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Comments: 224 +- Science: Hubble Repair Mission At Risk on Thursday February 19 2009, @04:18AM
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samzenpus
on Thursday February 19 2009, @04:18AM
from the someone-take-out-the-space-trash dept.
from the someone-take-out-the-space-trash dept.
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MollyB writes "According to Wired, the recent collision of satellites may put the Atlantis shuttle mission to repair Hubble in the 'unacceptable risk' status:
'The spectacular collision between two satellites on Feb. 10 could make the shuttle mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope too risky to attempt. Before the collision, space junk problems had already upped the Hubble mission's risk of a "catastrophic impact" beyond NASA's usual limits, Nature's Geoff Brumfiel reported today, and now the problem will be worse. Mark Matney, an orbital debris specialist at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas told the publication that even before the collision, the risk of an impact was 1 in 185, which was "uncomfortably close to unacceptable levels" and the satellite collision "is only going to add on to that."'"
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hmm. (Score:5, Interesting)
we were discussing the debris problem at work over coffee the other day.
we were trying to find solutions to it in our non-expert fashion.
sadly the best we could come up with were:
(1) putting a impact shield around spacecraft - but the kind of impact speeds we are talking about probably makes this uneconomical as the shield would need to be massive.
(2) some kind of automated space cleaner that went around removing debris - but we had no idea how that could possibly work or be designed
(3) vastly improved tracking capabilities so we could avoid the worst areas and steer around them
(4) pre-emptive removal of dead satalites (no, not shooting them down from earth - attaching small moters to send them into the atmosphere) - maybe steering them into a declining orbit as the last thing they do before swithing them off
(5) just abandoning the whole outer space game anyhow and using a vast fiber optic ring on the surface for communication needs
there were probably other ideas that we came up with that I cannot remember, but this might get some comments/advice/derision.
but we all agreed, this problem will only get worse. and choosing different orbit altitudes only delays confronting the issue - but might be cheaper in the short term.
Re:hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
putting a impact shield around spacecraft - but the kind of impact speeds we are talking about probably makes this uneconomical as the shield would need to be massive.
The spacecraft would have trouble getting off the ground. That's even worse than uneconomical.
some kind of automated space cleaner that went around removing debris - but we had no idea how that could possibly work or be designed
The problem with this is - if that "cleaner" gets hit by debris, you've just added to the problem instead of reducing it.
pre-emptive removal of dead satalites (no, not shooting them down from earth - attaching small moters to send them into the atmosphere) - maybe steering them into a declining orbit as the last thing they do before swithing them off
That would have been a way to keep the problem in check, and it's being done with some satellites. But usually whoever puts satellites up there is too cheap to worry about disposal, since by the time it becomes a problem, they're most likely not around anymore and don't have to worry. Yay, just let the following generations clean up the crap, just like with everything else.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a thought. What if each spacecraft did not lug a big old shield up into orbit. What if we build an orbiting "overcoat" which had the necessary shielding and a space inside to accomodate the spacecraft.
And that overcoat is built by hauling material from the earth into space (with every transport flight being exposed to the very risk that now jeopardises the Hubble repair mission), putting it together there (with those unlucky astronauts who have to do this being exposed to the very risk that now jeopardises the Hubble repair mission), to then haul up the actual spacecraft (with that transport flight being exposed to the very risk that now jeopardises the Hubble repair mission).
You are not, by chance, an accountant, a corporate lawyer or a politician?
Some people choose to sleep with their pants on because they are reluctant to get out of bed in the morning and suffer cold legs.
Re:hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. If you made some kind of inflatable aerogel or foam wall and put it into orbit then it would be bashed by debris, which would slow the debris down somewhat and speed their re-entry. The foam would have booster rockets to keep it in orbit (and keep it out of the way of active satellites). When those boosters run out of fuel, or something causes them to fail, then the huge mass of foam would rapidly deorbit since it would have a high drag:mass ratio.
