Hubble mistake - Action needed

GCNRevenger · 2004-08-25 16:23:36

Hypotheticly for a moment.. 2006, the parts of the HST repair robot are sitting in a cleanroom in Florida, technitions building the robot and tucking in the replacement parts, the Atlas-V slated to carry it being built too, and...

Hubble dies. Somthing gives, electrical or mechanical, which cripples the telescope and cannot be repaired by the robot or a human mission. Then what? All that money to fix HST, wasted.

deagleninja · 2004-08-26 06:14:36

It boggles my mind that the ISS has and will continue to suck down Billions every year and still be nothing more than a glorified death-trap, yet everyone seems so anxious to give Hubble the axe before a replacement is in place.

I honestly can't understand the logic.

GCNRevenger · 2004-08-26 07:40:00

*shrug* Yeah I know its insane and stupid to go through with the ISS, but barring yet another Shuttle failure or a serious ISS "incident," its a done deal. The political penalty of breaking an international treaty, especially over somthing so supposedly noble and unifying as international space programs, is too high to pay. So too would be the domestic fallout from abandoning a $90Bn+ program, more money spent then on any civil program in the history of the world.

And even then... losing another Shuttle would be fatal to NASA as an organization, and to the best of our knowledge the thermal protection system on Shuttle is the most fragile piece of the vehicle, failing on nearly 2% of flights, once resulting in tragedy. The ISS cuts this risk to a more acceptable figure as a "lifeboat."

There is no money for an HST repair at the moment anyway, I don't know where O'Keefe is going to get the cash other than gutting JIMO or VSE or Mars probes (MRO, exploration rover), since it isn't going to come out of Shuttle/RTF/ISS and is unlikly to come from Congress.

And even if they did magicly come up with $2Bn, Earth-based telescopes with spy sat derived optics are superior and available for a fraction of the price.

GCNRevenger · 2004-08-26 10:58:59

I suppose that many have read this article, right deagle?

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hubble-0 … e-04p.html

"If HOP - or a spacecraft like it - is viable, then obviously a second HOP could be flown carrying copies of Hubble's other two current instruments (not including the mostly-redundant NICMOS).

So, at a total cost of a little over $1.3 billion - the same or less than the proposed robotic or manned Hubble repair missions that would renovate the telescope for one final lifespan of 3 1/2 years - the same four primary Hubble instruments could be flown and operated for a comparable period on two new orbiting telescopes."

"In short, the case is extremely strong for not flying a 2007 Hubble repair mission of any sort, but instead letting the first Hubble die a natural death and replacing it over the next four or five years with two new vastly cheaper telescopic satellites- even if these end up costing somewhat more than the total $1.3 billion that Dr. Norman suggests.

Administrator O'Keefe's chief rationale for flying the repair robot is that this would allow the development of new space technology - for the automated repair of orbiting satellites - which the US will need at some point in the future anyway.

But O'Keefe's ignorance of basic details of aerospace technology is now infamous. And this is not the first time he has been tricked into backing a seriously questionable major new program by his more experienced NASA underlings. They hold a strong and predictable desire to keep the agency's total funding level pumped as high as possible, whether it's justified or not."

"Moreover, "Space News" reported on August 13 that NASA's official $1.6 billion is actually its private minimum cost estimate for the repair robot: "An internal NASA study completed in recent weeks, according to government and industry sources, estimated the cost of such an undertaking to be $1.6 billion to $2.3 billion."

And any such servicing mission - manned or robotic - has a 50-50 chance of prolonging Hubble's working lifetime by only another 3 1/2 years."

SpaceNut · 2004-08-26 11:22:25

So we let Hubble die and wait for JSWT around 2011 to be placed at the L1 zone.

Is the reason for the delay of the JSWT technical or is it funding?

If it were funding related then it would be possible to shift the Hubble repair rescue funds to speed up the process of delivery. Such that the time between the demise of Hubble and its placement of the new telescope is kept to a minimum.

GCNRevenger · 2004-08-26 11:49:18

With the rate at which ground-based telescopes are advancing, it is a valid question if any visible space telescope is needed... Build a single Ultraviolet light space telescope with an optical camera thrown in as a bonus, and call it "Hubble-II."

