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Space

Space Tug to Save the Hubble? 325

Posted by CmdrTaco from the yeah-that'll-work dept.
Aglassis writes "In an article at SpaceRef, the CTO of Orbital Recovery Corporation claims that his company will be able to develop a space tug that could save the Hubble Space Telescope (from becoming 'a ballisticly implanted reef in the Pacific') by either moving it into a much higher stable orbit, or by moving it to the ISS where it could be maintained and operated. Some of the reasons that he cites are that the Hubble's replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, could be delayed or suffer some sort of failure. Since the JWST will be at the L2 point, servicing will be impossible."
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Space Tug to Save the Hubble? More

Space Tug to Save the Hubble?

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  • Free Taco? (Score:3, Funny)

    by DrewBeavis ( 686624 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:41AM (#8032222)
    Look on the bright side. If they don't save Hubble, maybe taco bell will do their space junk promotion again like they did for Mir and we can win a free taco?

    Sometimes you have to look on the bright side.

  • This is a great idea! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Thrymm ( 662097 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:42AM (#8032229)
    Since the US doesnt have a replacement planned to be sent up until 2010, and that by not servicing the HUbbell it may die by 2007.... Bringing it towards the ISS would allow it to be refitted and keep science moving forward!
    • And it may even give the IIS a reason to exist. At the moment, it only seems to exist to give the shuttle a place to go...which isn't really happening right now.

      I feel the IIS is just not very useful. Other than studying the long-term effects of microgravity on people, it doesn't do so much else. The massive loads of money spend on this thing could have gone to other, more useful, space projects. Instead it was built because we've always felt we needed a space station. Now we have one (partially, at
    • No, no, no - we must get a man on Mars. Or the Moon.
      That's far more of a priority than that Hubble or ISS crap.

      • Re:This is a great idea! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TrueBuckeye ( 675537 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @12:02PM (#8032443) Journal
        I'm not going to discount the value of a manned mission to Mars, but if there's anyway that can be done without having it mandate the end of Hubble, then we need to do it. Hubble has not only been nothing less than an incredible boon to science, it is also very near the only positive PR that the space program has had in better than a decade. The value of that is almost immeasureable.
      • How about we put Hubble on the Moon? It might make a nice little observatory and you don't have to worry about its failing gyros... assuming you could land it without crashing AND figure out how to make it work on the ground.

        I know its unrealistic, but it sounds cool. Much better than making Hubble a "ballistically implanted reef" (got to love that phrase).

  • Could we use it.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:42AM (#8032230)
    ...to find the Beagle?

  • Private management (Score:5, Interesting)

    by memmel2 ( 660484 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:42AM (#8032231)
    Maybe the Universities and goverments that use the Hubble can take over management of it. Nasa should give them a shot.

  • Doesn't NASA... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:42AM (#8032235)
    Doesn't NASA have a AAA card? They tow for free, you know...

  • Wrong (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rw2 ( 17419 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:42AM (#8032238) Homepage
    The correct answer is:

    Spend that money on ground based observatories with advanced systems that allow better than hubble imaging from earth.

    • Re:Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rco3 ( 198978 )
      Quoth rw2: "Spend that money on ground based observatories with advanced systems that allow better than hubble imaging from earth."

      Are there any? Doesn't atmospheric distortion limit the imaging ability of ground-based systems?

      • Re:Wrong (Score:5, Informative)

        by aborchers ( 471342 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:46AM (#8032280) Homepage Journal
        Are there any? Doesn't atmospheric distortion limit the imaging ability of ground-based systems?


        Adaptive optics can do a lot to cancel atmospherics. The real problem is that the atmosphere just plain obstructs much of the spectrum.

        • Re:Wrong (Score:2, Funny)

          by aridg ( 441976 )
          Not to mention that even adaptive optics don't help you see through clouds...

        • Re:Wrong (Score:3, Informative)

          by calyphus ( 646665 )
          Ahh, Adaptive Optics. Their proponents keep forgeting about that pesky atmosphere isn't just distorting light, but absorbing it. No matter how advanced optical adaptation becomes it can't resolve the photon that doesn't arrive.

    • Re:Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aborchers ( 471342 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:44AM (#8032258) Homepage Journal
      Spend that money on ground based observatories with advanced systems that allow better than hubble imaging from earth.


