Experts Recommend Keeping Hubble Operational 217
foolishtook writes "
The New York Times is reporting that a panel of experts is recommending NASA to keep the Hubble Space Telescope operating past 2010 when its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, is currently slated for launch. NASA had stated that it wanted to bring the Hubble down in 2006 to make room in its budget for the Webb, but astronomers said that it still has a viable future and the launch date for the Webb is likely to be delayed."
More info (Score:5, Informative)
NASA said that it was worried about sending more maned missions up to the hubble since it is in a different orbit than the space station and if the mission is botched the shuttle would not be able to reach the station in an emergency.
Re:More info (Score:5, Interesting)
With all due respect to the families, I am not so sure they know an emergency when they see it, literally.
I would feel better if we did everything we could to keep it in space until a replacement is operational, and then after that as long as it is cost effective. Its kinda what my dad told me about my first car: "Put as little money in it as you can, and drive it until it blows up."
Re:More info (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:More info (Score:2, Interesting)
Sometimes the shuttle bay is filled with things when it comes down, but the hubble is quite a peice of metal. How does it compare to other things it has landed with.
Ohyeah, IANARS (rocket scientist).
Re:More info (Score:3, Informative)
Considering that Hubble was launched by the Shuttle [nasa.gov]... It's an iron clad rule of shuttle ops that it can land with what it launched with. (Otherwise it would not be able to abort [shuttlepresskit.com] or make an emergency de-orbit.) Some of the payloads that are intended to left in space
two more maned space missions (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More info (Score:2, Interesting)
Hubble is 375 miles up; ISS is 240-ish. Wouldn't getting from Hubble to ISS just be a controlled reduction in orbital speed to dropped the altitude? Or, reading a bit between the lines, is the real issue that the shuttles don't have any purely manual thrusters that can be
Re:More info (Score:4, Informative)
No.
Hubble and ISS have very different orbital inclinations (28.5 degrees for Hubble, 51.6 for ISS). Changing orbital inclination to this degree requires more fuel than an orbiting shuttle can carry. This has been discussed repeatedly on post-Columbia disaster articles.
Re:More info (Score:2)
they're going to have to do more than that. way you described it, it would be bouncing back into the atmosphere on the end of a rocket pack.
after all, there are cheaper ways to turn it into pretty lights in the sky...
Re:More info (Score:3, Interesting)
I almost certainly don't know what I'm talking about, but why couldn't NASA pay the Soviets to fire up a couple engineers and the necessary gear to maintain Hubble?
Then the only orbital change would be the one that brings the Soviet vehicle back to Earth.
The Webb scope is NOT a replacement for Hubble (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a quote from "Sky and Telescope":
"Three issues lie at the heart of the debate.
First, Hubble has unique capabilities for ultraviolet and visible-light astronomy that will not be replaced by any other planned mission for 10 to 20 years (Webb is designed mainly for infrared imaging and spectroscopy).
Second, Webb hasn't yet moved much beyond the drawing board and may not be ready for launch until the middle of the next decade, leaving astronomers with no space telescope at all for several years if Hubble shuts down by 2010.
And third, Hubble is more than just a telescope. "HST is widely recognized as an extraordinary scientific, educational, and inspirational national asset," wrote Garth Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Michael Shull (University of Colorado). In other words, it is an icon."
Read more at:
http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1017_1.
Dont wanna register? Here ya go (Score:2, Informative)
But the committee said its recommendation should be carried out only if the science to be performed in those additional years was able to be
Paralax (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Paralax (Score:5, Interesting)
Eight years from now, an Ariane 5 is expected to boost the 5,400-kg. (11,880-lb.) observatory toward the second Lagrangian point (L2), 1.5 million km. (930,000 mi.) beyond Earth's orbit
That's a pretty good distance from the Hubble.
Re:Paralax (Score:3, Interesting)
We've long known about the Lagrangian points; they're natural pockets of orbital stability between two massive bodies, and there are at least five identified positions relative to the two bodies. There's even a popular filk to the tune of 'Home on the Range' about living in a Lagrangian satellite village; google for it if you're bored.
