Hubble Mistake **2** - Action still Needed

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-19 04:40:21

The first Hubble Mistake thread was well over three hundred now, so perhaps we should have a new thread for it.

I was looking at the GOA report which said...

Although a shuttle servicing mission is one of the options for servicing the Hubble Space Telescope, to date, NASA does not have a definitive estimate of the potential cost. At our request, NASA prepared an estimate of the funding needed for a shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble. NASA estimates the cost at between $1.7 billion to $2.4 billion. However, documentary support for portions of the estimate is insufficient. For example, NASA officials told us that the Hubble project's sustaining engineering costs run $9 to 10 million per month, but they were unable to produce a calculation or documents to support the estimate because they do not track these costs by servicing mission. Additionally, the agency has acknowledged that many uncertainties, such as the lack of a design solution for autonomous inspection and repair of the shuttle, could change the estimate.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=14843]LINK TO REPORT

The engineering costs per month seem a bit high to me (though I'm terrible with money )

Graeme

Vir Stellae · 2004-12-19 09:52:35

1.7 to 2.4 billion to repair it... Did I read it right?? and the thing will die in a couple of years anyway?

Hell, we could build a new telescope 2.3 x 10^34243 times better in every conceivable way than hubble for hat cost, and make it last many times longer....

The only use I see for Hubble is as a test target for new ASAT weaponry.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-19 11:32:53

Each Shuttle shot costs around $1.1Bn each, and thats just to put crew and no payload up. Another $500-600M+ for Hubble parts, lengthy training, engineering planning for such a delicate operation... yeah, $1.7Bn sounds about right for the lower end of such a mission. Which would only add another three years or so to HST's life, and it would break again by 2010 or so.

For that kind of money, we could buy two or three new Hubbles and put them on Atlas-V rockets... If we need a space telescope at all given massive improvements in ground based scopes'.

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-19 12:09:29

For that kind of money, we could buy two or three new Hubbles and put them on Atlas-V rockets... If we need a space telescope at all given massive improvements in ground based scopes'.

And every penny we spend on ground based telescopes can be wasted thanks to the weather that we can't yet control.

Graeme

Commodore · 2004-12-19 12:32:33

Would the astronomy community be happier if we had a Hubble 2 program in the works?

Its not like they don't still have piles of data from Hubble they haven't worked through yet. So even if there is a couple years between Hubbles death and Hubble 2s launch, there will still be things to do. If you ask me thats a fair trade when theres a new, far more advanced platform waiting in the wings.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-19 12:51:47

For that kind of money, we could buy two or three new Hubbles and put them on Atlas-V rockets... If we need a space telescope at all given massive improvements in ground based scopes'.
And every penny we spend on ground based telescopes can be wasted thanks to the weather that we can't yet control.
Graeme

Weather doesn't cover all the Earth all the time, and exposure times can be kept short by using a very large telescope... Hey, we already have those!

Hubble doesn't have continuous viewing either... there is kind of a PLANET in the way for a good chunk of every orbit.

There just isn't any good scientific or economic rationale behind saving Hubble, and not such a good case for an optical space telescope at all.

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-19 14:06:00

Weather doesn't cover all the Earth all the time, and exposure times can be kept short by using a very large telescope... Hey, we already have those!
Hubble doesn't have continuous viewing either... there is kind of a PLANET in the way for a good chunk of every orbit.

I can predict where the PLANET would be on Hubble's orbit and plan my images from that. Can you predict the weather as well as that?

Graeme

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-19 19:11:19

With reasonable accuracy, yes. You could also have multiple telescopes worldwide operating at different times too.

Another advantage of a new telescope, that it would be placed out at the L1 Lagrange point where it would be unobstructed for intents and purposes continuously. This would also make the batteries last much long compared to a LEO telescope.

Hubble is in LEO mainly because its supposed to be serviced by Shuttle, and because its so heavy. Since any kind of repair mission will be more expensive then the telescope, and since we can now make flexible mirrors of requisit quality, then neither of these would apply to a new telescope.

