Clock Ticking for Hubble 406
DoraLives writes "Ok then, what are we going to do with Hubble? Eventually, it MUST come down. The New York Times has a piece that addresses this less than pleasant (at least for the astronomical community) subject. Additionally "The decision about what happens then has been complicated by the breakup of the Columbia." Read all about it."
Complicated by Columbia? (Score:4, Interesting)
why down? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:why down? (Score:4, Informative)
(1) Space Shuttles cannot push it up to much higher earth orbit.
(2) hence you will require a propulsion system to be attached to the HST and then launch into a new, higher orbit.
(3) however, the HST is not designed to take such ad-hoc propulsion system.
(4) and neither NASA has such convenient propulsion system sitting around (Air Force does,
IIRC).
(5) in any case, you have to do R&D to find a way to attach such system and safely launch the HST into a new orbit (consider multitude of risks; the major one that I see is supersonic vibration generated by the rocket).
(6) knowing this is NASA, it'd take a decade to get that sort of things built and launched. Waste of the limited resource. They'd rather build a new telescope (or try to build) with that resource.
In short, I guess it CAN be done. But not without additional resource and public support.
-b
So use low accel thrusters (Score:5, Insightful)
-AD
Re:So use low accel thrusters (Score:4, Insightful)
HST on the other hand is a *very* large object weighing 12 tons. Your solution is not practical because thrusters and fuel systems the size of DS1's would barely nudge the HST. (Remember force=mass*accelleration and acceleration=thrust/mass.) Even producing
No propulsion and fuel system currently available or in development can boost the Hubble. Not that matters because the Hubble has no attachment points for such thrusters anyhow.
Re:why down? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, considering that Hubble has [spaceref.com] been boosted to higher orbits in the past (several times!), I suppose the term "idiot" is more eloquent than you realize.
Re:why down? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Complicated by Columbia? (Score:5, Informative)
A successor to Hubble is already in the works. See this [yahoo.com] article on Yahoo! news.
From the article:
But its days (and nights) have always been numbered. NASA has long planned to end Hubble's spectacular run and bring it down in 2010 to make way in the budget for the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to be launched in 2011.
SiO2
Re:Complicated by Columbia? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Complicated by Columbia? (Score:5, Informative)
The lagrange point in question is Lagrange Point 2 (L2) of the Earth-Sun system. A notable characteristic of L2 is that it is always on the night side of Earth orbit (ie. the Earth is always in between L2 and the Sun). Clearly, this is advantageous for a telescope like the James Webb.
As a side note, L1 is opposite to L2 and is therefore, always on the day side. As might be expected, L1 is currently occupied by The Solar and Helioscopic Observatory, or SOHO [nasa.gov]
Further, the reason why satellites at either of these points are (currently) unservicable is simply a consequence of distance; approx. 100th of 1 AU, or, 4 times the distance of Earth to Moon.
Re:Complicated by Columbia? (Score:4, Informative)
The four orbiters are not identical, they've been upgraded and changed as time went on. It was years after the Hubble was launched that they upgraded the airlocks in the other orbiters, purposely keeping the Columbia with the old design so it could be used on Hubble service missions.
Re:Complicated by Columbia? (Score:5, Informative)
Discovery was also the shuttle that did the 1999 maintenance (STS-103). Endeavor did the 1993 maintenance (STS-61), and finally Columbia did the 2002 maintenance (STS-109).
The maintenance can be preformed by any of the shuttles as long as they have the Payload Deployment and Retrieval System (the robotic arm).
The retrieval (as it appears that they may want to do) is another story, but I believe that they can remove the upgraded airlock.
Re:Complicated by Columbia? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Complicated by Columbia? (Score:5, Informative)
Taco Bell (Score:5, Funny)
Wooo Hoooo!
Re:Taco Bell (Score:4, Informative)
In case someone was wondering about the reference.
Re:Taco Bell (for those too lazy to copy & pas (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Taco Bell (Score:2)
Link: http://msn.espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs2002/s/2002/10
Re:Taco Bell (Score:2)
Googlized link (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Googlized link (Score:2, Funny)
Are you aware that this affiliate link to NY times
features the G.N.A.A?
I would like to see the surprise of NY times sysadmins when they check their affiliate statistics.
Trolling now makes it into hyperlinks. I hereby dub this new phenomenon "Hypertrolling".
Cheez.
