The Hubble Lives On 132
tanman writes "CNN reports that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has agreed to send astronauts on one final mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. No date was reported for the mission, other than before the shuttle fleet is retired. From the article, 'A rehab mission would keep Hubble working until about 2013. It would add two new camera instruments, upgrade aging batteries and stabilizing equipment, add new guidance sensors and repair a light-separating spectrograph. Without a servicing mission, Hubble will likely deteriorate in 2009 or 2010.'"
I hope... (Score:2, Informative)
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http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000709.html [nasa.gov]
Nothing to see here... (Score:1)
I hope the mission goes smoothly and Hubble can continue.
Good choice (Score:2)
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What are you talking about? What about the James Webb Telescope. [nasa.gov] We ought to be able to see the start of the universe with that sucker.
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A good first step... (Score:2)
I'm sure the smart folks at NASA know what they are doing, and they actually know what programs are scheduled... If they need to fix Hubble to bridge the gap then let us get it done.
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"Only" does infrared? Actually, there is more information to be gathered in the infrared than there is in the visible. Developments in earth-based telescopes mean that they are catching up on Hubble, though Hubble still has some unique capabilities. But because the atmosphere absorbs IR, they are blind in that range. And there is just as much bandwidth and just as much interesting information out there in
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That may be, but there is information to be gathered in the visible that cannot be gathered in the infrared. We need both, and more besides.
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"JWST's instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range."
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You, sir, have more faith in NASA's bureaucracy than I do. Having had to battle their system and watched one bone-headed decision after another, I salute your optimism but fear that it is misplaced.
There is a new telescope in the works, but it's not due to launch until 2013. (This is the James Webb Space Telescope [nasa.gov].) It does not duplicate what HST does since it will primarily be an infrared telescope.
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Having had to battle their system and watched one bone-headed decision after another.
Please enlighten us. Not a troll or flame bait. Respectfully, I'm genuinely curious.
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"five year gap" (Score:2)
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Yes, but it isn't exactly a replacement for Hubble, it's newer and better tech but also designed for different uses.
I had heard previously that once the gyros were repaired and it had its orbit boosted that Hubble would last until 2020. It would be fantastic to have both HST and JWST operating at the same time. The article says only 2013 (when JWST is theoretically going to be launched), which ma
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Hooray! (Score:3, Informative)
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Hubble could fail tommorow without causing a gap between now and the launch of the JWST - because the JWST is a different instrument, it is not a replacement for Hubble.
The mission time is in there ... (Score:2)
"The shuttle mission will likely be in early 2008."
Now that's not exactly a launch date but I would say it is better then "No date was reported for the mission, other than before the shuttle fleet is retired."
One final mission (Score:3, Funny)
Service Lifetimes... (Score:3, Funny)
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Yes No Cancel
Worth Every Cent (Score:2)
The willingness to keep the Hubble alive in the midst of so much strife in the world today has made me feel just a little bit better about today.
Re-entry (Score:1, Funny)
Part of the challenge is ensuring that the telescope will burn up on re-entry at the end of its working life. This will be solved by sole-sourcing the battery upgrade from Sony.
Backup for the shuttle (Score:3, Insightful)
Manned spaceflight would never have gotten off the ground if NASA had exhibited such risk averse behavior almost 50 years ago.
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They have to be more risk-averse these days because the shuttle hardware is way more fragile and complicated than Apollo-program-era hardware.
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particularly due to the fact that the Apollo stuff was single-use-only the ablative heatshield was designed to work for one re-entry then get turfed, whereas the tiles in the shuttle need to withstand more re-entries, and is apparently difficult to tell when they need to be replaced.
this is likely the reason why NASA is opting for replaceable one-time-use heatshields
Re:Backup for the shuttle (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously the astronauts. They'd hate to lose another vehicle because it would probably end the shuttle program. However, the American people do not like 7 dead astronauts and neither does NASA. We would mourn astronauts more than the shuttle.
This is probably a fair statement, but there is no need to take risks like that to accomplish the current goals in space. We don't accept 1950's technology or safety standards in construction, aviation, automobiles, or health care - I see no reason to accept it in space. You certainly could argue that our goals are not lofty enough.
You DO still see that risk-taking spirit, though. Spaceship One was pretty seat-of-the-pants.
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Hardly. Why was it seat of the pants? Because they didn't spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on it?
I think if you researched it you would see that it was a fairly normal and very scientific undertaking. Burt Rutan is one of the greatest aeronautical minds of our time. I don't think he'll be truly appreciated until he's long gone.
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The shuttle is just not the good choice, it was designed to be reused (and therefore be less expensive and more available) and it ended up being overpriced and dangerous.
This reminds me of the Spirit of St Louis. Every other plane used to try to cross the atlantic ocean had three engines but in the end couln't fly with only two of them because of the weight of the gas, what was supposed to be an advantage can be y
Change of atmosphere (Score:2)
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Agree. I have several friends in NASA and there is no misconception of the dangers involved. But the motivations from the 60's are not there anymor
Due dilligence (Score:2)
The astronauts. The reason they have the backup shuttle ready to go is so that in the event that the shuttle servicing Hubble undergoes irreparable damage during the mission and would not be able to safetly re-enter the atmosphere, the other shuttle can be launched to pick up its crew.