      Which of those advanced systems are going to allow for observing at wavelengths to which our atmosphere is opaque?

      • Re:Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rw2 ( 17419 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:54AM (#8032368) Homepage
        Which of those advanced systems are going to allow for observing at wavelengths to which our atmosphere is opaque?

        None.

        Which of the wavelengths that the hubble can shoot which ground based cannot will fail to be served far, far better by Webb?

        The fact is that most of the work being done by hubble can be done from the ground today and what cannot is being replaced by Webb with greatly improvments. This is by design.

        • Re:Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)

          by nadamsieee ( 708934 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @12:01PM (#8032432)
          Which of the wavelengths that the hubble can shoot which ground based cannot will fail to be served far, far better by Webb?
          All of them, if Webb has a failure. That's the whole point of saving Hubble.

        • Wrong and Wrong Again (Score:5, Informative)

          by davecl ( 233127 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @12:23PM (#8032668)
          Which of the wavelengths that the hubble can shoot which ground based cannot will fail to be served far, far better by Webb?

          The UV. Our atmosphere is opaque to the UV, and JWST, being an infrared optimised telescope, isn't going to be capable of observing the UV at all.

          Its important to note that JWST is not a simple upgrade to HST. It has a very different mission and set of instruments. Its not just HST with a bigger mirror.

    • Why? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MarkusQ ( 450076 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:56AM (#8032385) Journal

      The correct answer is:

      Spend that money on ground based observatories with advanced systems that allow better than hubble imaging from earth.

      Why is that the "correct" answer? It's a crime to deorbit large objects when they are potentially so much more valuable where they are.

      Just off the top of my head:

      1. It could potentially be used for 24/7 monitoring of targets (which you can't do from earth)
      2. We could use it to watch for dinosaur killers
      3. Automate it for long term survey duty (Oort cloud, etc.)
      4. Even if the Hubble is never used as an observatory again, it does consist of a lot of parts / raw materials that could someday prove useful.
      5. It may be a future tourist attraction
      If somebody actually spent some time on it, I'll bet they could come up with a dozen more good uses.

      Further, having a proven tug capability (tested in a situation that wasn't life threatening) would be very valuable in and of itself.

      To me, this looks like the right answer.

      -- MarkusQ

      • Agreed.

        At the very least, Hubble should be boosted to a higher orbit. If the Webb telescope fails for some reason (blows up during launch) then we will have lost our "eyes in the sky".

        Ground based telescopes are improving with adaptive optics. However, does anyone believe that they can ever correct 100% for atmospheric disturbance?? The deeper you look into space, the more pronounced those errors will be.

        The old saying says that a bird in the hand is worth two in the Bush. Well, an orbiting, working

        • Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @01:50PM (#8033654)
          > Of course, they won't be able to test "advanced drilling technology" on the ISS. Here is part that is pure porky corporate welfare. They want taxpayer money to subsidize R&D for Bushy's crony CEOs

          "Horizontal drilling" increased continental Natural Gas reserves by huge amounts over the past decade or two. It's why you can still afford to waste the stuff heating your house, rather than just cooking with it.

          Just suppose that 20 years from now, laser drills are cutting exploration and production costs of natural gas by huge margins, enabling North American companies to burn the stuff to crack the oil out of the Alberta Tar Sands (which contain more oil than Saudi Arabia) and tell OPEC to go fuck themselves. North American energy independence.

          And we'll have a moonbase, where we'll be starting to mine Helium-3, or fuse all that silicate stuff into solar panels, and beam the power back to Earth. Planetary energy independence.

          Will we be saying "Bushy's corny CEOs", or will we be saying "Holy crap. That space programme we started in 2004 had some really awesome spinoffs!"

          But you're right. All that rocketry stuff was just pork for Bell Labs and Raytheon. Transistors? Integrated circuits? Pah! Just subsidized R&D for Kennedy and Nixon's crony CEOs.

          The only reason for those smaller, more expensive gadgets, is so that better guidance "computers" can be crammed into the spatial constraints of the nose cones of missiles. Nobody will ever benefit from those technologies, because vaccuum tubes are just fine for radios and televisions, and business can do all the "computing" it need with a room full of clerks and hand-operated mechanical calculators, thank you very much! We should never have gone to the moon in 1969.

          • Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by crawling_chaos ( 23007 )
            The problem, of course, is that politics is intimately entwined with space program, and has been from the begining. One of the reasons that Apollo was not advocated very strongly after the first moon landing was that Nixon saw it as a Kennedy project, and he didn't like Kennedy. He instead started the Space Shuttle, and made sure the contract went to a vendor in his home state that had already killed three astronauts and nearly killed three more. Grumman was a finalist in the Shuttle bidding, but lost prima

  • My opinion (Score:3, Interesting)

    by W32.Klez.A ( 656478 ) * on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:44AM (#8032260) Homepage
    I feel that we need to save the Hubble, even if it is just for nostalgic reasons. Perhaps it just seems absurd that we dump all of our old equipment into the ocean when we're done with them, but really, I think we need to preserve the things that have given us insight into the universe and remember them. Besides, how might Mr. Hubble (have) like(d) that we just dump this huge telescope named after him once it becomes slightly antiquated?

  • Sounds fishy... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Stingr ( 701739 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:47AM (#8032289)
    "Some of the reasons that he cites are that the Hubble's replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, could be delayed or suffer some sort of failure."

    Sounds like some kind of extortion scam to me...

    Pay me to save Hubble or something could happen to your fancy schmancy new one.

  • Business a little slow? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CaptainAlbert ( 162776 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:48AM (#8032304) Homepage
    Is there actually a market for orbital recovery? Apart from Hubble, which it would be nice to have back for sentimental value, I can't think that there's much up there than needs recovering. Most satellites are so many years out of date that it makes no commercial sense to get them back again - you'd only have to re-launch them anyway, at which point you might as well have spent the money on new ones.

    Equally, no-one needs to run the risk of trying to repair things that are orbiting the Earth; it's guaranteed to be cheaper to junk it and build a new one.

    Methinks this guy is playing on popular support for the "keep Hubble" campaign to raise the profile of an otherwise unviable business.

    </devil's advocate>
    • We, which is to say NASA, is going to have to do some research into the long term effects of space on materials, before they can go to mars, with people.

      I hope that some of this space "junk" is being brought back, to see how the various things have faired.
    • > Is there actually a market for orbital recovery?

      No. There's some stupid treaty that says Hubble's too heavy to be deorbited, so it has to be brought back intact in the back of the Shuttle.

      And the official reason Hubble's being canned is because it's "unsafe" - a damaged Shuttle on a Hubble repair mission (which NASA suddenly decided it cares about) cannot change inclination to dock with ISS.

      So the ironic part is that it's "unsafe" to fly the Shuttle out there to save Hubble. But we're going to

  • Letter sent to European astronomers (Score:5, Informative)

    by Aardpig ( 622459 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:48AM (#8032305)

    I attach below the text of a letter recently sent to European astronomers, regarding the demise of Hubble support:

    Dear colleague,

    As you may know, NASA has decided to cancel all further servicing missions to Hubble. Servicing Mission 4, originally scheduled for next Spring/Summer, was designed to refurbish HST and enable it to continue operating in the current efficient and successful way. NASA has decided that all future Shuttle missions will be devoted to the International Space Station. Hence, no upgrade in capability or maintenance is planned for HST. A direct consequence is, of course, the end of WFC3 and COS as HST instruments. A discussion is developing, however, on the possibility of launching one or both of these instruments as part of a "fast-track 2 meter class telescope" mission.

    Without the replacement of failed gyros there is a high probability that HST will have to be operated in a two-gyro mode relatively soon, with substantial restrictions on the science observations. A controlled de-orbit of the spacecraft will have to be achieved using a special robotic mission at some time in the future as yet unspecified.

    There is little we Europeans can do directly to change NASA's decision which, apparently, is final. We believe strongly, however, that it should be made known how universal the feeling of disappointment is within the scientific community. As European members of the Space Telescope Users Committee (STUC), we have asked the ST-ECF to open a web page where you can send comments on the fate of HST and on the loss for the scientific community. We encourage you to share your views with us, visiting the site and sending e-mails to the address given.