Re:Googlized link (Score:2)
We should lease it out to some other country... (Score:4, Interesting)
to foot the bill on boosting it
into a sustainable orbit and paying
for the initial maintenance after
2010. I'm sure that an India or
Taiwan would be willing to take it on
for less than $500 million.
Re:We should lease it out to some other country... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We should lease it out to some other country... (Score:4, Funny)
You don't even need to deliver it - it's fine where it is.
Can't use the ISS (Score:3, Insightful)
Hubble doesn't need constant maintenance, so don't park it near the ISS. Humans will have cheap transport to orbit once the X-prize contest is over.
-AD
Link to the story that does not require registr... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Link to the story that does not require registr (Score:2, Insightful)
This neither qualifies as free-as-in-beer nor free-as-in-speech, but rather free-because-I-won't-let-anyone-tell-me-what-to-d
Re:Link to the story that does not require registr (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Link to the story that does not require registr (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Link to the story that does not require registr (Score:2, Interesting)
V'ger (Score:2)
Re:V'ger (Score:4, Funny)
And they'll shoot more "extra" footage that is really really really dull.
Must come down? (Score:2)
Implications?
Re:Must come down? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Must come down? (Score:2, Informative)
So Hubble's self-propulsion system is supposed to go bad in 8 years so they bring it down in 7.
Re:Must come down? (Score:5, Informative)
Hubble is in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). It's got an orbital velocity of around 4KM/Sec.
To raise the orbit far enough to get to the Moon, takes a total deltaV of 7KM/S (or another 3KM/S on it's current speed).
The Earth orbits the sun at around 30KM/S, give or take. So to send something - anything - into the sun requires a deltaV of the same amount: you've got to cancel out the existing 30KM/Sec velocity, otherwise you're just going to send the object into a different orbit around the sun
The fastest any object has left the earth is around 8KM/S for the interplanetary probes (Pioneer, Voyager, Cassini, Galileo etc). That's as fast as the human race has ever gotten anything going[*]. Without a major advance in rocket technology (i.e. away from chemical rockets), that's about as fast as we're going to get anything going, too.
As a reference, the on-orbit manoever capability of the Shuttle, is a total of about 100M/S
Oh, and Hubble has much MUCH less manoever capability than this
This is why things are de-orbited, rather than "sent towards the sun" or further out. De-orbiting from LEO requires only a little "kiss" of deceleration before the orbit intersects the atmosphere, from where friction does the rest. The only exceptions are Satellites in higher orbits (e.g. GPS in the 12-hr / 12,000KM orbits, or Geostationary sats) which tend to be "retired" in slightly higher orbits because these are thought to be more stable over longer (geological) time periods than lower ones, and there's not enough residual manoever capability to lower the orbit enough to graze the atmosphere
[*] = However, we've learnt the trick of gravitational assists which lets Mother Nature (or Newton, or Einstein depending on your religious orientation :-) speed up our probes considerably at the expense of the orbital energy of the planet we're assisting from.
Re:Must come down? (Score:2)
and I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy.
Pickery of nits. (Score:4, Interesting)
Off by a factor of two, give or take. 8 km/sec for a typical LEO velocity would be better.
The Earth orbits the sun at around 30KM/S, give or take.
This one's right where it ought to be.
The fastest any object has left the earth is around 8KM/S for the interplanetary probes
8 miles per second it is. Chalk it up to a conversion error.
Otherwise your post is on the money. Yeah yeah, I know I know, it's a damnable bit of persnickityness, but no sense in giving folks bad numbers when good ones are just as cheap, eh?
The Hubble is broken (Score:2)
"Mike broke the Hubble! Mike broke the Hubble!" [tripod.com]
One has to wonder (Score:3, Interesting)
Not that 're-deployment' would be easy, mind you, but unless there's some kind of fuel issue, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible (bearing in mind I'm far from an expert on the subject).
On one hand, it would develop skills for astronauts that would be needed on the Space Stations, on the other, it's not cheap and doesn't provide advancement in deployed equipment.
Then again, maybe in 50 years, retrofitting sattelites for technology upgrades by Space Station personnel might become a regular thing.
"Gotta do an EVA to install an upgrade on the Hubble, back in about half an hour. Want me to pick up anything while I'm out?"
No (Score:4, Informative)
Development cost of Hubble: $2 billion
Cost of one space shuttle launch: $600 million
So you can get in excess of three launches for the same cost of the Hubble.