You could even put the foam in retrograde orbit if you really wanted to slow down debris, although this might make it harder to keep out of the way of active satellites.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Automated space cleaner... Perhaps a satellite that's solar powered and uses an electromagnet to repel pieces into the atmosphere? Although I suppose that would push it out of orbit... Maybe if there's enough air it could compress some and then use it as a jet to keep in orbit...
Planetes anyone? One of my favorites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
As opposed to the fuel it's going to take to have the various other functional satellites, shuttles, and the station dodge all the time?
One idea I saw was to use an aerogel, that really sparse foam, to catch things. Well, set them closer to the deorbital path.
The idea is that the foam is so light that the wrench or whatever that hits it doesn't break up, the foam doesn't break up, so there's no additional fragments. Meanwhile, if you've set the orbit up right, the foam slows the debris down a tad, speeding up the time it'll take to hit atmosphere.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hmm. (Score:4, Insightful)
1) - there is moderately workable impact shielding developed for satellites/space craft which consists of plates separated by gaps which spread out the kinetic energy of debris and has been proven effective against small impacts.
2) "space cleaning" could easily be done by deploying some large engineered dragnet style objects into the path of the debris. Obviously careful engineering would have to be used to assure collisions dont cause pieces to splash from the dragnet, but I think its quite doable.
3) we already track space debris down to very small levels. Currently nasa have maps of these pieces, down to the size of a screw if I remember correctly.
4) this is often done already, at least by government agencies. Private companies are another matter, but i've never heard of a private satellite going completely out of use.
5) we may as well just nuke it all now if we don't establish extra-terrestrial colonies. Colonization of space is the next logical step for a species which develops intelligence, and if we don't continue down that path we are a dead-end branch waiting to be pruned from the tree of life.
Parent
Re:hmm. (Score:4, Funny)
we already track space debris down to very small levels. Currently nasa have maps of these pieces, down to the size of a screw if I remember correctly.
Manually.
Yeah, Michael Bay films are not a good indicator of military capabilities either.
Parent
Last paragraph is rubbish (Score:5, Interesting)
Before the troll mods start up, please let me say I'm not objecting to exploring the Solar System in the slightest (in fact I think it's far more useful than the LHC). I am pointing out that your justification makes no scientific sense.
Parent
Re:Last paragraph is rubbish (Score:4, Insightful)
If we learn to live in our existing environment without making it unusable, and adapt to its changes, we've succeeded.
The current environment is transitory. And eventually over geological time, it will change in a way that cannot be adapted to. Plus, it's worth noting that most species (including humans) that exist now do so precisely because they have repeatedly expanded their range.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, fine, seek t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Plus, it's worth noting that most species (including humans) that exist now do so precisely because they have repeatedly expanded their range.
However, when our ancestors were capable of adapting to survive the KT event, they were tiny little shrew-like creatures. And when our ancestors were capable of adapting to survive the big extinction 250M years ago, they were shrimps. In order to survive a global extinction level event such as a reeeeally big asteroid impact, we have to get off of this rock. In the long run, we as a species have already failed to survive because we are too specialised to quickly adapt to the inevitable forthcoming sudden, m
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, I don't see any of the major extinction events of the geological past being something the human race couldn't survive.
I would generally tend to agree—however, it is very important to make the distinction between the human race and human civilization.
Dan Aris
Re:Last paragraph is rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)
Living in better balance with our environment and within our resources will not save us from a space rock or plague, off-world colonies will, and that's my point.
The main evolutionary trait of human beings is technology, and we are in a unique position to do this, which would set us on the road to the eventually disentanglement of our survival with that of one small planet.
If we fail to do this, then a global catastrophe will eventually happen which outstrips our technology and render us extinct.