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-19 22:28:07

So now instead of spending a small amount on keeping Hubble going, you wish to position a number of optically large telescopes at various points around the Earth to counter the effects of weather, fine, but it'll cost more than servicing Hubble in the end. I don't think we yet have adaptive optics that are good enough to take on the job of our atmosphere in all locations around the globe - we're close though. Building a new space telescope and sending it out to L1, then having to maintain it will cost more than Hubble IMO.

Graeme

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-19 22:41:16

Um, Graeme, do you know how much an HST repair mission is going to cost? For a Shuttle mission, the estimate right now is $1.7 billion dollars. A robot repair mission will cost a little over $2.0 billion dollars. This is alot of money, not a "small amount" as you incorrectly put it.

Thats correct. A trio of large optical telescope built on the ground will probobly cost quite a bit less then $500-600 million dollars that a cut of a Shuttle repair mission would run for, or a quarter what HST repair robots would. Adaptive optics are just as good as Hubble through most conditions and exsisting large telescopes today are being retrofitted with the technology right now today.

Building a new telescope will not cost more then a HST servicing mission. In fact, a telescope has been proposed that would cost about $800M, including Atlas-V launch vehicle. It will be designed to last many years, unlike Hubbles' "we can always come fix it" design, and will not be serviced at all over its lifetime. After all, it would be cheaper to replace it then to go fix it. The slow orbit and near continuous sunlight at the Lagrange point would place less ware on the batteries and gyroscopes too, the two main things that are "used up" on Hubble.

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-19 22:54:30

Um, Graeme, do you know how much an HST repair mission is going to cost?

Erm, yes, see the first post to this thread :;):

Thats correct. A trio of large optical telescope built on the ground will probobly cost quite a bit less then $500-600 million dollars that a cut of a Shuttle repair mission would run for, or a quarter what HST repair robots would. Adaptive optics are just as good as Hubble through most conditions and exsisting large telescopes today are being retrofitted with the technology right now today.

You said multiple in your previous post not three (yes I know three is a multiple) but I was thinking of many more than that to counter the effects of the weather. Your comment about adaptive optics says it all though 'as good as Hubble through most conditions.

Building a new telescope will not cost more then a HST servicing mission. In fact, a telescope has been proposed that would cost about $800M, including Atlas-V launch vehicle. It will be designed to last many years, unlike Hubbles' "we can always come fix it" design, and will not be serviced at all over its lifetime. After all, it would be cheaper to replace it then to go fix it. The slow orbit and near continuous sunlight at the Lagrange point would place less ware on the batteries and gyroscopes too, the two main things that are "used up" on Hubble.

So the replacement costs 800M dollars (can't find my dollar sign even though its supposed to be a US keyboard) and is cheaper to replace than fix, under this scheme an object costing nearly a billion would be discarded after the first fault, which could be days after deployment - now thats not good economic sense.

At the end of the day, I'm not going to convince you that saving Hubble is worth it, and you'll not convice me its worth letting it burn away

Graeme

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-19 23:45:17

If you are not willing to be convinced regardless of any evidences or facts, then you aren't considering the issue rationally.

However many telescopes needed isn' that important, because any number of telescopes would obviously cost much less then any HST repair mission and likly less then any new space telescope... Plus would last years longer.

But more then that... astronomy can live with a little weather. The stars will be there tomorrow too. The savings of not bothering with a space telescope are well worth telling whiney "but HUBBLE!" astronomers: "You'll live. Get over it." Astronomers are attached to Hubble for sentimental reasons, which are justified since it made their profession "inspiring" again, but as a scientific investment there is no rationale to saving Hubble.

The whole point of building Hubble was for just one thing... avoid atmospheric scattering. Since this isn't a problem anymore now that we have adaptive optics, the whole rationale behind a space telescope is questionable. There isn't anything a space scope' can DO that is unique anymore... The science of telescopes has advanced since then.

"under this scheme an object costing nearly a billion would be discarded after the first fault, which could be days after deployment - now thats not good economic sense."