But this is the first mention I've seen of anyone actually parking anything there.
Re:Paralax (Score:3, Informative)
All the stories about colonization of the lagrange points are the Earth-Moon points. I don't know if there have been any missions to these points, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been any.
This filk? (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus
Where the three-body problem is solved,
Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K,
And the cold virus never evolved.
(chorus)
We eat algea pie, our vacuum is high,
Our ball bearings are perfectly round.
Our horizon is curved, our warheads are MIRVed,
And a kilogram weighs half a pound.
(chorus)
If we run out of space for our burgeoning race
No more Lebensraum left for the Mensch
When we're ready to start, we can take Mars apart,
If we just find a big en
Re:Paralax (Score:3, Funny)
It'll probably boost the observatory to an even distribution of small fragments over a 400 mile radius around the launch point on the Earth's surface.
But, it'll be very pretty.
Re:Paralax (Score:2, Funny)
Like other space telescope launch vehicles themselves become an even distribution of small fragments all over Texas?
Re:Paralax (Score:3, Funny)
But, like good capitalists, ours gets the damn thing up there first.....
Re:Paralax (Score:5, Interesting)
They should try to park the next one as far away from Hubble as possible. There might be some interesting things we could see with such a huge effective aperture.
Hmm... Not sure what exactly you mean by this. If you're talking simple parallax-based astrometry, the hubble c an already do this effectively by taking measurements of the same stars at different points in the Earth's revolution around Sol. This gives it an effective baseline of 2 A.U. No tandem satallite in earth orbit can possibly match that.
Perhaps you're talking about aperture synthesis interferometry? This is what is used by things like the Very Large Array... it involves single combination to extract additional imaging information from the phase differences. While that is very cool, at optical wavelengths (like those that Hubble uses) it would require Formation Flying [nasa.gov] to well within a wavelength of visible light (certainly impossible with any technology we have today, let alone already on the Hubble). The Terrestrial Planet Finder [nasa.gov] mission is possibly using a formation flying architecture to do infrared nulling interferometry (a different type of interferometry that allows them to filter out light from a star to see nearby planets). At optical wavelengths, it'd be nearly impossible.
Also don't forget that the larger your synthetic aperture, the more photons you need to collect to have a successful integration... This means that for very large baselines, (like the ones you suggest) you'd need *HUGE* telescopes looking for months on end.
Perhaps you meant something different?
Cheers,
Justin
Sell it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sell it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sell it (Score:3, Insightful)
How many companies or non-profit organizations have their own Space Shuttles?
Re:Sell it (Score:2)
Hubble Rocks (Score:2, Interesting)
M@
Re:Hubble Rocks (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hubble Rocks (Score:2)
Also, aerodynamic changes due to the wings getting torn up are significantly different from a shift of center of gravity. The former wasn't even recognized in time, the latter would be planned months ahead of the mission.
Re:Hubble Rocks (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hubble Rocks (Score:2)
Hubble (Score:3, Funny)
blech (Score:4, Funny)
Hubble (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, the Hubble is very sophisticated an capable of aking excellent shots. If they had allocated a bit of the money from the Homeland dept. to the next Hubble (Webb) i'm sure they could have used Huble to take shots of Iran and North Korea.
Re:Hubble (Score:5, Interesting)
No, keeping the Hubble in orbit is a great idea, even after the new one goes up - the Hubble can still be used by other astronomers who can't get time on the new one.
Ants (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ants (Score:2)
"A big mirror makes a big beam."
I love that movie.
Re:Hubble (Score:2)
Don't you know that the whole reason the Hubble's mirror was messed up to begin with is that it was "accidentally" switched with a duplicate mirror intended for a miltary version of the Hubble?
The military one was focused for Earth-Orbit distances. After the mess up, they had to fix the military version before launching it on a later military Shuttle lanuch.
That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. q:]
MadCow.
Too bright! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Too bright! (Score:2)
Re:Hubble (Score:2)
I don't believe Hubble could, because it lacks Adaptive Optics [ucolick.org] that ground-based (and probably orbital surveillance) telescopes have. Without them, the atmosphere makes everything much to blurry. From the ground this makes stars appear to twinkle, and from Hubbles point of view it would make everything appear to wobble - so pictures would end up a blurry mess.
