Finally, a sensible solution to the Hubble debate - ... that we can all agree on...maybe.

GCNRevenger · 2005-04-27 09:39:53

And now for the "activists!" speech from Bob:

"...the Hubble can see things that no ground-based telescope can see, or will ever see. It took decades of hard work by very dedicated people to create Hubble, and an equivalent space-based replacement is decades away."

Except that statement is not true. Telescopes adaptive optics are becomming powerful enough with the advent of high-end computing and microchip-style secondary mirror servos that ground based telescopes will soon match Hubble even in the Visible range. They are already superior to Hubble in the IR/near-IR range, though will be superceded by JWST.

This leaves only three things that UV/Vis space telescopes excell at: wide-field imaging, low-noise imaging, and UV imaging. Hubble can't do the first one very well, since it was never intended to. The second one its not that great at, since there is still rareified gasses in LEO, and it interferes with the UV imaging too. Hubble Origins Probe, however, will have the wide-field imager and will orbit higher, which means it will do everything Hubble does... and more.

Building HOP will take a little while, but not that long. The mirror is in storage, two of the three cameras are in storage, it would use a similar design that we know works. It isn't unreasonable to think that if we started now, that HOP would be ready within five years or so of when Hubble's batteries/gyros give out.

"Mr. O'Keefe justified his decision by claiming that Shuttle missions to Hubble had to cease because they were unsafe... since the ISS cannot house a complete shuttle crew for long anyway"

It is unsafe, because Shuttle is unsafe. Increasing the number of flights by 10% (two service missions) increases the risk by 10%. The ISS safe-haven doesn't need to house the astronauts for long, only long enough to sortie another orbiter. Relying on its own supplies only, Shuttle alone would not last long enough to ensure a rescue Shuttle could arrive, and even then the maneuver to transfer crews would be very hazardous.

NASA personnel were quick to leak the relevant data to the press

Leak? It was leaked data? Then this illicit information is thusly suspect. How do we know that Bob didn't just make it up to support his claims? He has done it before when trying to assasinate VSE's EOR mission arcitecture.

"...was more reminiscent of a Stalin-era show trial than a technical debate... The damage done to NASA and the new space initiative by Mr. O'Keefe's irrational actions.. not wasted to validate the capricious decisions of a Philistine careerist bureaucrat."

Gee, I get the feeling that Bob doesn't like O'Keefe. You wouldn't think that this kind of thing would taint his opinion of Hubble, wouldja? ...Perish the thought.

"there is a 1/10,000 chance that the resulting debris would strike someone... It is irresponsible, irrational, and immoral in the extreme. (to pay to deorbit Hubble)"

Ummmm no, its a 1-in-10,000 chance the debris would hit a populated area, not hit a single person. If several tones of burning hot supersonic metal hit a city, I assure you, more then one person would die... Again, Bob is not stupid, he is trying to play down the nessesity of deorbiting HST so that its expense will seem silly, and so then use it for Shuttle service mission budget padding. He is being deceptive again to support his personal emotional desire reguardless of the reality of the situation.

"but it only costs an additional $100 million or so to fly five Shuttles in a given year instead of four"

Untrue! The cost of the tanks & boosters alone would be ~$120M, is Bob actually claiming that the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to refurbish a Shuttle between flights would be free? And the payload packaging? Vehicle integration? Launch pad checkout? Flight operations? Hardly... even $300-400M just for the actual flight and not any work associated with Hubble is too low.

And even if it wern't, you'd be getting the same number of telescope years per-dollar with HOP, and with a better instrument, and without the risks of it shorting out or Shuttle getting stranded... And of course, the safest Shuttle mission is no mission at all.

"The decision to cancel the Hubble mission thus completely undermines the President's call for human planetary exploration."

No, infact it does the opposit: VSE at its core requires NASA to make good decisions on where to spend its money and what to take risks on. Hubble is a bad decision on both counts.

GCNRevenger · 2005-04-27 09:48:21

"In an article printed in the Wall Street Journal February 20, WSJ science editor Sharon Begley blasted NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe's decision to abandon the Hubble Space Telescope. Begley's article was based on interviewing numerous scientists, astronauts, congressmen, and engineers, including Mars Society president Robert Zubrin."

Lets see here...:
-Astronomers: think that space telescopes should be exempt from rational analysis? The people that run Hubble advocate HOP.
-Astronauts: who are often happy to lemming themselves, you'll always find a crew no matter how risky.
-Congressmen: are often swayed by the ignorance of the people calling their offices, unwilling to do what it right in the face of what is popular.
-Engineers: which ones? The anonymous ones Bob got his info from?
-Bob himself: do I need to say anything?