At which point the original shuttle would most likely be lost. The astronauts would be safe, though, which is the
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Manned spaceflight would never have gotten off the ground if NASA had exhibited such risk averse behavior almost 50 years ago.
Apollo did have such risk-averse behavior. The mission could be aborted at almost any point without losing the astronauts. The only point in the whole mission where a single engine failure was fatal were the few seconds just before landing on the moon.
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That's right. Apollo Abort Planning [klabs.org], p. 25: "Therefore, the sole propulsion source is the SPS because the service module RCS is incapable of performing a burn as large as that required for the TEI maneuver". However, this was recognized, and the SPS had redundancy in almost all components except the engine bell.
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Now seriously, wouldn't it be incredibly useful to have a transfer vehicle docked to the ISS at all times, able to pick up a stranded shuttle crew and carry them back to the ISS?
It could even be a simple, Progress-like vehicle. How much fuel would be needed for a couple orbit transfers? And in potential rescue missions like this, it could use an ion engine to take it to the pick-up point several weeks after undocking from the ISS. It
Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
is between $60M and $1.5B.. let the debate ensue. Not to be rude, but I'm ignoring the slight potential for human loss.
So many more people die in Iraq or Alaskan Crab Fishing or.. well.. you get the point.
I'm sure there will be other missions and shuttle maintenance and general program costs in 2007 whether we fix the Hubble or not. So, it's logical to factor the cost of this mission kind of inversely, thinking rather, how much will we save if we do not repair the Hubble? Probably not a whole $1.3B estimated one way in the link above, much less.
Regardless of how you intemperate the numbers, I think this is a good idea because:
The Hubble works, and we have experience servicing and fixing it, so it's much more likely that all of this will go smoothly.
We can get this done soon, whereas development of a another new telescope will undoubtedly take many times longer.
The Hubble is very meaningful. It's still returning good science and inspirational pictures.
It's functioning keeps a quite few scientists employed, and that's a good thing.
It's good press. NASA needs to flourish. I think the "new NASA" is just starting to hit it's stride, despite an
otherwise depressed national consciousness. We've had lots of enormously meaningful and successful unmanned missions lately, so yay NASA.
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-l
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Let's just outsource it to India or China. No wonder we haven't been getting anywhere. What's really sad is that the US could fund a global version of NASA and have 4 groups with 4 Billion a Russian, Chinese, Indian, and US group and they'd get the most bang for their bucks from the others. Maybe that would be an idea for obtaining a voting blocks in those countries, by sponsoring a man power intensive space program in
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The thing is... (Score:2)
Now, if we put an array of space-based visible-light telescopes up, we could use them to "virtual lenses" thousands of kilometers in size; I'm off the edge of my math here, but I believe such an array would let you see surface features on planets in other solar systems.
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The Hubble is very meaningful. It's still returning good science and inspirational pictures.
This is not a small point, either. We're coming up on 10 years since the loss of Professor Sagan [wikipedia.org], and in all that time, nobody (to my knowledge) has really stepped forward to fill his shoes wrt popularizing science.
The Hubble pictures are pretty much the only good advertising science gets. The Mars rovers are cool and everything, but nothing makes you stand back, slack-jawed, and drooling on the floor like t
Who would have thought that (Score:3, Interesting)
Since Hubble's replacement is already under construction [nasa.gov], and since ground based scopes like Keck [keckobservatory.org] exceed Hubble's capabilities, what is the benefit of dropping hundreds of millions of dollars repairing it?
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Exactly right. (Score:2)
Which is why we should be working on replacing Hubble instead of fixing it.
Can you imagine if we could put a scope in each of the Lagrange points and used interferometry to combine the images?
Re:Who would have thought that (Score:5, Insightful)
Regarding the ground-based telescopes, while adaptive optics and other fancy things allow them to outperform Hubble in some ways such as resolving power, there are still things they can't do. The ground-based telescopes are unable to observe anything for a significant part of the time because sun is happily shining on the sky and reflecting off the atmosphere. Likewise, no matter where you place the telescope under the atmosphere, weather will occasionally be an issue and atmosphere also tends to absorb some of the wavelenghts, although that's not a big issue on visible light. Additionally, atmospheric glow, no matter whether it's from reflected light pollution or natural [wikipedia.org], makes observations of very dim targets more difficult on the ground.
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I don't know what a shuttle mission+the equipment to fix Hubble will cost, but according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program #Costs [wikipedia.org] total cost for the shuttle program alone divided by the number of launches gives 1.5B USD per laun
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However, I don't really see Hubble service mission and OWL as direct competitors:
- OWL is at least a decade away in the future even without any delays, whereas Hubble service mission (if it happens) is about a more immediate problem that needs to be addressed in a couple of years, unless 'we' accept a gap of several years in existence of large space-ba
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Hopefully NASA admin's on again off again relationship with Hubble will be on again for long enough to get it serviced! To me the repair is a no-brainer.