Of course, you might be able to simulate Adaptive Optics in software
Di
Re:Hubble (Score:3, Funny)
Mmm, yes, point it toward the earth! Sydney to be precise!
There be a cute Aussie girl and I'd like to have a good look at her cleavage... for security reasons. She might be hiding a nuke there!
Re:Hubble (Score:2)
Re:Hubble (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hubble (Score:2)
Besides, the NRO, not NASA, handles orbital spy sats, and their budget is good enough, and their resolution is pretty damned good, too.
Parent post is incorrect (Hubble Pics Of Moon) (Score:5, Informative)
I seriously therefore doubt all the posts about the Earth, even the nightside of the Earth, being too bright for Hubble to image. Too bright? Reduce your shutter speed !
Also, one poster said the Earth is too close to focus on. Probably also incorrect. Remember the Hubble is ? a few hundred miles up ?. Typically with telescopes or camera lenses, the focus difference between "infinity focus" and "a few hundred miles" is non-existent. Not like the Hubble is exempt from being a telescope. As a matter of fact it's a Ritchey-Cretian telescope just like you can buy here on Earth from these dudes [rcopticalsystems.com].
Re:Parent post is incorrect (Hubble Pics Of Moon) (Score:3, Informative)
The Hubble has looked at the Earth before, technically -- the light from it was used to establish the point-to-point illumination pattern on the CCD. THe pictures aren't very useful though, as the HST is moving far too fast to keep an object stationary in the camera; in fact, the Earth pointings are called "streak flats" due to the Ea
Int-Sats (Score:2)
A plane is the best platform of all.
Re:Hubble (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Robert
Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've thought for a while the best way to make a space station useful is to use it as a general settelite hosting platform. Build a dozen of these in geo-synch orbit (like the GPS sattelites), and mount different systems to them, like the aforementioned GPS, communications relays (TV, phone, etc.) and some outward-facing stuff like hubble. Then you can make money by charging people for hosting and upkeep, and keep a crew onboard for occastional maintenance.
This would have the added bonus of consolidating a bunch of the sattelites spinning around the planet, making it safer for further launches. And forget the shuttle, it's too over-engineered and expensive. Stick to simple rockets and capsules, it's cheaper and more reliable. This is how you make money in space.
Then, some day in the long run, you use these stations to assemble and launch real space-ships, ones that don't have to deal with the problems of getting to and from the bottom of a gravity well.
Ahh, dreams...
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
<pedantic>
GPS satellites aren't in geosynchronous orbit. They are in roughly 12-hour orbits at about 13,000mi. </pedantic>
Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Informative)
2) As for hauling the Hubble, it is on a much higher orbit, enough higher that it is not feasible, even if it was desirable
3) GPS sats are NOT geo-sync. Geo-sync sats are those that maintain the same position relative to a point in Earth's surface. The TV and comm sats are examples of those. Their orbits are all over the equator
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Informative)
Space Station Altitude = 240 statute miles
Difference = Waaaaay too much.
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Oh wait didn't that cause a problem already?
=tkk
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Altitude is not a problem. The problem is orbit inclination. Shuttles simply don't have the fuel on board to shift inclination from Hubble's orbit to ISS's orbit.
Others have pointed out why you wouldn't want to even if the shuttle was capable of doing so.
Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Informative)
More specifically (from Celestrak [celestrak.com])
Hubble: 28 degrees inclination
ISS: 51 degrees inclination
Exercise for the student: work out the required delta V (here's a useful reference [yahoo.com]). Compare with the Shuttle's on-orbit delta V. It's cheaper (and lots easier) to land and get a fresh launch.
...laura
Re:I wonder... (Score:2, Informative)
Atmospheric interference (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps our next space station (which, hopefully, will be more of a space service station) will be positioned higher up, then they could keep satellites tethered to it for incremental upgrades and maintenance work.