"...brave Shuttle program engineers in defiance of a gag order from NASA headquarters..."

Suuuuure.

"You're not going to launch the shuttle again unless you
think you've fixed the problem that took out Columbia, so that one [requiring safe haven] won't happen again"

Nonsense. If there are a half-dozen astronauts up there that will die without a rescue Shuttle, NASA would rightfully ignore the problem and do the rescue. The difference is, the ISS gives you time to do this and a proven way to dock, trying to get to a stricken Shuttle at Hubble will not.

The complain that the SSMEs are a bigger safety risk for an ISS flight then a Hubble mission is suprious, since the SSMEs have become extremely reliable in their new Block-III third incarnation.

"Fight for Hubble. Fight for NASA. Fight for Science. Fight for Truth."

...Like good little mindless lemmings...

GCNRevenger · 2005-04-27 10:44:32

And as a side note, what exactly is a "design life?"

What I take it to mean: When the engineers build something, they build it with a reasonable high probability that it will work for at least X number of years. Beyond this many, the device may still operate, but the probability that it will stay working has dropped below the "reasonable" threshold.

Now that Hubble has exceeded this point, relying on it to operate another ten whole years is a terrible risk, as the probability of failure increases as time progresses. Already one of the power supply lines to a camera bay have failed, and many of Hubble's parts (even its doors) are worn out.

The Hubble AAS Alternatives sutdy predicts that the chance that Hubble will continue functioning until battery/gyro exaustion after a fourth servicing mission isn't that good, 60% or lower perhaps.

Lets stop this stupid talk of trying to coax all of Hubble's pieces to keep working forever, they obviously will not, and you can't replace all of Hubble's aging parts. Stop trying to replace the worn out bits of pieces you can fix on orbit, because there are plenty more that will doom Hubble you can't fix... Instead, send up a new telescope, where everything is brand new.

So, would you want to flip a coin with $1.5Bn and years of telescope time lost? I sure don't.

Nuno Cardoso · 2005-04-28 02:28:45

Congratulations GCNRevenger, you are truly an asset for this thread. It´s about time people stop letting their emotions get in the way of clear thinking about Hubble´s fate.

But i suspect this is a lost battle.

Nuno Martinho Da Cunha Cardoso
The Author of:"The Diagonal Method:An Alternative Approach To Arithmetics."

Martian Republic · 2005-04-28 09:00:51

I see trying to fix the Hubble Telescopes is a lost cause even if we do try to fix Hubble Telescopes. It just flat going to fall apart in the next 2-4 years or so, with or without maintaince. It just flat wearing out and need a complete overhaul of almost the entire Telescopes with replacement parts on massive scale. We currently don't have the infrastructure in place to do the maintaince that needs to be done in space and we can't take it the ISS to be maintaince or bring it back to the Earth either. So in the end all we are going to be doing is choosing the spend 1.5 to 2 billion in failed attempt or temporary delaying action to choosing to just dumping it and put up a new Telescopes.

Larry,

LtlPhysics · 2005-04-28 22:49:28

GN, you're just banging your head against the wall. Maybe Griffin doesn't know there is a properly ground mirror in storage. Maybe he doesn't know that an observing instrument had to be removed from the Hubble so NASA could fix its fuzzy focus.

The last of the great mirrors is doomed to rot in the shed.

-------

NASA calculates that if Hubble were to re-enter without direction, there is a 1/10,000 chance that the resulting debris would strike someone. That works out to a probability of one life saved per $3 trillion spent. If life-saving is the mission, $300 million could do a lot more good spent on tsunami relief, body armor for the troops, highway safety barriers, childhood vaccinations, swimming lessons, take your pick.

Humanitarian and scientific budgets cannot be directly compared, because they serve different objectives. However the proposed Hubble deorbit budget is NOT a scientific expense; its purpose is to save lives, and thus it must be considered a humanitarian expense, and judged accordingly. A reasonable estimate is that one life is saved for every $3,000 spent on Tsunami relief. At that rate, the decision to waste $300 million in potentially useful humanitarian funds on deorbiting Hubble amounts to the willful killing of roughly 100,000 people – mostly children. It is irresponsible, irrational, and immoral in the extreme.

So which is it? You said the comparison should not be made but you went ahead and made it anyway. And then, you compared the cost of of de-orbiting Hubble as being equivalent to the death of 100,000 people! Do you think NASA
would give that $300 million to your favorite charity? Specious.