What bugs me is why we can't build long-life gryoscopes or batteries... if we built bigger, slower spinning gyros wouldn't they last longer, albeit be heavier? And is there any alternative to the standard batteries? Though if we place the telescope in an Earth/Sun Lagrange orbit, then batteries will hardly be nessesarry, since the telescope would be in constant sunlight.

SpaceNut · 2004-08-26 12:01:42

Batteries have a two fold effect when joined to solar array collectors, one is the storage of a charge for later use when the solar panel collections drop off but they also act like a capacitor in that they equalize the charge to an average voltage. So even if you throw out the batteries you would still need a large capacitance bank to equalize the voltage for use under changing loads.

Changing the rotation speed of a gyro changes the counter balancing response time.

GCNRevenger · 2004-08-26 12:26:35

Yes, some kind of load-balencing storage will be a nessesity, but the batteries do seem to have a pretty short lifespan. If they can be kept small and light enough, at the very least you could pack fresh spares that could be switched on as needed.

Good point about the gyros being less responsive, but how responsive does a telescope need to be?

SpaceNut · 2004-08-26 13:36:32

The battery company that I believe made them for Hubble.
http://www.srbatteries.com/aviation.htm

SR Batteries can supply you with custom made nickel cadmium battery packs and charging systems that will meet or exceed your needs.

The problem with nickel cadmium cells is called cell membrane barrier development which reduces the effective capacity of recharge current depth. They need to be fully discharged and then fully recharged before using. If one use this style and then charges it before it is fully discharge the barrier starts to develop limiting the availability to store a charge. The barrier only sometimes can be broken down by an over voltage applied charge but not always.

SpaceNut · 2004-10-08 11:02:14

Some words by Steven Beckwith, the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute on the Hubble.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/hubble-04r.html

Closing comments got me.. do we all feel the same way about those that are active in regards to space. They are hero's thou there names may not be known...

Passport clerk looked up at Beckwith and asked, are you a scientist?
You astronomers are so lucky, the woman said. You live among the stars -- not among the people.

SpaceNut · 2004-10-21 07:27:05

Well finally here is an article about the risk assessment for the Hubble re-entry if it should come to that. End of article gets into the actual calculations.

Experts Calculate Risk of Uncontrolled Hubble Re-entry
http://space.com/scienceastronomy/hst_s … 41021.html

If NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST) fireballs into Earth’s atmosphere on its own, the reentry of that massive orbiting observatory violates the space agency’s own safety standard.

Alexander Sheppard · 2004-10-22 00:32:39

My impression is that it is totally disgusting to be trashing something as useful as Hubble while going ahead with huge corporate welfare projects like ISS and SSTS. It just goes to show that useful science is not the main priority at NASA and hasn't been for quite some time. People are quite right saying that the "domestic fallout", I think that is what one poster phrased it as, would be significant if the plug was pulled on this massive waste. But we should not have any illusions about international treaties. That is not a comparable barrier to removing ISS--it may be there, but it isn't at the same level, IMO, as reasons of "domestic fallout", certainly not under this administration.

SpaceNut · 2004-10-22 06:05:44

Also we must look forward into the crystal ball for when the ISS mission or at least the funding to manning of the ISS has dried up. For Nasa's plan is to do the same thing with the station but can you picture the much larger ISS not coming down as they would have thought or had liked.

Palomar · 2004-10-22 07:33:18

My impression is that it is totally disgusting to be trashing something as useful as Hubble while going ahead with huge corporate welfare projects like ISS and SSTS. It just goes to show that useful science is not the main priority at NASA and hasn't been for quite some time.

*Yeah, I've got a real love/hate thing going for NASA. Most missions (probes, rovers) go well, even splendidly.

But this matter with Hubble is unforgiveable.

Too much of NASA's overall "mission" today seems to be riding on the coattails of its own celebrity, nursing an overweening ego and trying to keep up appearances. Which is just oh-so-typical of the America of today.

They're only doing good part-time. That's not good enough.