Chandra (Score:2)
How much is Hubble costing? (Score:4, Informative)
I didn't see anything on the Hubble page linked above as to what it costs to keep the telescope in orbit. Other than a little maintainence, it can't be that much, can it? I know that a "little" is a relative term, but still. I'd say leave it up there for as long as possible.
Re:How much is Hubble costing? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How much is Hubble costing? (Score:4, Interesting)
From NASA's about page [nasa.gov]
Ok, $220 million out of a budget which is projected for 2004 to be $15.47 billion or about 14%. For 3-5 GB of data per day (1.095-1.825 TB/year), this doesn't sound like that bad of a return on investment to me. Any word on how much data the new telescope will collect, and at what cost?
Re:How much is Hubble costing? (Score:2)
Correct. I fscked the pooch there. Although, it only makes the point that much more clear. With the Hubble project only taking 1.4% of the operating budjet, it's a drop in the bucket. There's no reason at all to take down Hubble. Go ahead and put a new telescope up. Compare the data from the new one to the Hubble. View different things at the same time.
how it works (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't these scientist realize that in a government bureaucracy, the only way to get additional funding is to make sure the current system is 1)totally broke or 2)not in place?
If NASA keeps the Hubble operational, then it will be a *much* harder sell on Capitol Hill then if no telescope exists! Even those this seems very non-intuitive, this is the way much of government works. These NASA guys aren't that dumb...they just know how the system works
Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
They know that NASA and the government is so lined with red-tape, and moves so slowly, that a project that is 7 years away won't be launched on time.
It's even more amazing that when most people hear that it will likely be delayed, they aren't surprised in any way.
Re: Amazing (Score:2)
> Isn't it amazing the scientists can pretty much say, without a doubt, that the launch of the Webb telescope, which is nearly 7 years away, will likely be delayed? They know that NASA and the government is so lined with red-tape, and moves so slowly, that a project that is 7 years away won't be launched on time.
What has that got to do with NASA and the big evile gummit? If someone announces a new game or OS, do you expect it to come out when they say it will?
Also, the long lead time makes a miss mor
Bah! (Score:2)
Re:Bah! (Score:2)
I assume it's because when someone comes up with the original schedule, they never include a bunch of time labeled, "This is for all the shit that will go wrong unexpectedly."
Re:Amazing (Score:2)
Perhaps they have already committed to using Windows Longhorn in the Webb project...
Re:Amazing (Score:2)
Is everyone blind, deaf and stupid?
Thank Hubble for my sig! (Score:2, Funny)
JWST to be launched on Ariane V (Score:4, Interesting)
The full story is also at:
[spaceflightnow.com]
This caught my eye:
The 10-page report released Thursday outlined three options for NASA to choose from to achieve a transition from Hubble to the almost $1 billion James Webb Space Telescope, the planned successor to Hubble currently scheduled to launch in about 2011, aboard a European Ariane 5 booster.Why would NASA (or the US for that matter) allow such an expensive and high profile mission to fly on the worlds most unreliable rocket, when better domestic alternatives are available?
Re:JWST to be launched on Ariane V (Score:3, Insightful)
Because in 7 years time, it will either be the most reliable rocket - or it will have been replaced. (Hopefully)
That and ESA is a partner in the project. More Info [nasa.gov]
Re:JWST to be launched on Ariane V (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:JWST to be launched on Ariane V (Score:2)
I remember this well, a real shame. I wonder how much this simple error put back the European space program.
The fact that the old software ran at all is weird, you'd think they would have updated all the computer hardware quite a bit since the Ariane IV is really quite old now.
Re:JWST to be launched on Ariane V (Score:2)
Why? If it works, why bother. It's not like they can just stuff a Pnetium unit in there. The computer has to be tough enough to do the job while being cheap enough to throw away at the end of the mission. And it's not like you need a whole lot of power to get a rocket into orbit.
Re:NASA uses 80086 Processors... AFAIK (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah... it's not like it's rocket science or anything. *ducks*
Re:JWST to be launched on Ariane V (Score:2, Funny)
Not to be pedantic, but tell that to the Challenger astronauts.