Parent
Except that (Score:5, Interesting)
Research on Earth into dealing with external threats such as infalling asteroids or comets, dealing with diseases, dealing with our own inbuilt tendency to commit genocide, is far cheaper and more likely to pay dividends. Let's protect ourselves from disease and space rocks first, then we will be demonstrating our adaptability and survival skills. Running for the hills is monkey behavior, dealing with the predators may be what made us human in the first place. After all, we could realistically have a basic comet and asteroid shield by 2030.
I repeat: the idea of space colonies is currently not even science fiction, it's religion. Which was my original point.
Parent
Re:Last paragraph is rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)
An earth devastated by an asteroid is still a much more friendly place to live on then either Moon or Mars. Self sustaining off-world colonies won't happen for many many years to come.
Parent
Re:Last paragraph is rubbish (Score:4, Interesting)
If we fail to do this, then a global catastrophe will eventually happen which outstrips our technology and render us extinct.
So?
Honestly I could not care less. Not trying to troll, I really don't see an issue here. Humans have been around for some 200,000 years. Nice, but that is not exactly a long time span. Dinosaurs were around for more than 160 million years - 160,000,000, you notice the difference? And they still vanished. Humanity as a whole is quite insignificant, one amongst an uncountable mass of life forms in this planet, outlived (by time of existence, not concurrency) by most other species.
Why does everyone believe that we should be destined to walk this universe forever? Sorry, folks, hate to break it to you: The odds of that are damningly slim.
Big deal. By my estimation one of the following will have occurred well before our earth evolves to a point where living conditions will not allow us to adapt anymore:
I am really surprised, and somewhat concerned here. Supposedly /.'s target group should predominantly consist of engineers, scientists and generally geeks and nerds - people who rely on common sense and logic to make a living. (Not counting those working for Microsoft or Sun. Those have somehow mastered the forbidden art of producing systematically structured chaos.)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because we can ;-)
Spreading the seeds (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that we must colonise space to validate our existence is a religion, not science.
The way I look at it, we are the reproductive system for the entire biosphere. If we don't colonize other planets around different stars (let alone other rocks around this one) then all of Gaia* has failed, not just one little species.
* Please note I do not actually personify "Gaia", I just use it as a convenient and poetic label for the entire interconnected biosphere.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The way I look at it, we are the reproductive system for the entire biosphere.
You know, I think this is a very apt comparison.
Like reproducive organs, especially the testes mammals, we enact extensive changes on the whole planet; not all of which are beneficial. Yet, we're the one big hope for reproduction; so almost ANYTHING is worth it. If we do relocated, odds are we'll take a big chunk of the rest of the biosphere with us.
After that, it breaks down a bit; Gaia is neither male or female. ;)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If we learn to live in our existing environment without making it unusable, and adapt to its changes, we've succeeded.
We've only succeeded in continuing our dependence on something that the fossil record show isn't dependable. Add into it our own lack of dependability and we've got a major problem.
The idea that we must colonise space to validate our existence is a religion, not science.
Not to validate, just to extend and guarantee. We've spread from Africa and put ourselves into every place and biome on the earth, making it so that a catastr
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends on the time scale. Yes we WILL be a dead end unless we leave the Earth but we have a billion years (more or less) before we are forced to leave. So if we explore space now or wait 10,000 years it makes little difference. On the cosmic scale 10,000 years is "nothing".
We will eventually learn to live on Earth in a sustainable, stable way.
Re:hmm. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
The space debris problem (Score:4, Insightful)
(5) just abandoning the whole outer space game anyhow and using a vast fiber optic ring on the surface for communication needs
The real problem here is that we're wasting *vast* amounts of orbital space with competing projects that don't share information with each other. There's more than plenty of room for *one* satellite network. But every little war-happy industrialized nation and every communications company and mapping company, etc., needs their own personal network clogging the sky.
Until we, as a species, get a little better at this "cooperation" thing and stop with the in-fighting, the debris field is just going to get worse and make space exploration difficult. (That might even be a good thing for any neighbors we might have.)
Sadly, I don't foresee this happening any time soon.