That's all true - but Hubble can't see them. (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong - space-based scopes are a great idea; but obsessing over Hubble instead of focusing on how to create something even better is pointless. As others have mentioned, for the price of a Hubble repair mission, you could create a tr
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All true. (Score:2)
But Hubble has similar problems - or did you think that Hubble hides in the Earth's shadow 24 hours per day? Long duration observations must be very carefully planned to avoid letting Hubble point even generally towards the sun; and moon glow and even earth glow are issues.
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For the cost of repairing Hubble (Score:2)
Meanwhile, repairs to Hubble take years of advance planning. Great for emergencies.
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Let's see.... (Score:2)
2) Yes Webb works in a different band. Sorry, you won't get pictures as pretty. But you *will* get a much larger light gathering system than Hubble has, and you will get long term access to a band of light that... how did you put it? "Doesn't penetr
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What makes you think I haven't considered it? Resolution is but one metric for comparing one telescope to another. (Just as hunting for extrasolar planets is but one research path being followed by astronomers.)
Refutes my own argument? (Score:2)
I suggest you rethink the rest of your replies as well, since you obviously never got that.
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Hubble will be a (partially) newer telescope with the installation of newer instruments, as the instruments as as important (if not more important) that the mirror. (The is why dozens of scopes. smaller than Palomar for example, are still in daily use.)
Furthermore, cancelling Hubble does not mean that the money can be spent on better telescopes - because Federal budgeting doesn't work that way. The Webb is budg
If it's about manned missions (Score:2)
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"(ISS) The space station is located in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of approximately 360 km (220 miles), a type of orbit usually termed low Earth orbit" versus "(Hubbles) Orbit height 600 km (325 nautical miles)" versus "(JWST) Orbit height 1.5×106 km from Earth (L2 Lagrangian point)".
Thank you Wikipedia!
I think you missed my point. (Score:2)
If you had followed the thread you would have noticed that I was replying to someone who said the only point of repairing Hubble was to give manned missions something to do. In other words, a PR campaign, not science.
As always it about cash (Score:1)
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Their budget has been dropping since the mid-70s - you might as well blame it on Vietnam.
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Budget of the United States Government
Fiscal Year 2007
HISTORICAL TABLES
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/sheets
Yes!!!! (Score:1)
Given budgets and political priorities after the shuttle fleet is retired their may not be another NASA manned vehicle for 20 or 25 years. I am glad to see every useful launch between now and the end of the shuttle program.
Launch on need? Scary stuff... (Score:1)
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worst case: line up the shuttles, get the people to put on thier spacesuits and climb accross from one airlock to the other, i can't see how it would be much harder than any other spacewalk.
btw how exactly does the space shuttle dock with the ISS and could that mechanism be used for a shuttle to shuttle transfer avoiding the need to do it as a spacewalk.
some concerns.... (Score:2)
I certainly hope they are not sony or dell batteries!
Hidden agenda? (Score:1)
HST vs JWST (Score:1)
As an astronomer, I can tell you that HST can do things that no other telescope can do. The Keck telescopes are bigger (frankly, there are lots of telescopes bigger, including the new
Updating Hubble? Uh oh... (Score:2)
One of my dance partners works fairly high up in NASA, and he said that this morning's announcement is actually telegraphing NASA's intention to cancel the Webb space telescope. Its funding is expected to go instead to the Mars missions... indeed, Mars is going to suck up the funding of practically everything else.
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Second, if you thought t
She's a good bird, doing good science (Score:2)
Hubble onward....... (Score:2)
cost (Score:2)
just realized the practicality of keeping something so old might leave us out of something new.
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Also, more pixels isn't always better. It's the quality of those pixel
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Re:Mars Rover Mission OffTopic (Score:2)
A decision had been made [early on], because of what was an expected lifetime for these vehicles [90 days guaranteed] that we would represent the data that was received and plans created using 3 digits," Matijevic expounded. "Obviously, that's not going to work when we hit Sol 1K. Recognizing that we were going to survive that long meant coming up with a modification of all the scripts that we use routinely here on the ground to process the data and the plans in order to adapt them to a 4-d
THREE MONTHS! (Score:2)
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Well, one thing I can think of is vibrations. Attaching a telescope to ISS would likely hurt the resolution of the telescope. Also, ISS might not be in the preferred orbit for a space telescople. Finally, having the telescope attached to ISS would likely limit the ability to point the telescope in any direction.
I imagine there are other issues with it, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.
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Well, I'm not saying it couldn't be overcome, but I doubt it'd be as efficient as with a free-floating telescope. The beauty of a separate telescope is that it can orient itself in any direction. Attached to a space station, it can't point through the station, and I imagine it couldn't point other directions as well. It would generally be limited to a hemisphere, mabye a larger solid angle, but not the full range with a separate instrument.
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Ease of maintenance is directly related to operational cost and, therefore, to the lifespan of the equipment.
And, being easily serviceable would mean new instruments could be attached and old instruments removed with much more ease.
As someone else said, there must be something escaping me. After all, there must be a good reason I am not building spaceships mys