Re:JWST to be launched on Ariane V (Score:4, Informative)
if it works, it works (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
cost to keep hubble in orbit (Score:3, Informative)
Re:cost to keep hubble in orbit (Score:2, Insightful)
Kill Three Birds w/1 Stone (Score:3, Interesting)
I know, pie-in-the-sky. But so was Hubble, once.
Opportunity for a risky gamble??? (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance, it could be used to justify the development of an orbital tele-operated robot that would extend the senses and limbs of a repair technician on Earth into low orbit.
Imagine a fairly light, solar powered, tele-operated robot launched into a parking orbit near the Hubble. New equipment and booster rockets could then be launched to the Hubble aboard a fairly low cost ferry rocket. The tele-operated robot would be activated by a remote operator to unpack the equipment from the supply ferry and re-supply the Hubble. Old equipment could be packed back into the ferry and dumped in the ocean. Aftewards, the tele-operated robot would return to it's parking orbit or if small enough simply cling to the side of the Hubble to wait for the next supply mission.
It would be an amazing feat of technology to remotely service a device as complex as the Hubble without actual human presence. This would eliminate the huge overhead incurred by minimizing risk to human life on such missions and conceivably dramatically drive down the cost for maintenance and repair. It would also set precedence for even more complex construction and repair projects using such robots in space close enough where radio propagation delays don't impede operation.
Coming up with a reasonably inexpensive way to keep the Hubble working for another 30 years would be a huge gift to Science, mankind and our children.
has the Hubble viewed Alpha Centari? (Score:2)
Re:has the Hubble viewed Alpha Centari? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:has the Hubble viewed Alpha Centari? (Score:2)
Re:has the Hubble viewed Alpha Centari? (Score:5, Interesting)
Obligatory Futurama Reference (Score:2, Funny)
"The Hubble Telescope"
Gotta love Zapp Branagon. I think we should just him take care of this matter.
Isn't two better then one? (Score:4, Interesting)
Moreover, the Webb is being designed for the infrared wavelengths that very distant galaxies would be emitting as they sped away in the expanding universe, not the visible wavelengths that Hubble sees so exquisitely.
Does that mean that if it goes down the Webb wont be able to provide us with images such as the ones [hubblesite.org] found at the hubblesite archive [hubblesite.org]?
If this is the case, then I hope every effort is made to keep the Hubble up there as long as possible. Perhaps it would be better for astronomy if the Hubble and the Webb would complement each other instead of having one replace the other.
Just my 2 cts.
Why do they do this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a wild thought.... build these space telescopes right on the surface of the moon! They'd be able to make it as gawdawful huge as they wanted, since it would be terrain based, and they could broadcast the pics back to earth just like the Hubble does now. With multiple telescopes in the right places, they could even get a 360 degree view of the sky at any time (ie, they wouldn't have to wait for the moon to rotate into position)
It's not like we don't have the technology to get there.
Re:Why do they do this? (Score:3, Informative)
A) The JWST is not going to be an Earth satellite. It will be placed at the L2 Lagrange point, which makes it more properly a satellite of both the Earth and the Sun. The L2 Lagrange point is very, very far away -- around a million miles from the Earth, and the JWST will have to travel for three months to get there.
B) It's not going to fall back to the Earth. It will drift off i
Raise money for Hubble! (Score:3, Insightful)
If they want to continue paying for Hubble, why not allow private industry to use Hubble at a certain price? For example, charge so many dollars per minute for use of Hubble. NASA gets a clerk who schedules use of Hubble based on what people want to look at with it. Hubble is scheduled for maximum utilization, if at all possible. NASA actually does the work, making sure that nobody fscks up the telescope. When images come in, NASA could sell all kinds of additional services, like image processing.
I know this isn't exactly a compelling business plan for a company like, say, Joe's Dent Repair or something, but think of the possibilities:
here is the newscientist link. (Score:3, Informative)
here is the newscientist link:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What happened to Large Interferometer telescope (Score:3, Informative)
SIM http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/SIM/sim_index.htm
LISA http://lisa.jpl.nasa.gov/