    The site is now available at http://www.stecf.org/SM_cancellation.html [stecf.org]

    Best regards,

    Eric Emsellem and Monica Tosi

    • Re:Letter sent to European astronomers (Score:5, Funny)

      by alexpage ( 210348 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @12:45PM (#8032929)
      Dear Colleague,

      You may be surprised at my contacting you in this manner. I am DENNIS WINGO, chief technical officer of the ORBITAL RECOVERY CORPORATION, and you have been identified as a trustworthy person with whom I can do business.

      Recently, I have suffered due to instability in the Hubble Space Telescope, which contains a good deal of material worth, approximately 100 MILLION US DOLLARS. If this money is not quickly recovered then the value will be burned in the atmosphere and everybody will have lost. If you help me to recover this money, I will send you 10% of the value (10 MILLION US DOLLARS). Please reply with details of your bank account number, sort code, account name and date of birth and we can begin the process of saving the Hubble Space Telescope and the 100 MILLION US DOLLARS value within.

      Yours,

      Dennis Wingo
      Chief Technical Officer
      Orbital Recovery Corporation
      wingod@orbitalrecovery.com
  • that this guy [rocketguy.com] can do it faster better cheaper....

  • What we need is an orbital fix-it robot (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kippy ( 416183 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:48AM (#8032308)
    I think India is planning something like this. [slashdot.org] It's an ion drive powered robot. It would be able to tub things into the right orbit and perform some limited maintenence tasks. It wouldn't be a cure all but it would probably pick up a lot of slack on the cheap. I'm guessing it could be refueled with a tank of fuel launched up hear it.

    It would be a nice private venture. I could see a realistic market for it with all the telecommunications stuff up there.

  • Salvage Space Junk (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Hits_B ( 711969 )
    It seems to me that this technology could be used to clean up a lot of the space junk orbiting the earth. Set up an intergalactic recycling station and move all of the inoperable satellites to it and strip them down for parts. Which leads to another question. Are there laws that dictate ownership of property once it leaves the planet and is in orbit?
    • I agree that something has to be done with space junk, every piece is a missle waiting to hit something important, but I don't think that there would be so great of a recycling market for the old equipment.

      let's see..., what do we got here a 386 computer, some 15 yo solar cells, and an empty canaster of propellent...

      I think that it would be best just to design a "space tug" with a big cage on the front, with a eye to letting the whole mess burn up.

      IANAL, but I believe that the "standard laws relating to

  • Article is an ad for a tow truck based in space, that is all. That being said, there probably is a fair and justifiable market for a space based tow truck, as well as a spaced based garbage truck. That being said, why are we getting advertisements linked as articles?

  • Just give it to 'em (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @11:50AM (#8032337) Homepage Journal
    I know it takes millions of dollars to run the science behind Hubble, or any other space project. Apparently, it takes a whole team of rocket scientists just to keep the thing from crashing into Tucson or something.

    But why can't NASA just give the telescope to Wingo's company [orbitalrecovery.com] and be done with it? Just give them the keys and be done with it. Sign something requiring that they drop it in the Pacific (or in the Sun, or something) when they're done.

    If Orbital Recovery can make a go selling science time to astronomers, then let them try it. Or they can sell time to people looking for the Face on Mars. Or they can fly up the next Survivor crew with some duct tape and an oxygen tank to play "voted off the Hubble". Whatever the free market wants.

    I'm not usually one to say the "free market" is better at making decisions, but NASA has gotten its investment back. Instead of plowing it into the seabed, give it away -- think of it as the new-frontier version of salvage rights [ananova.com].

    • Re:Just give it to 'em (Score:5, Informative)

      by applemasker ( 694059 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @12:03PM (#8032448)
      Technically, this would mean a transfer of the Hubble from a 570km orbit to something more in the area of the ISS, which is approximately 370km. At that altitude, there is still the issue of atmospheric drag, which is why ISS is periodically re-boosted by Shuttles (when/if they fly again). Moving Hubble to a lower orbit doesn't make sense, it too would need periodic re-boosting.

      More significantly, there is the issue of orbital inclination (the angle between the orbit and the equator). Hubble is at a comfy 28.5 degrees, which is optimal for shuttle launches from KSC given the launch site's latitude. ISS is inclined at 51.6 degrees, which is more of a 'climb' from low-latitute launch sites like KSC, because of the need to launch materials from Russia. (Low latitute launch sites get an extra 'kick' from the earth's rotation, the more equitorial the orbit.)