Re:No (Score:2)
Booster Rockets, Maintenance craft... (Score:2, Interesting)
In terms of maintenance of the Hubble, why don't they consider a structure that allows them to completely envelop and grapple to the telescope, so that they can work without nearly as serious a risk of losing parts while it's disassembled? Whatever they would employ wouldn
Hubble? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hubble? (Score:4, Insightful)
We spent so much time, money and effort fixing it, why not spend some more and upgrade it for another decade of use?
Same reason many people will junk an old car which they've spent lots of time, money, and effort fixing. It's nearly the same cost to just buy a new one as to fix the old one, and the new one comes with more features.
Re:Hubble? (Score:2)
This is a bad economic arguement. If the costs of an extra 10 years of service outweigh the benefits, then it's not worth it.... regardless of how much money has been pumped into the project up until now.
Why not upgrade? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sometimes it's better to just to get a new machine.
It *will* be sad when Hubbble burns up. (And don't think that it's ever going to come down nicely. That opportunity was lost with Columbia as others have pointed out.)
we're screwed (Score:5, Funny)
Theres a gap there in time where we wont have a telescope up there. this will be the end of the world, as we wont be able to see the asteroid comming at earth in time to send our best deep crust drillers to drop a nuke in it and split it up!
WHy do we have to "visit" it? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the deal? Anyone know? Seems like if it was mostly self-maintaining, it should cose a whole lot to just keep it up there.
Re:WHy do we have to "visit" it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hubble was designed to be serviced, on-orbit, by the Shuttle. This is '70s NASA remember which was juust getting the hang of perpetually self-justifying programs. Why do we need a Shuttle? To service Hubble, of course! Ahh, but why do we need Hubble? To give the Shuttle something to do!
Rather less cynically, note that the design life[*] of most unattended satellites is 5 years. After that period of time, enough is going to have started going wrong (fading power from radiation and micro-meteorite damaged solar cells is the classic example) that it's just not worth adding extra redundancy into the design up front to cover it (remember that redundancy = mass consumed that can't be used for the primary purpose of the sat.). Hubble has been up nearly 15 years now, and still has 5 years of useful life in it. That's because all of the things that traditionally go wrong - see the solar cells - have been replaced at least once. Also note that not only was the critical design-flaw in the mirror corrected on-orbit by the first Shuttle service mission (turning what would have been a wasted sat. requiring complete replacement and relaunch into a fully-functioning success), but later service missions have replaced components with improved versions, increasing the capabilities of Hubble enormously. It's like there's been 3 Space Telescopes up there, for the cost of... well, let's not go there. NASA's more than capable of making it look like it's cost less than 3 complete new telescopes, I'm sure...
[*] = as opposed to the actual life which can be much longer, but can't be predicted in advance
Hubble's orbit will decay if not visited (Score:5, Informative)
It's actually worse than that. Orbits at altitudes reachable by the Shuttle decay rapidly, because the atmosphere's a little too thick up there - satellites like the Hubble, with big solar arrays, are particularly vulnerable.
The most important thing that happens on Hubble servicing missions has nothing to do with fixing hardware. The Shuttle catches the Hubble, then fires its maneuvering engines and carries the Hubble up to a higher orbit.
I know this because my company did some computer modeling for NASA to help them predict how often these reboosts would be needed. The amount of atmospheric drag varies with sunspot activity - increased solar output makes the atmosphere "puff up" and makes orbits decay faster.
And guess what? The Space Station is in an orbit reachable by the Shuttle, and also has big solar panels, so it needs reboosting by the Shuttle too.
Re:WHy do we have to "visit" it? (Score:3, Interesting)
This may have been true of WFPC-2 (the camera installed during the first servicing mission that went along with the corrective optics package that worked around the defective
Re:Why do we have to "visit" it? (Score:2, Informative)
If you think that's bad, COBE had to be cooled by liquid helium.
You can read more about the instrumentation here [nasda.go.jp].
More speculatively, I imagine occasional physical adjustment have to be made from time to time too, like replacing lubricants, servicing gyros, replacing ba
*sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
Just pull the troops out two days earlier and there you have it... enough cash to service the Hubble twice!
My opinion is that the HST should be retrofitted with a small nuclear power source (like those on the Voyager series) and send out of the solar system. But unlike previous missions were the probes were sent past the outer planets, we should send HST perpendicular to the Earth's orbit, so we can look back "down" on ourselves and surrounding stars/planets.