--Cindy

GCNRevenger · 2004-10-24 20:55:45

Pulling out of the ISS agreement is a bigger deal then it sounds, like the US bartering to launch the ESA Columbus module in return for "free" hardware... the money has already changed hands, promises have been made, and there would be a fiscal as well as political price to pay to the international partners in the matter. This treaty is a contract. Plus, there is almost no easy way that the ESA/RSA can finish the ISS without Shuttle, so the ISS will be severely hamperd without us finishing the job... and they won't be too happy about that either. It is indeed a signifigant legal barrier to pull the plug.

"My impression is that it is totally disgusting to be trashing something as useful as Hubble..."

"But this matter with Hubble is unforgiveable."

Really? Why is that? Hubble is obsolete, its abilities can essentially be matched by cutting edge ground based telescopes with modern computer-aided optics, which are being built right now today. An entirely new space telescope could also be built for the same money as trying to fix this one that would work with less risk, longer life, and superior capabilities. It might even use the replacement cameras for HST.

From a sentimental standpoint yes, it feels like such a loss in light of what Hubble gave us and it will be missed, but pragmaticly speaking trying to keep Hubble around is clearly a bad investment. Letting Hubble go is not "disgusting" or "outrageous" at all from a scientific investment point of view.

LtlPhysics · 2004-10-28 15:05:11

Perhaps one or two of our partners could pull out of the ISS agreement first...

Or, could it be that the shuttle simply cannot be re-certified for manned flight, not for $2 billion or $5 billion or whatever.

Earthlings get to display three old orbiters in their museums.

GCNRevenger · 2004-10-28 15:35:53

Even then, even if we did manage to spare time in the launch schedule for a HST service mission, and even if the crew risk were negligible versus an ISS mission, even then its a bad investment. The cost of one HST mission with today's cost of about $1Bn a flight and several hundred million more for the mission, it would be a bad investment.

We are better at building space telescopes then we used to be, and today we can do it well enough that it is simply a better idea to build a new telescope. A new one will be more powerful, last longer, and cost about the same or less then it will take to fix HST.

And a flight to Hubble is more dangerous then to ISS because of the flimsy TPS on Shuttle, and even if it wern't, Shuttle isn't the safest of vehicles anyway. Here on Earth, optical telescopes on the ground will soon be superior to Hubble, and optical space telescopes in general will be a bad investment.

Fixing Hubble through any available method is a mistake... its as simple as that.

Alexander Sheppard · 2004-10-29 13:15:53

Well, I think you raise some points that are definitely worth considering. For instance, any servicing mission would have to be done with the Shuttle, which costs somewhere close to a billion, as you say. Could we do better research on the ground with that money? It is certainly at least worth considering. However, as far as I can see you are incorrect in saying that Hubble is simply "obsolete". The astronomy community seems to say that although ground based telescopes have higher resolution, Hubble can see in wavelengths that don't penetrate the atmosphere. So things are not as clear cut as you are making out.

The main substance of my point was, however, that it is terrible that useful research is suffering at the hands of the SSTS and ISS black holes. My impression is that it would be significantly cheaper for the US to simply pull out now and reimburse parter nations with the money they would lose than to continue operating this nonsense until 2015.

GCNRevenger · 2004-10-29 22:04:30

Hubble can see from the near-IR region through the optical into the Ultraviolet I believe... SIRTF and JWST can do the IR, ground based telescopes can do optical, which leaves only the Ultraviolet region which is partially absorbed by our atmosphere. I think that Chandra can get close to the UV region, but not quite, so thats about the only thing Hubble has that is unique. How important is UV? It isn't that wonderful for spectroscopy, so how much is it worth to keep this capability? Its main claim to fame, optical imaging, it is pretty much obsolete... I wonder if the astronomy community is harping Hubble because of sentimentality and to help keep their field in the American public's lexicon (and hence funding).

Anyway, I don't think that any Shuttle HST mission can be mounted for less then $1.5Bn or so, and will only last a few more years tops. Some parts of HST cannot be replaced on orbit, the thing only intended for a major overhaul on the ground. A brand new optical/UV space telescope would cost about this much or a bit less, and last for years longer then a re-re-re-refurbished HST would, plus you could probobly put it into a higher orbit (the batteries might last longer too).

Fixing Hubble does not make sense for any reason except for UV astronomy being somehow vitally important and NASA is able to get money to fix HST but not able to get a little less for a new scope. And I doubt that is a big enough reason anyway.