      Transferring in altitude and orbital plane is no easy trick, (http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/rocket_sci/s atellites/hohmann.html) but can be done (just check the math... a lot).

      Even if it's done though, NASA would have to commit to service the HST for a few more years. And, although their "official" reason for canceling the HST Service Flight is "safety," the real reason is funding. It may be cliche, but as the line goes, "No Bucks, no Buck Rogers."

      I would bet there are gaggles of astronauts who would volunteer to fly a HST service flight with these risks and I'd much rather spend $500 million (most of which is already spent on the hardware and training) to support HST for another 5-7 years than on anything else, including ISS or Pluto-Kupier. Otherwise, we're left with a HST which is one failure away from becoming an orbital paperweight (if there is such a thing) and $200 worth of already-built flight hardware sitting in a warehouse somewhere.

    • Re:Just give it to 'em (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Blob Pet ( 86206 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @12:13PM (#8032536) Homepage
      I'd give it to the europeans or the chinese (who ware trying to get their own program off the ground) if they want it....or even sell it to them. It might save NASA some money and help the scientific community.
    • And who will be held responsible if some catastrophe ensues like the unstable orbit mentioned previously or an uncontrolled reentry into the atmosphere? So they said they would drop it in the Pacific --- what if they screw up?

      It seems to me that they should be required to idemnify against potential damage, essentially to take out an insurance policy that would pay off the victims in case of a bad outcome. Something that looks economically viable now may not be at all if the companies involved are forced to

  • OTOH, if Hubble were allowed to burn up on re-entry then George Lass [deadlikeme.com] could potentially have a kindred spirit [sho.com] to keep her company.
  • I'm interested in space, but will admit a lack of knowledge regarding a number of things.

    Why, if something is put into a LaGrange point (L2 in this case) would it be unserviceable?
    • L2 is a point about 1.5 million kilometers away from the earth, essentially right "behind" the earth if you look from a vantage point near the sun. This means it's about four times farther away than the moon - much farther away from the earth than any human has ever flown. It would take an enormous amount of time and fuel (and thus money) to get anything out there, so it's something you don't do very often.
    • I think he should have specified finacially unservicable personally, since your absolutely right- There is no physical reason to keep us from doing the job. Maybe once we get that moon base operational, sure, but as of this time it's probably just too damn expensive.
    • The basic problem is that the shuttle cannot reach the L2 point. It doesn't carry enough fuel. To launch something there, it has to do another burn after being released from the shuttle to achieve the correct orbit. If we can't get the shuttle there, then we (the US) can't send people there (currently). I've never heard of a repair mission carried out with robots, but I suppose it is possible (although they're plenty difficult with people, so I wonder about the feasability of using robots).
  • With Andy Griffith. Short lived TV show about a many who would salvage space junk. Think they used a cement mixer as a space capsule. I think it is a good idea. While satellites may be outdated, it still costs a bundle to make them and send them up. If these guys offer an alternative to that then why not.

    What happens though if NASA decides Hubble is scrap and proceeds to deorbit. Can this guy go up and snag it and then sell it to the highest bidder?
  • "...or by moving it to the ISS where it could be maintained and operated."

    <self back patting>
    I suggested [slashdot.org] this option once before, but one person said [slashdot.org], "Nah, the attitude/orbital requirements for the scope and the station are just too different." Is this true?
    </self back patting>

  • The politics of it all.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mazzie ( 672533 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @12:00PM (#8032430)
    I can't believe that NASA is even considering abandoning the Hubble.

    Let me get this straight. They are going to abandon a working spacecraft, that continues to revolutionize deep space imaging, on the whim of a politician spewing typical election year rhetoric?

    I think anything and everything should be done to maintain the Hubble for as long as possible, or until it truely becomes obsolete. I could understand the decision if they had a far superior telescope already in space and functioning, but this seems a bit off the wall.

    Not sure if I interpreted the article correctly, but it seems they won't have a superior telescope in space for 1 or 2 years after the Hubble has been abandoned?