I can't recall if the solar system plane is about parallel to the galactic plane, but if so this would also give us a tremendous perspective on the galaxy that we haven'y had before. Yea, yea it would take a decade or two to get to a distance that would mean anything astronomically, but it has to happen some time, why not now.
Re:*sigh* (Score:5, Informative)
A few comments on your proposal:
Re:*sigh* (Score:3, Interesting)
As for actually sending Hubble out into deep space I doubt it would work very well..... b
Re:*sigh* (Score:2)
Re: too late (Score:3, Interesting)
FYI: US not spending 1.2B per day in Iraq. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:FYI: US not spending 1.2B per day in Iraq. (Score:3, Informative)
While it is ends up that glrotate's information seems to be more correct, I really dislike it when people just assert something as true, while providing no evidence. In the end it just ends up being a 'No
Grind your own telescope mirror (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been an avid avid amateur telescope maker [geometricvisions.com] since I was twelve years old. It led to me studying astronomy for a time at Caltech [caltech.edu]. While I'm a programmer now, it's still a very enjoyable and intellectually stimulating hobby.
While a basic newtonian is a straightforward instrument that can be built by anyone who's good with their hands, telescope making can get as complicated as you want if you're really looking for a challenge. Optical design is still a wide open area of research in mathematics, software engineering, and physics, and some of the more interesting designs take quite a bit of skill to fabricate. That means anyone can make a satisfying telescope, but the hobby will yield a lifetime of interest because there's always new things to learn.
You can construct your own telescope with a primary mirror of 8 inches in diameter for less than $200. It will take quite a bit of work, but it is enjoyable and meditative work. Grinding mirrors is one of the things I do to relax and relieve the strain of coding all day.
A good place to start looking for information is the ATM FAQ [atmsite.org]. The procedures for grinding, polishing and figuring are pretty involved - you should buy one of the books from astronomy publisher Willman-Bell [willbell.com].
There are a number of people and business who sell inexpensive mirror grinding kits. They will come with a glass mirror blank and an assortment of different sizes of abrasive grits. I would recommend asking on the ATM mailing list (that you can find in the FAQ) when you're ready to order your first kit.
The 8" plate glass kit I bought from Dan Cassaro for my current project set me back $64. When I get done working on the mirror, it will cost me about $35 to have a vacuum coating laboratory aluminize it. Good quality eyepieces cost about $50 - just one will do to start with but it helps to have more.
While fancy equatorial mountings can be expensive to make, it's possible to make a quite servicable altazimuth mount out of common materials like plywood and a few hand tools.
I Grnd My Own Mirror And Made An Amzing Discovery. (Score:3, Funny)
I ground my own mirror and made an amazing discovery.
The Moon is actually football-shaped, and slightly blurred at the ends!
Those fools in the mainstream science community just refuse to believe me though.
Obligatory Futurama... (Score:2, Funny)
"It appears to be the mothership."
"Then what did we just blow up?"
"The Hubble Telescope."
What happens when it comes down... (Score:2)
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaaaaahaw.
I crack myself up.
That sucks (Score:5, Interesting)
It should definitely be retrieved and become a piece in the Air & Space Museum's collection.
That's expensive sentimental claptrap (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sure that I still have my first computer somewhere in the loft but that didn't cost me $600 M to keep.
Wouldn't be much better and more respectfull to the exsisting peice of metal to spend the money you would use preserving it to build a bigger better teliscope. (what happened to the idea of building arrays of teliscopes in orbit?)
A lot of the things in the air and space museam are replicas anyway
Re:That sucks (Score:2)
Entertainment value. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know exactly how much of my tax money goes toward funding Hubble, but even apart from the science I get a pretty good entertainment value from the the pictures it has produced, such as the wonderful picture of NGC 7742 [nasa.gov] on the APOD page for today.
Re:Entertainment value. (Score:3, Funny)
Why Hubble needs servicing (Score:5, Informative)
It also has batteries and solar cells that provide power, and these wear out and have to be replaced.
Hubble needs to point itself at things, and it does so using heavy spinning rotors, which are
turned one way, and by Newton's Law, Hubble
turns the other way. There are 5 of these
"Control Moment Gyros", or CMGs. Being mechanical devices, they wear out and break over time.
You need 3 out of 5 to be working to point Hubble, and if they have an MTBF of 12.5 years (which is pretty good for a mechanical device), then you need to visit every 5 years and replace 2 to keep Hubble running.