Parent
LHC (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The best idea that I've heard about is the "laser broom". Basically big ground based lasers that shine up into space and hit orbiting junk with enough energy that they start to ablate. As the material ablates from the pieces, a small amount of thrust would be created, which would alter the pieces' orbits and eventually cause them to reenter the atmosphere and burn up.
It doesn't require putting any new material up into orbit, so you're not potentially creating even more matter up there to deal with. I think
Same orbit? (Score:2)
No, it's not the end (Score:2, Informative)
Firstly, Hubble is working fine. Secondly, FTA "NASA spokeswoman, Beth Dickey, would not specifically comment on whether or not the collision had created elevated risk for the Hubble repair mission.
"What we've told everyone is that there is an elevated risk to virtually any satellite in low-earth orbit," Dickey said. "As far as NASA's assets are concerned, that risk is considered to be very small. I have not seen or heard anything that would lead me to think differently."
Re:No, it's not the end (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, Hubble is working fine.
Eh, no. Its practically dead. Thats why every delay to this service mission is so critical - if another couple of gyros go, it won't even be able to orient itself well enough to allow the astronauts to get up close. As it is, most of its main instruments are currently out of action.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hubble was originally intended to operate with 3 functional gyros at all times, but since 2005 has been operating on 2-gyro mode, to extend its useful lifetime in the face of continuing gyro failure. This limits the area of the sky it can view, and makes precise measurements more difficult. Only 3 of its 6 gyros remain functional, and 2 of these are in continual us
Re:No, it's not the end (Score:4, Interesting)
In August 2004, O'Keefe requested the Goddard Space Flight Center to prepare a detailed proposal for a robotic service mission. These plans were later canceled, the robotic mission being described as "not feasible [washingtonpost.com]".
Just goes to show you cannot believe everything you read.
In reality, the robotic system was in manufacturing when it was 'canceled'. Goddard continued to fund a scaled back Hubble repair, but only a demo using a mockup robot and the hardware in Goddards full scale Hubble simulation labs. The demos finished as planned and were a complete success. Many of the operations were shown to perform better with robotics than with astronauts (like sliding out the instrument trays).
The planned body of the hubble repair robot is now the SPDM robot on the international space station. That robot already existed and hadn't yet flown to the space station due to the grounding of the shuttles at the time. Since the robot existed, the schedule, capabilities and cost were all feasible.
The robotics mission was canceled because Griffin didn't like the head of MDA (the robotics company contracted to build the robot portion of hte mission) as they had a rivalry when they both worked at Orbital. The whole 'unfeasible' story is a complete fabrication.
Parent
Kessler Syndrome (Score:5, Informative)
It's been mentioned before, but this could be the beginning of kessler syndrome [wikipedia.org], and worldwide space agencies might need to deploy junk removal solutions.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Dunno if you count it as "recent," but (/me shouts:) PLANETES.
Hypocracy (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll send tens of thousands of young men (and women) overseas to be shot at and kill others, but not risk seven lives to fucking further humanity and human knowledge?
I don't get it.
Re:Hypocracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
No hypocrisy at all (Score:5, Insightful)
1. NASA has a limited number of astronauts.
2. NASA has a limited number of shuttles.
3. The public has very little stomach for "yet another NASA accident"
4. There are far too many in Congress who see the NASA manned program as a waste of money (in other words that money could buy pools and libraries named after Congressmen!)
5. Comparing any item to Iraq expenditures does not bolster your argument, if anything a parrot would suffice.
Why not compare it to the fact we are willing to lose nearly FORTY THOUSAND people to vehicle deaths. The number of soldiers we lose in Iraq while deplorable by any count is minuscule compared to any other war of that scale let alone the deaths at home from stuff that should not happen in the first place.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I have a little feeling that the army is spending more on hardware than NASA.