Why not? Billion dollar communications satelites are launched all the time to high orbits, and they can't be fixed if somthing happens.

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-20 00:00:37

If you are not willing to be convinced regardless of any evidences or facts, then you aren't considering the issue rationally.

I could say the same to you, it depends on your viewpoint, if you are not willing to consider your viewpoint may be wrong then I could say thats having a closed mind to others views. I am willing to be convinced, my mind is not closed on the subject, but I've yet to see a convincing argument.

However many telescopes needed isn' that important, because any number of telescopes would obviously cost much less then any HST repair mission and likly less then any new space telescope... Plus would last years longer.

Excuse me? So it will cost less to build a grid of ground based telescopes 100 miles apart across the surface of the Earth?

telling whiney "but HUBBLE!" astronomers: "You'll live. Get over it."

I'll let that pass shall I, as this should be kept a polite forum without need to resort to namecalling.

The whole point of building Hubble was for just one thing... avoid atmospheric scattering. Since this isn't a problem anymore now that we have adaptive optics, the whole rationale behind a space telescope is questionable. There isn't anything a space scope' can DO that is unique anymore... The science of telescopes has advanced since then.

Thats fine, we'll just have to hope every astronomical event happens under clear skies in future, until the weather beating grid of telescopes with adaptive optics is built.

"under this scheme an object costing nearly a billion would be discarded after the first fault, which could be days after deployment - now thats not good economic sense."
Why not? Billion dollar communications satelites are launched all the time to high orbits, and they can't be fixed if somthing happens.

On the one hand you say 1.7 billion is too much to spend on a repair mission, on the other you are prepared to throw away a billion dollars at random.

Graeme

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-20 00:34:01

I have considerd all the facts, particularly offerd by the HST alternative report given to NASA, and they add up to the picture that there is no grounds whatsoever that a Hubble servicing mission is a good investment.

Your opinion that repairing Hubble is a good investment is simply wrong

Again, replacing Hubble with a space telescope of similar power will cost less then half that of Hubble repair missions, would last two or three (maybe more) times longer, and would operate in a better location with even less atmospheric disturbance than LEO. This alone makes Hubble a bad investment.

Second, you also don't need a thousand ground telescopes... A few well placed installations, particularly on high moutains where there simply isn't that much weather, would work just fine. There are bascially zero astronomical events that are so time dependant that you can't wait a few hours. And we already have telescopes in many of these places, add the adaptive secondaries to them for only tens of millions.

"On the one hand you say 1.7 billion is too much to spend on a repair mission, on the other you are prepared to throw away a billion dollars at random."

It isn't at random. Get that out of your head. A brand new telescope would have a much better chance of working then a robot HST repair mission too according to the Hubble alternatives risk assesment. They place the sucess of a robot mission around 30-50%.

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-20 00:39:15

It isn't at random

Who plans the failures then

Graeme

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-20 00:46:58

There are bascially zero astronomical events that are so time dependant that you can't wait a few hours.

But when these astronomical events do occur we need to be able to see them or images such as these http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsde … age/d]LINK will be missed. There are time dependent events in astronomy that we don't want to miss for the sake of a couple of billion dollars.

Graeme

SpaceNut · 2004-12-20 05:57:48

One question what do ground telescope cost to build, this includes land purchase and fighting the public perception of we do not want it here additudes. Then there is the fact that earth based telescopes never die they just fade away into the sun set.
Space telescopes are not the same...

We need a telescope topic area for all of them...

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-20 09:32:34

There are bascially zero astronomical events that are so time dependant that you can't wait a few hours.
But when these astronomical events do occur we need to be able to see them or images such as these http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsde … age/d]LINK will be missed. There are time dependent events in astronomy that we don't want to miss for the sake of a couple of billion dollars.
Graeme

The comet impact on Jupiter is a once in a millenium fluke. We got really lucky. Spending a billion or two dollars to look for more such happenings is a foolish investment because of the extremely low chance of anything like that happening during the telescopes' lifetime. In fact, since ground based telescopes don't have a practical life limit besides obsolesence, they are infact better suited for such work.

