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."
Re:Show me the money... (Score:3, Interesting)
Funding (lack of) (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, what's the point of throwing people up in space station compared to what you can get with an orbital telescope? The price of reparing this has got to be a tiny slice of what the ISS gets every year.
Re:Show me the money... (Score:2, Interesting)
As to funding, yes NASA is strapped for cash, but attempting to develop and deploy an (at least) semi-automated robotic repair device in the course or 3 1/2 years seems like it would cost vastly more than any manned space shuttle repair flight.
Re:Show me the money... (Score:5, Interesting)
They've done it twice before, and I don't see any reason they couldn't do it again as long as the shuttle they use is equipt the same as the one they used twice before. That might take some extra funds doing the retrofit.
Tell ya how to take a vote folks, have the irs add a 50 dollar checkoff line to the 1040, where 50 bucks of your refund would go instead to nasa.
I'd bet nasa would hear a get off your butts and doit message loud and clear cause I know I'd sure do the checkmark.
I use 2 of its deep field images, totalling about 70 megs, as backgrounds for 2 of my 8 screens. Everytime I switch to one of those screens I'm reminded of just how usefull that the hubble has been even if it was in need of a set of glasses to clear it up. The last one, showing stuff as far out as 13 billion light years, is a truely impressive image since we are seeing the universe as it was when it was less than a billion years old when that light was sent on its way here.
Properly maintained, that scope can and will be making new discoveries, adding to our knowledge of the universe and physics in general, stuff that cannot be done thru the haze of our atmosphere here on the ground, a hundred years from now.
I'd like to see them add an RPG powered ion engine to it, not a very big one of course, just enough to give it a few ounces of push so that its orbit could be maintained over an extended period as one of the things the shuttle must do each time its there is to give it a push to correct for the decaying orbit. That pushing we are told, over-extends the shuttles available fuel, possibly endangering the ability to steer at landing time. The shuttle that goes there must have the robot arm, and it must be stripped a bit in order to lighten it to even reach the hubbles altitude which is about 50 miles above the design envelope of the shuttle.
But the point is, it CAN be done. Dangerous, maybe. But I don't recall that any of the crews who have been there regretted doing it.
Cheers, Gene
Re:Show me the money... (Score:3, Interesting)
Stupid bureaucrats.
Ground Telescopes (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Show me the money... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hubble (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Show me the money... (Score:2, Interesting)
What about asking other nations or private organisations for money to service it?
What about selling Hubble?
What about giving it as a gift to anyone who wants it?
NASA's "Safety Concerns" were a smokescreen. (Score:5, Interesting)
However NASA was excited about sending an unmanned robotic mission to service Hubble, and they claimed that there were companies working on proposals to provide that robot.
My take was that this is the result of putting a non-scientist bean-counter (O'Keefe) in charge of NASA, coupled with an administration keen on cutting social funding while simultaneously funding private contractors as though there was no tomorrow.
Tea Kettle (Score:5, Interesting)
There's also quite a bit of money and resources already devoted to the HST. Instruments and components have been built and paid for and the work is already done. Letting it sit on a shelf indefinitely would be a magnificent waste. Besides the money already spent a mission will have to be sent up, automated or not, to de-orbit the HST.
NASA ought to bite the bullet and push the envelope a little bit. It doesn't matter that they would be using untested technologies. Fixing the HST would be the test. I have little doubt that it would be feasible to robotically service the HST. A small cadre of tool laden AIBOs with rocket packs should be able to do the trick. If NASA is too scared to send people into space they could at least send a few cute robot dogs.
The technology and techniques learned with the HST could be applied later with the ISS' construction or even an in-orbit repair of a Shuttle or other craft. Maybe we could even start designing satellites that are meant to be services by robots to extend their useful lifetimes. Companies would be much more likely to invest in satellites if its potential operational life of 20+ years instead of 12 if everything goes alright.
Re:Shame (Score:2, Interesting)
The hubble space telescope uses a CCD equivalent to a less-than-consumer-level digi-cam.
This site [hubblesite.org] says: "The Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 has four CCDs, each containing 640,000 pixels." so that's a 2.5 mega-pixel camera.
Let's all keep this in mind....
Re:Show me the money... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's even more the shame for all the money saved during the last year+ of non-flight. That $500 million isn't money that's unavailable, but it is money that would go to a purely intellectual goal. The current ruling ideology does not value social/intellectual concerns.
Re:NASA's "Safety Concerns" were a smokescreen. (Score:5, Interesting)
They should just buy one Soyuz (Score:5, Interesting)
they should by one Soyuz from us, Russians.
Of course, Soyuz is technology of early 70'th,
but it would be newly manufactured, when shuttles are PRODUCTION of eithties. It is also order of magnitude cheaper. We fly space tourishs to ISS for $20millions or so.
Re:NASAs' Short Sightedness (Score:4, Interesting)
The worst thing of all is what the US government spent the money on, when they'd cut it from NASA's budget.
Vietnam.
I wonder... in a hundred years, will historians point to this decision and say that this is the moment when the American dream died?
Totally screwed up priorities ... (Score:2, Interesting)
The bean counter idiots in charge of NASA intend
to replace HST with an inferior IR space-based
telescope. The same contractors that have been
working on HST are working on the "replacement".
There is far more money to be made developing a
new telescope than there is for "maintenence" on
the HST. The development of a bleeding edge
robotic servicing mission also is more profitable
for the contractors than a manned mission.
It all boils down to money, and where that money
would be spent. Space robotics have a huge
potential in military applications, so the R&D
money spent by NASA can be parlayed into bigger
profits for these same contractors. The best
hope for the continued survival of HST would be
to farm out the repairs to China or India, but
the political costs would be too great.