    Also, the tree hugger in me has to ask. Why are we willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to colonize other planets, when we are slowly destroying our own. Seems like our priorities are just a bit out of whack.
    • At worst they could just give it to ESA. I'm sure they'd love the chance to wring some more life out of it, and they're just as competent as NASA at burning the thing up safely when it really does die (at least I hope so!)
      Junking it when other competent people could still make good use of it just seems like throwing the toys out of the pram, and completely contrary to the spirit of international co-operation most of these space agencies claim to believe in.

  • L2 unservicable? No (Score:2, Informative)

    by chfriley ( 160627 )
    >Since the JWST will be at the L2 point, servicing will be impossible."

    You can still service it there. What that should have said is it will be impossible ***with the shuttle***.

  • The James Webb Space Telescope is really not a replacement for Hubble. JWST is primarily an IR telescope, and HST is a visible light and UV telescope. Different but complimentary missions. Even if JWST goes up, the loss of HST prematurely will hurt science.

  • Tow it to ISS! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SubtleNuance ( 184325 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @12:19PM (#8032611) Journal
    The HST is a big piece of equipment [nasa.gov] -- we all know that it is expensive to put *anything* in orbit, why let it burn up into the atmosphere/crash into ocean?

    Tow the HST to the ISS. Once there, maybe some equipment/raw material can be salvaged (at least) -- if the HST cannot continue to be used and maintained by the ISS crew (MUCH preferd). If we are 'serious' about using the ISS for a while, why not give them something worthwhile to do? hell, is there a reason why you wouldnt (all things being equal) line up all the rest of the hubble-like space ships near the ISS? If nothing else, this will establish a "destination" in space that acts as a central hub for work in space....

    Hell, arent the panels on the HST worthwhile? If they can tow it over to the IIS, maybe something on the HST might find itself usefull, either now or in the future. Spare parts? Sheet metal? Something.

    I know someone will say "the panels are old/different voltage/designed for another purpose" or "its cheaper just to launch whatever you need than tow the HST" but my response is simple, if we are going to try and make this a permanent behabviour of man (off-world habitat) then we have to learn to be more nimble, adaptable and less dependant on MASSIVE planning efforts for every screw, bolt and hammer that gets into space.

    We have to learn to utilize resources *AROUND THEM* and Make It Work. Hell, the ISS could be the 'hotel' for HST repairmen at least....

    • Re:Tow it to ISS! (Score:4, Funny)

      by jhoffoss ( 73895 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @12:29PM (#8032746) Journal
      " Tow the HST to the ISS. Once there, maybe some equipment/raw material can be salvaged (at least)..."

      Crikey! Just imagine what McGuyver could do with even just a few of HST's parts!

    • Re:Tow it to ISS! (Score:2, Informative)

      by VdG ( 633317 )
      The problem of piling up a load of old junk around the ISS is that they'll be in very slightly different orbits. Without continual orbital adjustments there would be a very real risk of collisions.
  • I wonder - if NASA is planning on dumping it in the ocean anyway, is there any particular reason why someone couldn't pay a group like Orbital Recovery to just grab it before it re-enters, and park it in a safe orbit. NASA has already abandoned it, so presumably they won't object to someone else using it...
  • I'm not familiar with the economics. Is it enough cheaper to launch to a lower orbit that you could save money by launching to lower orbits and paying to have them boosted by a "premanent" tug that could move between lower and higher orbits? If the savings from going to a lower orbit could pay for the boosting charge there might be a market here. Assuming of course that such a tug could be built.
    Another opportunity that I would think could have even more possibilities would be simple refueling. Some oth
  • Apparently NASA has proposed spending $200 million on a new craft to link up to Hubble to bring it down - I bet Orbital Recovery would offer their option for considerably less. Wingo's a smart guy - they certainly can do this. It seems the obvious choice here.
  • Are there enforcable requirements that satelites be disposed of responsibly? What is to keep a company that goes bankrupt to allow their satelites to crash into terra firma any-old where?
  • Since NASA is now considering Hubble disposible now, why not refuel it one more time, attach a small booster to it and sent it to a Lagrange point? It can't be that expensive to do, relatively speaking. After that, one could sell time on it to compensate for the expense and make a profit. If that isn't enough, you're also saving another piece of history.
  • I have my doubts about the ability of the ISS to host the Hubble, based solely on the issues of vibration -- I'm sure the station has all sorts of activity that would wreak havoc with Hubble's instrumentation. Nevermind that in the lower orbit of the ISS there's considerably more free-roaming debris to contend with.
  • The problem is the damned Khaak are going to take out the ISS and the satellites son anyways, unless someone scrounges up the cash for a Split Iguana.
  • The fact that the Hubble telescope is being abandoned so that NASA can focus on manned trips to Mars is a @#$@#$ing tragedy. The HST's main flaw was that it didn't have the public appeal. We're giving up a good scientific tool in order to divert funding to some seriously nonsensical crap.