Hubble has no propulsion and you don't want any until you are ready to kill it. Fluids sloshing in tanks will mess up your pointing of the telescope, and any exhaust from a rocket will contaminate the optical surfaces. When the Shuttle visits, the thrusters are 50-75 feet away, which is much less of a problem than if your booster pack is on the back end of the telescope only 2 feet from the science instruments.
And yes, IAARS, in fact the first group I worked at at Boeing back in 1981 supplied the graphite/epoxy frame that holds Hubble's mirrors in place.
Daniel
Hubble has been brilliant (Score:2)
Then there's the question of whether someone else could run it. This could either be a publ
US Army (Score:5, Funny)
NASA Funding (Score:4, Funny)
Re:NASA Funding (Score:2)
I mean, think of the POSSIBILITES. When people ask me why we should go to space I junk all the regular arguments and just say these two magic words "ZeroG Sex." Get's em every time.
The Perfect Solution to Funding Hubble (Score:3, Funny)
STScI leading the charge (Score:2, Interesting)
no.. (Score:2)
Re:no.. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, there is. [worldpaper.com] It's a hazard to satellites and orbiting spacecraft. A few years back, one of the shuttles had a small crater made in its windshield when it was hit by an orbiting *paint chip*.
There's just so much space junk and it's moving so fast, that it's tough if not impossible to safely intercept and capture. NORAD actually tracks and catalogs every piece of it large enough to get a radar return. When a shuttle is up, they constantly monitor its path for errant debris so it can maneuver if necessary. I believe they do the same for the ISS.
~Philly
ISS? (Score:2)
Or is the relatively low orbit of the ISS a problem? I know the Hubble is a lot higher than the ISS.
No talk about the Webb telescope? (Score:2)
The problem is whether the Webb is really going to happ
Illustrates Broken U.S. Space Policy (Score:3, Insightful)
In point of fact, however, this illustrates the fundamental unsoundness of U.S. space policy since the premature close of the Apollo project during the Nixon administraton. The shuttle was justified as a way to get to the space statoin amd the space station was justified as a place for the shuttle to go.
The failure of every administration since Nixon's to provide leadership and a coherent space policy is the reason we are in this mess. The White House should be making space policy and assigning goals to NASA. No one has one that since Kennedy, and it shows.
Use the steering jets, save it at LaGrange (Score:3, Interesting)
The HST does have attitude control jets. Generally those are used just to rotate the HST in various axes. They could be reprogrammed to thrust in pairs on the same side of the system, and thus accelerate rather than rotate it. This would slightly alter the orbit each time. Done at the proper points in the orbit it could gradually 'leapfrog' into a higher orbit with minimal effect on the system or usage.
This would take much more thruster fuel than it presently carries, so on the next Shuttle visit, they could bring a larger fuel tank and adapters to mount it to the HST. (They might even be able to develop a remote refueling port that could be used by a robotic tender, but that's more complicated.) This would require some research on how to do so without unduly disturbing the center of mass and reprogramming to deal with the different moment of inertia, but it seems not much more complicated than things they've done before like replacing the mirror, or doing the upgrade a couple of years ago. I think (but I'm not an astronomer) that in between thrust events most observations could continue with updated ephemera.
Another way would be to add a small ion thruster and reaction 'fuel' to the end of the HST and use a small continuous thrust to move it to higher orbit - perhaps even to one of the LaGrange points (L5?). This method would make many types of observations difficult during the entire thrust period of perhaps a year. I speculate that the solar panels would provide enough electrical power to drive the ion thruster(s).
Either of these methods would be stressing the HST at the same order of magnitude as the existing stabilization systems, and it would seem to me that engineering either of these mods is doable in the time frame for the next Shuttle visit, thereby avoiding a separate, expensive visit.
While the Web telescope is anticipated to be much better, there are good reasons to have HST still available. The fact that it is such a piece of science history, I would dearly like to see it moved to a place where it is safe from total destruction, like one of the LaGrange points. It might even become a popular sightseeing "flyby" for tourists on the way to the moon. There it could rest and continue to be used until a means of, for example, safely bringing it down to a museum on the moon could be developed in 50 years or so. Letting it burn up in the atmosphere would be too bad.