If memory serves, Hubble never even saw the comet impacts themselves anyway, Galileo did, and Hubble only imaged the black spots some hours and days later.

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-21 05:00:48

So what would you invest in for a telescope, in earlier threads you say we can replace Hubble with a better space telescope cheaper than repairing it, then you say you can do just as well with ground based scopes with adaptive optics.

Graeme

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-21 09:29:58

I am presenting not one, but two very good reasons not to try and repair it besides the fact that any repair will only last a few more years.

SpaceNut · 2004-12-21 09:53:23

So that would mean you would throw away your car just be cause it will need more maintenance later? ???

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-21 10:25:26

Yes I know it is counter-intuitive to the "recycling = good" thing we've had drilled into our heads, but I'm not making this stuff up. Its true that a better telescope that can last longer then Hubble can be had for the same or less money, and its true that ground based telescopes have essentially reached optical parity with Hubble... except they are far bigger and more powerful.

About this analogy... If I could afford a brand new car that would last three times as long, get better milage, and wouldn't need any repair for its entire life (which is possible with gyro/battery conservation at Lagrange)...

...Or spend the same money hiring a mechanic who might fix the old antique at a 2-5% risk of his own life and then the engine would blow in only two or three years at best. Same money. Buying parts and custom tools (robot) would cost 25% more and have a low chance of sucess (50/50 change at best) for only the same number of additional years and it won't even run as well as it did when it was new.

And thats the way it is. Space vehicles has been expendable since the beginning, satelites are thrown away regularly because they are obsolete by the end of their lives and cannot economically be gutted and repaired... and Hubble is among them. Any repair mission of any kind will simply cost more to accomplish then it would to replace Hubble, if any OST were needed at all, and you would get years and years less service and inferior performance out of Hubble V1.5 then a brand new OST.

Euler · 2004-12-21 16:43:31

Weather is not really a huge issue for ground based telescopes. Most large scientific telescopes are based in areas that are both extremely dry and very high altitude. These are places that often go for months at a time without seeing any clouds.

One question what do ground telescope cost to build, this includes land purchase and fighting the public perception of we do not want it here additudes.

The land is generally cheap, and there is not usually much trouble with people who don't want a telescope nearby. In fact, there often aren't any people nearby at all.

IIRC, the VLT array cost about $400 million to build. It is a n array of 4 8.2 meter telescopes and several smaller 'scopes(all with adaptive optics and an assortment of the most advanced astronomical instruments ever built) that can operate as an interferometer when necessary. It's capabilities are far beyond Hubble's in both resolution and light gathering power.

$1.7 billion is about as much as the cost estimates for OWL. OWL(overwhelmingly large telescope) would be a single aperture 100m diameter telescope. Needless to say, for most purposes OWL>>Hubble.

So what would you invest in for a telescope, in earlier threads you say we can replace Hubble with a better space telescope cheaper than repairing it, then you say you can do just as well with ground based scopes with adaptive optics.

For a space telescope, I think I would go for a planet-finding infrared interferometer. Ideally, it would be able to image planets down to Earth's size or smaller.

SpaceNut · 2004-12-22 06:03:09

MacDonald, Dettwiler wins $6.5M contract for Hubble rendezvous work

The contract has been awarded for technology enabling a spacecraft rendezvous at the Hubble Space Telescope.

"The spacecraft that is destined to rendezvous and dock with, and de-orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope will use this solution," the firm said in a release. "This precise capability for unmanned operations has been identified by NASA as one of the keys to future space operations."
Similar technology, the result of MDA's $11.7-million contract in 2001, has already been delivered for use in a military satellite mission to be launched within the next few months.

MDA to Provide Key Solution for Future Space Operations
More links on this page at bottom.

GraemeSkinner · 2004-12-22 07:33:37

The land is generally cheap, and there is not usually much trouble with people who don't want a telescope nearby. In fact, there often aren't any people nearby at all.

Was there not a case last year when an observatory had to be delayed in its build or moved due to objections by locals? I've tried to find some reference to it but no luck so far.

Graeme

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