SpaceNut · 2004-11-01 09:47:10

Great article Robots and Hubble: a bad idea? as written by Jeff joust on the space review site. It gets into all the pro's and cons for such a mission and also some of the various options for saving it.

Robots and Hubble: a bad idea?

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2004-11-04 22:12:09

Hubble has been great, it should be saved

Grypd · 2004-11-05 04:05:41

Why?

GCNRevenger · 2004-11-05 08:38:05

No, Hubble should not be saved. There is no defenseable reason to save Hubble except for the sentimental/public relations value, it is quite clear that it would be a better alternative to simply build a brand new space telescope in both cost, risk, and superior science.

Hubble has been with us a long time, it has had a long life... but its day is over.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2004-11-05 13:49:56

Hubble should be saved because it has brought us some fantastic information and new discoveries on our universe. Unlike some such as GCNRevenger says in letting hubble get destroyed....... :down:
right now the US should push ahead in trying to save Hubble as the Europeans were strong partners in supporting hubble in space. If the US let's Hubble brun up it will send a negative message out to possible future partnetships
there is no alternative to hubble, and the US will not be able to replace it so quickly as some suggest I need not remind everyone of the safety record and the risks and tragic happenings that may occur, the world was reminded by events such as when space shuttle Columbia broke up or the Challenger disaster, also there is the lack of financial supprot now with the cost of Iraq sucking billions out of the US economy, some say there could be more cutbacks in the future due to rising debts and rising medicare costs...
There is a replacement due for Hubble the James Webb Space Telescope but it won't get going for a long time, so astronomers will be back in the dark again and the JWST will only see in the visible spectrum. With large funding needed for the Bush vision to Mars some expect cut backs on other projects in the future such as JIMO and JWST, as newscientits and nationalgeographic once wrote -
once Hubble fails scientists could be back in the dark ages for some time

GCNRevenger · 2004-11-05 14:20:50

Ah yes, the blessed and all-important international partners... actually, Hubble has pretty well out-lived its life time, so the international partners have gotten a pretty good deal out of it, especially since they haven't had to pay much of the ~$4-5 billion dollars that the US has spent fixing it. If the international partners want to see Hubble keep operating, maybe they can chip in... say... a billion dollars to help us fix it? Yeah, they've been real helpful with HST...

I don't think the $2Bn needed to fix Hubble in only two or three years will magically materialize for a robotic repair mission. Since it has to be done on a rush job before Hubble loses attitude control sometime in 2007-2008 (maybe 09'), this money has to come all at once, and it has to come right now and work start before the end of this year. If Hubble loses power or attitude control, then it will be impossible to dock with it... and this time is fast aproaching.

And lets say the prototype experimental robot is built in only two years somehow... There won't be any time to test it throughly or the automated docking system, which will both be brand new technologies. This combined with the signifigant chance that Hubble will lose attitude control by then makes the whole proposition very risky. Some say only a bit over a 30% chance of sucess, a 1 in 3 chance of sucess.

And then, this mission will only extend the Hubbles' life by around two or three years. Let me just say, big deal, a billion dollars for only one years' worth of use is an awful bargain, and at the end of those 2-3 years, Hubble will be burned up in the atmosphere anyway and we'll be back "in the dark" again no matter what we do.

Ground based telescopes, with adaptive optics which were recently invented, are capable of giving the same or better optical telescope power for 1/20th the price too, this is a new technology and telescopes using it are being assembled & tested right now today this minute.

If we decided we needed a space telescope, for UV or UV/Vis coupled imaging, we could build a brand new telescope using the same type of mirror as the one on JWST except with regular Al/Ag coating and have the same power. It would be a little bit cheaper most likly then fixing Hubble, it would operate in a higher orbit and provide better images, and it will almost certainly work unlike the risky Hubble repair mission. No it won't be built overnight, but it is fairly easy to build... Astronomers will be without a UV/Vis space telescope for a few years, but they will survive, especially with the new super ground-based telescopes being built.

Any way you cut it, any way your aproach it, there is no sound justification to try and save Hubble except for public relations.

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Re: Hubble mistake - Action needed

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