicing mission [nasa.gov] cost $347 million plus another $448 million for the Shuttle flight - I believe that is in 1996 dollars.
So as a taxpayer, for all that dough, how 'bout some new satellite pictures [komar.org] of my house! ;-)
Re:Show me the money... (Score:4, Informative)
Not really. NASA does have the money (assuming it's funding isn't further cut). But NASA administrator O'Keefe re-arranged the NASA priorities after Bush's claim for a Mars mission. The safety issue further added into this, but wasn't entirely a smokescreen.
This is troubling because Bush appointed O'Keefe directly, and O'Keefe reports (or is supposed to, at least) back to Bush. More annoyingly is that O'Keefe single-handedly made the decision to cut the funding for Hubble Servicing Mission 4. He probably had advice from some panel or other, but in his email he stated the decision to cut or not to cut would be his alone.
Luckily enough scientists and politicians acted out to fight O'Keefe's initial decision. Personally, I don't know if he decided to cut it just because of the Mars announcement or not, I think he just doesn't want any more astronaut deaths or serious accidents to occur under his watch. However, I think it's a shame to let NASA's scientific progress stagnate strictly due to safety issues.
On the side note, the whole Mars thing seems bunk, when was the last time anybody even heard any other information about it? Maybe there'll be some more talk about Mars (talk is cheap) until November elections.
Re:Why NASA bugs me (Score:5, Informative)
It's possible, sure. Even proven that the planets have swapped rocks many times, but "most scientists" ?
Personally, I'd find it quite spiffy if it turns out that life came from space originally... makes the mystery much more interesting.
Re:NASA and Being Sexy (Score:3, Informative)
On the flip side, some glitz and glamour is also needed to keep the public interested, which interests politicians and helps them direct more money at NASA. Remember, NASA has to convince the government that it needs to be funded. The sexy projects have public appeal, and have more influence in this regard.
That's why nearly all NASA press-release packages have photos instead of spectral plots, even though astronomers probably use spectra more often than photos for most research. Photos are pretty and sexy, spectra look like boring stock-market plots.
But anyway, luckily enough scientists are influencing some of the politicians as well to keep Hubble funded (and other good projects too). That's part of the breaks of being government funded - you have to be useful as well as interesting.
Re:uh.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why NASA bugs me (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Show me the money... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Some actual costs from NASA ... (Score:3, Informative)
OK, I'm a child of the late 1970s, so I hear you when you scoff at recent rates of inflation. But according to the inflation calculator [inflationdata.com], something that cost $1 in 1996 would cost about $1.21 right now. That's not really negligible.
Re:Shame (Score:5, Informative)
From that same page: "They can see objects that are 1,000 million times fainter than the naked eye can see. "
For one thing, Hubble's cameras are cooled (can't find their temperature, but IIRC it's far below zero) to reduce noise. Also, the CCD design is bound to be different. This [mailbag.com] gives an idea of what's involved.
Re:I hope they go ahead with this mission (Score:5, Informative)
What a shame it would be to spend all that money putting Hubble up there and then not servicing it because of budget cuts. That would be like spending $20,000 on a new car and then deciding a few years later that you can't afford to take it in for an oil change. It's already up there, they might as well service it.
Hubble is in the 14th year of a 10 year mission. The decision to service hubble is no different than deciding to put a new engine in an old car with 200,000 miles, with the added twist that there is a 1 in 50 chance that a 7 person crew would die doing it. The reason NASA O'Keefe has decided not to service Hubble with the shuttle is that it is judged to be unsafe given the Columbia review board's recommendations. Namely, the shuttle should have access to the safe haven of the ISS if it is to keep flying. This story adds nothing new to the debate. Hubble's replacement is on the way. Perhaps its leisurely schedule of the James Webb Telescope can be accelerated.
Difference in altitude (Score:2, Informative)
56,000 miles is pretty impressive, but 160k miles it is not. So the Shuttle still has a couple of magnitudes advantage over our x-prize favorites.
Re:Shame (Score:3, Informative)
The Advanced Camera for Surveys, built between 1996 and 1999, was installed in 2000. It has a 4096x4096 pixel detector.
Where was your 16 megapixel camera in 1999?
The replacement for the WFPC2, the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC), will also have a 4096x4096 detector, along with a 10Mpix IR detector. Both of these sensors are of much higher quality than a consumer CCD.
Re:I hope they go ahead with this mission (Score:3, Informative)
For that sort of observatory, schedule is not a top priority. Nor was it for Hubble. Performance is so critical (and so difficult), that it's ready when it's ready - you just hope you can keep a lid on costs.
Re:I hope they go ahead with this mission (Score:3, Informative)
Ideally, I would like to see several Hubble clones in solar orbit - capable of acting individually or as a very-long baseline interferometer.
Josh
Re:NASA's "Safety Concerns" were a smokescreen. (Score:3, Informative)
I agree with your general thread (that a manned repair mission is preferable because it has a higher probability of success), but to be fair, the robot is not yet-to-be-engineered. It exists, and it works. It was built by the Canadarm guys. It was meant to go up to ISS for remote work outside thespace station, but the HST guys kind of stole it from Greenbelt and moved it down to Cape Canaveral...
Re:Some actual costs from NASA ... (Score:5, Informative)
Since most of the expense is in the launch -- and that would be comparable for a new satellite -- the answer is No. But more importantly, there is a replacement for the Hubble in the pipeline (the James Webb [nasa.gov] Telescope) but it is not scheduled for launch until 2011. Given the precariousness of NASA's launch capability, politicals will, and funding, one has to regard that as a soft date.
Meanwhile, if they don't service Hubble, it will have to be de-orbited. (Note that even just deorbiting the thing will cost about $300 million [space.com], which is around 60% of the cost of the proposed service mission -- not counting any hypothetical replacement.) Unserviced, Hubble will fail in 2007 or 2008. That leaves at least 3 years where there will not be an orbiting telescope with the breadth and coverage afforded by Hubble.
(What's three years? Well, for one thing, we might miss a supernova in the Milky Way. They should happen around once a century but none have been seen in the Milky Way since 1600 or so. It would be almost criminal to have such an event happen during a window when we couldn't observe it from orbit. We could have to wait another few centuries for the next chance.)
Re:Some actual costs from NASA ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Funding (lack of) (Score:3, Informative)
The NSF did a study of the ISS a few years back and concluded that the station was utterly useless for science. Most of the things NASA claimed ISS would do can be done better on the ground and the rest were impossible because of the limitations in the station design. Since then, the ISS science capability has decreased even more.
Long duration human studies are nice but we already have lots of data from Mir for that. While newer studies are nice, it hadly seems worth the exorbitant price tag required to get that data.
Re:Difference in altitude (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway. Sub orbital is a lot easier than orbital flight, is the real answer.
Re:I hope they go ahead with this mission (Score:2, Informative)
Huh? There is an hourglass shaped segment of the universe that Hubble can observe all the time, and careful scheduling can take care of a portion of the rest (it's that dance between the plane of hubble's orbit around the earth, and the plane of earth's orbit around the sun). This is not just a problem with Hubble, but with any space based telescope (until we can manage to put something into interstellar space anyway...). Even in a Lagrange point there will be times when some parts of the universe just won't be observable, when the sun, moon, or earth are in the way.
There is scheduling software that, factors all the orbital mechanics, and insures Hubble's time is as well used as it can possibly be. Not a moment of its time is wasted if it can be humanly avoided. Not only is its time expensive, it is intensely sought after by astronomers.