Space shuttle, 1.7B$ each, 5 pcs built = 8.5B$
B2 bomber, 737M$ each, 20 pcs built = 14.7B$
And at costs like that for hardware, training of astronauts / soldiers is fairly neglible.
Soak up debris? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I proposed something like this, but using something like snowflakes or small particles of dry ice instead of the foil, but it seems collisions at the speeds involved behave quite oddly and even "soft" targets can shatter pieces of debris into multiple smaller pieces mostly in pretty much the same orbit as the originals.
I wonder if some kind of magnetic drag could be devised? a big hoop of superconducting wire with a current in it that would slow down conducting debris that passed through it, but gently, so
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's what I thought, but apparently what happens is that the fragment shatters, and most of the pieces carry on at almost the same velocity, while just a few are significantly slowed. Essentially your impactor drills a hole through the fragment almost instantly, slowing down only the material actually excavated from the hole. Later, the shock waves propagate sideways through the fragment, shattering it.
Result, more orbiting fragments (albeit smaller ones).
Re:Soak up debris? (Score:4, Funny)
The foil strips will make the sky even more pretty and sparkly, just like pixie dust! *taps wand*
Parent
Re:Soak up debris? (Score:5, Interesting)
The object you fire from the ground to cause a collision will be shoved sideways a short distance. It can't go into orbit.
Having thought about it for a bit I think the best thing to send up in the sounding rocket is a bottle of liquid nitrogen. It will form an expanding cloud at orbital altitude. Debris which fly through the cloud will lose some speed and their orbits will decay. Sounding rocket firings could be timed to minimise impact on operational spacecraft.
Parent
A possible shield (Score:3, Interesting)
Since the trajectories of the debris will lie in a relatively narrow plane, it should be possible to device a barrier made of a plastic bag, shaped like a tube (open at both ends perpendicular to the plane of flying debris), and when inflated would make a tube like structure 6 inches thick and just slightly longer than the space shuttle and the Hubble combined. Fill the plastic cylinder full of water. The water freezes harder than steel. You now have an excellent barrier from the debris cloud while you work on Hubble. Now lift Hubble up a few thousand miles to get it out of harms way.
After, you can move water to the ISS for safe keeping. I'm guessing they can put an extra couple thousand gallons to use for anything from experimentation and raising space crops to providing water for the first space hotel. Not to mention if that water has minerals in it, it can be used for everything from dietary supplementation to an emergency shield against high energy solar emissions.
Do you know how that much water weighs? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want something to cover the length (122.17 ft) and wingspan (78.06 ft) of the shuttle (I'm assuming the tube like device will have a squarish face to it) enough water to fill a 6 inch sheet would be 4768.2951 cubic feet of water! A gallon is .133680555 cubic feet, so that's 35,669.3259 gallons! A gallon of water is 8.33 pounds! That results in 297125.484 lbs. You want to add nearly 150 tons to the shuttle lift off? The shuttle only weighs 120 already! Sure, I'm not including for the fact that w
Why ? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Real issue - Nasa does not want to fix Hubble (Score:5, Informative)
The Hubble is also Obsolete due to new technologies like Adaptive optics that allow ground based telescopes to achieve the same clarity as the Hubble.
You can pull as many adaptive whatchamacallits out of the signal processing toolbox, but that doesn't change the simple fact that certain wavelengths will be absorbed by the atmosphere before they even get to your ground-based telescopes.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Certainly true, which is part of the reason newer space scopes focus on things like X ray or IR observation, rather than visible wavelengths. But, even at visible wavelengths, a space telescope can do some things a ground scope can't, like take a continuous week long expos
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Just as a data point, it cost something like a billion (1990) dollars to put Hubble into orbit, and over the life of the program, I think they're talking something like 6 billion total (including salaries for the folks who operate it and every other conceivable expense).
Hubble's primary mirror is about 2.4 meters. There's currently a proposed project to build a thirty-meter terrestrial telescope, either in Hawaii or Chile, for about $1 billion.
Launch costs are a b*tch, yes.