Scientists Debate Robotic Hubble Mission 172
An anonymous reader writes "Some scientists are questioning whether the robotic mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope is worth the risk and cost. After the Columbia disaster, NASA cancelled its shuttle mission to Hubble, and replaced it with a robotic mission. However, the price tag of the robotic mission is between $1 billion and $2 billion, almost the cost of a new space telescope. Optics expert Duncan Moore is unsure whether the mission will bring the most scientific return per dollar spent. Hubble director Steven Beckwith says the mission will lead to breakthroughs in space robotics."
All science is good science (Score:3, Interesting)
Though I left the rocket science "business", I have no regrets. It was a great company to work for and we did some amazing things.
That said, all science is good science, even this robotic HUBBLE mission. I helped with deployment of spacecraft and nothing was more satisfying.
This mission MUST go on else we will fail as scientists.
Cheaper to replace? (Score:1, Interesting)
Our eye in the Sky ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Secondly, why isn't ISS going anywhere in comparison ?. Also that's a more international project for space. I hated the canadian reference
Last century, most of the world (with notable exceptions), expected america to do the Right Thing. That's past now (see the Thermonuclear reactor project) and in 4 short YEARS.
Why not build a new Space Telescope? (Score:4, Interesting)
Heck, you could shave a few hundred thousand off that pricetag if you built a new HST around the "backup" primary mirror made by Kodak [kodak.com] (which was figured and tested correctly). NASA would just have to get it from The National Air and Space Museum [si.edu].
Why not contract it out? (Score:5, Interesting)
$2 billion?? (Score:2, Interesting)
How urgent are these repairs to Hubble? Realistically speaking, if NASA is only debating to whether to spend $2,000,000,000 now, it's going to be several years before anything gets off the ground. So clearly the repairs aren't that urgent. Wouldn't it then make more sense to spend the cash and resources on improving/fixing/replacing the shuttles, so that we can safely send humans to do the job?
Engineers, not scientists (Score:4, Interesting)
I can see de-orbiting an old, useless analog comsat as being sensible. But for stuff which would otherwise continue to usefully function for years or decades, write-off due to non catastrophic failure ought not to be the natural option. The US space program suffers from an attention deficit disorder.
Re:Engineers, not scientists (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's my conspiracy theory of the day; "drop everything: We're going to Mars" is just a distraction to screw those atheist astrophycists who are dabbling in things they shouldn't (origin of universe etc).
Shut them up, those big bangers.
Why crash it into the ocean? (Score:5, Interesting)
I realize that it will probably take years to get there but I've seen a few proposals for future space stations being placed at the Lagrange points - wouldn't it be nice if they had a high-quality (maybe not as good as when launched) set of optics waiting to be used in a station observatory? I realize that there is a (very) good chance of this never happening, but it seems a damn sight better than crashing Hubble into the Pacific.
myke
Put on the space elevator... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why not contract it out? (Score:4, Interesting)
Still I'd like to see James Webb Telescope in place...
Re:Critical problem with this argument (Score:3, Interesting)
Repairing Hubble is fairly high risk-- not all the technology is in hand, there are unknowns on Hubble (will the robot arm have to have a hand free to bang on the door?) and there is a very real possibility that Hubble will suffer a fatal failure (battery or gyro) before the mission is launched, but after a great deal of money is sunk.
If you were to build a replacemant today, it would probably have a much lower mass mirror, possibly with a better surface quality, and there would likely be some kind of deformable mirror downstream to improve the image even more. It could also be at L2, where it would have much higher throughput than HST, and very likely could cost quite a bit less than servicing, depending on the set of instruments on board.
(and as mentioned elsewhere, JWST is infrared, not radio)
About time... (Score:4, Interesting)
Large Binocular Telescope (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:$2 billion?? (Score:5, Interesting)
I really think that NASA has a lot of dirty little secrets that no one on the outside knows about, and after this last accident they probably looked close and hard and realized that the number of places the shuttle could catastrophically fail is more than they originally thought.
If there was another shuttle failure (even if it did not result in the loss of life) I suspect that there would be a noticeable chorus to dismantle the agency, that cannot produce very much more than kitsch science and photo ops with school children on the ground.
Though unspoken, I think the three strikes and you're out rule may be in place here. NASA since apollo has always been an agency with self-survival first in mind, so I would not be surprised if they find a way to retire the shuttles to museums.
So much as replacing the shuttles - I do not think that this will even be considered for the next decade as the cost is too steep. It was hard to justify the shuttles when they were first built (and the reason that the space station was built) in the seventies.
But as can be seen, the space station can work with cheap Russian rockets that are more reliable than the shuttle.
The Hubble was designed so it could be serviced by the shuttle (the other justification for the shuttle). But if the Hubble was designed so that parts could be replaced by dockable unmanned rockets, we would not be in this position we are today with it. For an instant, if the power supply and gyros were on a small module that could dock using conventional rockets. But it is not.
When O'Keefe said that a repair mission to Hubble was "too dangerous," people should have recognized that that was code words for "we need to ground the shuttle permanently now."
The fact is that there are earth based telescopes that are catching up in performance to the Hubble. Add to that the fact that the Hubble is old technology, it's pretty obvious that it's time to move on.
It truly would be a better decision to take the many lessons learned from Hubble design and repair and put those in a new telescope, and send it to orbit on a unmanned rocket.
Re:Just do it (Score:1, Interesting)
Reason 2: Nanoscience research: in microgravity you can do and build all sorts of thing that you wouldn't be able to on Earth due to the gravity, you can build all sorts of crasy structures which help our fundemental science knoweledge and can be used for new technology on Earth.
3. Pharamcuticle manufacture, long ago when the first studies were being on on joining the three space stations (MIR2 (RUSSIA), freedom (USA) and collumbus (EUROPE)), Europe were primised by USA that NASA would fly their suppiles to collumbus if they joined ISS and would fly back down the phams ESA wanted to demonstrate-manufacture for things like AIDS, Altshimers, Parkinsons etc big diseases. In microgravity you can mess with chemical structures and build drugs that otherwise would be impossible on Earth and hence improve life for those who suffer from such afflictions.
How is the chinese solution a long way off? they have newer & more working manned space vehicles than the USA right now. China asked to join the ISS and were vetoed by the USA despite the other countries being in favour of cooperation.
can't dispute comment 3, although i would add that the problem with a capsule is that you can't bring heavy stuff back down safely with you. remember, if we are ever to have mass space flight it's going to be private industry that does it, but private industry is rubbish at taking risks, they need to know that they can bring back their recently manufactured phams/nanoscience CPUs/hot grits/etc cheaply, safely and to a predetermined location, this is what the shuttle and space transport system should have done but didn't. if we want private industry to do that, then I think it'd probably help for them to see something similar working first. I advocate using both spaceplanes AND capsules as neihter can do everything the other can.
Re:All science is good science (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:All science is good science (Score:3, Interesting)
When we say that 1 or 2 billion is going to research, that is the opening bid. Spending 1 or 2 billion to keep an obsolete telescope aloft is a bad use of R&D. Bad with a capital B. Especially since there is no advantage to keeping the old station aloft, nor is there any danger (more than any other satellite at least) in bringing it down.
If the thing had a radioactive power source, or there was a super-expensive rare metal apparatus that we can't manufacture anymore I'd say sure. Otherwise, drop the thing and spend your budget on a new telescope using the lessons learned from the old, and technology that did not exist in the 30 years since the unit left the drawing board.