  • This seems like a reasonable proposal for several reasons.

    First, one way or another, NASA has no option but to visit HST one more time, either to fix it, or to prepare to de-orbit it. They are committed to that.

    Since they're going to have to visit it anyway, they might as well let the mission have a positive or at least a less negative value. That sounds a lot better than spending half a billion dollars for the sole purpose of making sure a hew hundred million dollars burn up. If a space tug can get hub

  • Since the JWST will be at the L2 point, servicing will be impossible.
    Certainly impossible using the Shuttle or similar low-earth-orbit transportation. However, if the Bush plan moves forward, we'll have lunar-capable transportation coming online right around the time the JWST is deployed. If you can get people to and from the surface of the Moon, getting to and from Sun-Earth L2 is arguably easier and safer. So we can service JWST with our lunar fleet.

  • Save it for the Future (Score:3, Interesting)

    by peacefinder ( 469349 ) <alan.dewitt@gmAA ... inus threevowels> on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @01:34PM (#8033474) Journal
    In 2090, on the 100th anneversary of the launching of Hubble, where will it be? Will history forgive us for dropping such a significant artifact in the ocean?

    All seem to agree that the risk of letting Hubble fall out of orbit without some additional guidance is too high. (I have read figures stating that it'd be about a 1 in 700 chance of a fatality from the debris.) Apparently we're going to send a robot tug to move it.

    but if we go to all the trouble of developing a robot tug to move Hubble, why are we moving it down?

    It's going to be decommissioned eventually, but we can save it for future historians. We just need to put it in a high and stable enough orbit, and eventually someone will recover it. (Hopefully for history, possibly for salvage.) Don't know who, don't know when, but if humanity continues to climb into space it will happen eventually.

    I realize it will take a more robust tug to do this, but it's not like we're in a hurry. We can put an ion thruster on the tug and let it boost for months if we need to. Heck, let's take it all the way to a Lagrange point.

    History will thank us if we do.

  • Not going to ISS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RayBender ( 525745 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @02:48PM (#8034310) Homepage
    No matter what that guy says, the are NOT going to tow HST to the Space Station, for reasons of simple physics. HST is in a 28 deg inclination orbit, ISS is in a 57 deg orbit. The change in velocity ("delta-V") required for such a plane change is of the same order as the delta-V required to get into orbit in the first place (something like 3 km/s). That would require a very, very large rocket by the standards of current on-orbit maneuvering systems, and probably cost as much as simply building another HST and putting it in the right orbit in the first place.

    You might see them reboost HST into a high orbit, but it's NOT going to ISS.

  • How about a FLEET of tugs! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cr@ckwhore ( 165454 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @05:19PM (#8036053) Homepage
    Ok, this is a great idea... attach a "tug" to a satellite once it's used up it's propellant.

    Well, if a satellite is good for 10-15 years before it would need a "tug", why not just give it a "tug" right at the start?

    Here's my idea... lets build a fleet of space tugs and store them at the ISS. Whenever a satellite is launched, launch it with a small amount of propellant... just enough to do some basic maneuvering to get the orbital situation correct immediately after launch. Then, via a standard adapter that would be built on all new satellites, a tug would be sent from the ISS to mate with the satellite. From there on out, the tug would take care of the satellite's propulsion and perhaps even provide the satellite with back-up solar power.

    Think of the possibilities of this system... sattelites would be lighter due to the decreased amount of propellant onboard, thus, cheaper to launch. The space tugs themselves could be fairly cheap to build and launch, especially in quantity. Space engineers would also gain a standard system for propulsion, so it's likely that the same set of ground controls could be utilized for every satellite fit with a standard space tug.

    There might be more benefits, and I'm sure there are a few draw-backs, but I can't think of any at the moment.

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