Re:Use the steering jets, save it at LaGrange (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not certain on the fesability of this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not just weld it (not literally) to the Space Station? I mean... it could be maintained, and, still used. We've got some damned interesting information from that thing in the past, IIRC. Upgrades and fixes would be a lot freaking easier if we didn't have to yank it out of orbit every time. I mean, if it's attached to the station, we know right where it is. Parts could be delivered via shuttle to the space station, so repairs could be done through airlocks there. Wouldn't add TOO much mass to the equation - I mean, the Hubble is no bigger than any of the other modules (it fit in the shuttle...). Also, the downlink and power requirements are easily met.
So, go ahead, debunk my idea? I know Slashdot is chock-full of certified NASA Engineers.
Re:Thoughts of why private is better. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thoughts of why private is better. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Thoughts of why private is better. (Score:4, Insightful)
Drastic and sorry failures? Do you have any evidence to back your claims that all of these programs are failures?
Let us imagine for a moment what things would be like without public education.
For one, a lot of children would receive *no* education. Either because their parents could not afford it, or because their parents did not believe that education is a necessary component of a democratic society.
Secondly, many high school graduates (of private high schools) would not be able to attend college. Even public college tuition is expensive these days.
Another interesting thing about publicly funded research is that it benefits everyone. The goal of publicly funded programs is to benefit our society as a whole. The goal of privately funded programs is to make money for the company. If something isn't ultimately profitable, it won't get funded, even if it is beneficial in other ways.
Re:Thoughts of why private is better. (Score:2)
Actually, there is lots of evidence. First look at census data and rate how much teachers are getting paid vs how high test scores are - you will see almost an opposite coorlation. Also, I don't know about your state, but here in CA the average per student cost of a public education is at least 7000, while if you price the private schools in the area- it's not only less expensive, but has a much larger success rate. Also, what you say simply didn't happen in countries like Hong Kong - which didn't have
Coorlation? (Score:3, Funny)
Coorlation?
Is that, like, the relationship between how much beer I've drank and um, you know, like how bad my english on Slashdot becomes?
Re:Thoughts of why private is better. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think there mig
Re: Thoughts of why private is better. (Score:2)
> I'm also curious how you think that privatizing education would change anything ... (except reduce the "leveling" of education). Private schools look better overall because they can just decide not to take or drop problem students, unlike public schools.
This is what bothers me about the push to privatize education, even more than the obvious exploit of using tax money to fund private schools to brainwash kids with creationism and other such nonsense.
The need for profit means that privatized schools
Re: Thoughts of why private is better. (Score:2)
That is simply not true, especially for the vast majority of private schools which are catholic schools. Many are chartered for the sole purpose of public good, are chariatable, and very biology/evolution theory orientated. Yeah, if some student's a bastard they're going to get kicked out, but that's the way it should be.
Re:Thoughts of why private is better. (Score:5, Funny)
The moon race isn't the only example, SSI, public education, medicade/medicare are all drastic and sorry failures.
Yeah, not like the shining examples of Amtrak, Worldcom, and Enron.
Re: Thoughts of why private is better. (Score:5, Insightful)
> I was just thinking, what happened to the space program is a classic example of why it's better for things to be privatized. I mean, one of the worst possible things that can happen to a government program is
I find myself wondering whether you've every had a job. Surely even the most casual observation reveals that private enterprise doesn't have all the magical properties commonly attributed to it. Failed or discontinued projects in the private sector are a dime a dozen, as are pet projects that get funded on the basis of which manager is the best suck-up rather than on the basis of which best satisfies some other requirement (even if that requirement has no higher social goals than raking more gold into corporate coffers). Waste and "dumbsizing" of good projects seem to be the rule in the private sector as much as in the public sector; you're just less likely to see them in the news or hear them harped on for political exploitation by radio talkjox.
Re: Thoughts of why private is better. (Score:2)
I've had more then my fair share of jobs at very big companies, I've seen alot of crap, alot of money outright wasted, and I hated it. But, more or less, at least they don't have the eternal power to coerce money from the people that support them. At least people have the option of avoiding doing business with them, which is much easier than avoiding doing business with the IRS.
Re:Rendezvous with the Space Station? (Score:2)
Re:Here is how to bring it down... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:MARS (Score:2)
Re:Build a cheaper replacement. (Score:3, Informative)
Hubble costs a lot more because it is *not* a modified Keyhole, but has far more precise optics, far more precise pointing and control systems, and over four times as much instrumentation.
And those launches cost about the same if not *more* than the marginal cost of a single Shuttle launch. (The $600m cost to la