The money misspent on the ISS has drained the
NASA budget at a time when pure science is
being sacrificed for dual-use applied science
and political expediency. The ISS has become
a fiscal "black hole", with budget overruns
that make the original projected costs of the
shuttle program look like kindergarten.
When real scientists running NASA were replaced
with politically "inspired" professional bean
counters is when NASA started going downhill.
And the Bush "back to the moon" initiative is
pure BS, as there is no valid scientific value,
nor the money to waste, for such a mission
directive.
Re:I hope they go ahead with this mission (Score:4, Interesting)
The Hubble was built in 1985. So, your analogy is a bit off base. It would be more like repairing that old 128k MacIntosh you bought back then. There's a time to repair, and there's a time to move on to newer technology. Otherwise, you're only hanging on for sentimental reasons, not for science.
its all about the shuttle (Score:3, Interesting)
Because if something goes wrong, NASA are out one expensive irreplacable shuttle and only have 2 left.
Which isnt that much of a margin for error when it comes to sending shuttles up to finish the ISS.
Hardly Objective (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the Hubble should be saved, too. It is by far the optical device with the best 'seeing'. NASA and the scientific community have already labored long, and spent a fortune running the program. It has produced wonderful results. This is in spite of its checkered history: what kind of dolt would send this priceless piece of hardware into space untested?
However, I suspect that the Hubble people are not acting altruistically. They are not thinking 'what can WE do to improve space-based astronomy.' It is more like: 'I want more funding. Screw the rest of you guys.'
Re:Shame (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, I'll buy the idea that robots could bring the HST to a safe re-entry and destruction. I won't buy the idea that what we have available today and what we can get completed, checked out, and space-rated by December 2007 can do the gyro, battery, and two telescope change-outs. Sorry, geeks, it isn't going to happen any more than nine women are going to make one baby in one month. OTOH, if a robot could crash HST by slowing it down along its present track, couldn't one push it the other way and raise its orbit? Where does this leave us?
How to get astronauts to Low Earth Orbit (LOE) at about a 23 degree inclination...can't do it with a Soyuz-TMA on a Soyuz-U or -M launch vehicle ("Carrier rocket" if you're Russian) out of Baikonur because the lattitude of the launch site makes their Equator-crossing-angle too steep (in case you wondered why the International Space Station has such a high inclination, now you know.) Will they be able to launch a manned mission out of Kourou by December 2007? Unlikely. Could the do it out of Canaveral by then? Probably. There's infrastructure here that doesn't exist in French Guyana and there's even an operating spaceport here with launch pads to spare. Facilities would have to be built, but have you noticed what they are? Butler buildings and steel trestles, railroad lines, and lots of space. Not much of a problem at the Canaveral Spaceport. NASA already owns all of the stuff they were going to put into the HST and has the training facilities already built for the mission.
Hm. U.S. astronauts aboard a Soyuz-TMA. Radical idea or common practice today? You know the answer to that.
OK, let's say we do it. We get away from the present program, which looks to me like a cross between the Credit Mobiliere and the Revenge of the Nerds, and get a commercial contract - just like you buy IT hardware, software, and services - and let U.S. and Russian companies do this job with minimal NASA and other Government involvement: no success, no pay. Now, does that sound like what Congress is telling NASA to start doing anyway? OK, why not start here?
What do the Russians say about this? It amounts to: "Sure, let's do it. Cash up front."
Re:Why NASA bugs me (Score:3, Interesting)
bobhagopian writes:
I'm going to make a brief comment here.
Going back to the Moon will have some research value. To say we've exhausted what we can learn about the Moon is simply not true. Is it the best place to put our research bucks now? Probably not. Other areas would probably yield more bang for the buck.
Will going back to the Moon excite the public about space exploration? Again, not as much as the new Cassini mission or a search for life on Mars.
But the value of returning to the Moon is not in research. It's much more in building space infrastructure. Today what we can do in space is limited quite severely to what we can launch from Earth. If we return to the Moon, we can perhaps start using space resources. That will greatly expand what we can do in space. To do much in space, sooner or later we're going to have to start using what we find out there, rather than just using what we can haul up from Earth.
Why don't I favor going straight to Mars? To get to Mars with anything approaching present day technology requires very long travel times. When things go wrong (and they will go wrong) it's a long way to go for help.
In the early years of the settlement of the Americas by Europeans, quite a bit went wrong. Whole colonies were wiped out. It took a long time to get to the point where we are today. And that effort was made in a physical environment not fundamentally different from the environment the Europeans left behind.
Space is very different from Earth. Mars is very different from Earth. I want our mistakes to be made in ways that will allow us to recover from them and learn from them much more quickly. That means returning to the Moon -- and staying.
There's another value to this work. The public can get excited about research. But they are more likely to support work that holds out the possibility of real material benefit to them.
If 400-500 years ago Europeans had only sent explorers to the western hemisphere, do you think support would have continued for very long? Exploration is only one valuable human endeavor. There are many more things that humans do that have equal or greater value.
Support space research -- but don't stop there. Support space exploitation as well. You'll wind up with far more research than we can currently support.
Re:I hope they go ahead with this mission (Score:3, Interesting)
Not necessarily true. Hubble is in orbit at a fairly shallow inclination (28 degrees). Picture the Solar System--the Sun and Earth-Moon system are all in the same 'horizontal' plane; Hubble's orbit is slanted about thirty degrees from that, but still pretty close. Pointing 'up' or 'down' out of that plane, neither Sun, Moon, nor Earth ever enters its field of view.