Austin Stanley · 2005-04-29 00:42:43

These Emotional arguments for saving Hubble would not
have happened had NASA Been Keen enough to see it coming.
I could see it coming, Since I was disappointed with descision
to not service it and bring it down. Once you look at what is
replacing Hubble you realize it's a Museum Piece by now.
How much better would NASA's desicsion have been received if they said they were going to send up a Module
to Kick it up to PERMANMENT ORBIT as a Space Monument.
I think a 2,000 mile High Orbit would keep Hubble around for what 100 years?
Who knows maybe then It will considered an archaelogical Reclic of late 20th century high tech.

I always favored bringing the Hubble down and putting it up in the Smithothian as a museum peice. It's value as a telescope may be limited, but as a peice of history it is priceless. This was (IIRC) the orginal servicing plan for it back in the 1970's when they were both designed. Unfortunantly either the Hubble got to big or the shuttle to small, so that bringing it down intact is now impossible. Here is some irony for you. The only Shuttle that would have had a cargo bay big enough to retrieve the Hubble was the recently destroyed Columbia. The others would require extensive remodification of there cargo bay.

Boosting it into a higher graveyard orbit isn't a bad idea IMO. It preserves the Hubble for a chance at historic restoration some day in the far future. And space isn't realy a terrible place to store a satilite. Although more propelent would probably be called for than in the deorbiting mission.

-------

It realy pains me to here Zubrin talk this way about Hubble. He presents quite the opposite point of view in his book Entering Space. There is a reason why the Hubble is the only satilite ever to be serviced. Thats because frankly it isn't worth it. New and better satilites can usualy be launched for as much or less then the servicing missions. The shuttle as a "service platform" was a joke from the get go. Maybe a true RLV would change this picture, but right now it is a joke.

SpaceNut · 2005-04-29 05:32:28

So is it the size of the whole unit or the total mass that also contributes to the problem of bringing it down. If we can not afford a single shuttle mission to fix it then using one or even 2 if that would do the job of brining it down for the saving of history then just let it come down.

I think the best way to solve the problem of repair is to sell it and allow for a small outpost station to be constructed. Perhaps with a Bigelow hotel, using a few russian rockets say soyuz and a couple of progress to get everything setup. Make the repairs and be done with the issue.
Even doing all of this is less than $200 million as compared to the billions for shuttle or other style missions that have been discussed.

Remember to get cost down per space flight one way is to have you ramp up useage and you must have places to go to get variety for the interest to increase the number of flights.

Palomar · 2005-04-29 05:56:06

It´s about time people stop letting their emotions get in the way of clear thinking about Hubble´s fate.
But i suspect this is a lost battle.

*Ah yes. The old "if they agree with me they're rational...if they disagree with me they're emotional" attitude.

I've seen emotions running high on --both-- sides of the argument (and more times than I care to count).

-*-

As it currently stands, I'm enjoying what return of data and images from Hubble we're receiving and patiently awaiting the final decision. Michael Griffin is apparently reviewing the matter. I hope they make that final decision soon, regardless of what it is.

--Cindy

GCNRevenger · 2005-04-29 21:33:11

So is it the size of the whole unit or the total mass that also contributes to the problem of bringing it down. If we can not afford a single shuttle mission to fix it then using one or even 2 if that would do the job of brining it down for the saving of history then just let it come down.
I think the best way to solve the problem of repair is to sell it and allow for a small outpost station to be constructed.

The main issues with getting Hubble back down are these:

-Shuttle was originally designed to be able to carry down a certain amount of mass. The assumptions and estimations used in calculating this figure were found to be unsafely optimistic when the STS was reviewed following Challenger. So, the maximum downmass that Shuttle can carry was lowerd... below the mass of Hubble.

-Hubble won't fit anymore... the airlock and ISS docking adapters on the other three orbiters are more-or-less integral pieces with the vehicle. You can't take the adapter out without serious modifications, and more modifications later to put it back.

-Astonauts can't cut Hubble up. If you wanted to cut it in half and bring it down that way, forget it. The astronauts don't even want to have to tear the solar pannels off, much less the armored hull and structural members of the telescope. Spacewalks are hard and dangerous work.

-If you don't do it now, you never will. When Hubble loses gyros or batteries, it may enter a random spin, in which case you can't dock onto it in any practical way. So if you do it now with a single Shuttle flight, you'll have to put the ISS docking adapter back on too.

And as far as sending up a Bigelow HAB (which don't exsist) or Soyuz (which can't reach equitorial orbits), there is one problem: time. You don't have any... unless you can fly by 2007, the last year that Hubble will reliably operate, don't bother. When the batteries die or all the gyros fail (which prevents proper solar pannel operation), then the heaters in the Hubble electronics bay fail too, and the sensitive and unpairable circutry will freeze and perminantly die.

Commodore · 2005-04-30 17:52:17

If I'm not mistaken, the first one third scale Bigelow module is due to be tested by the end of the year.

While I'd love to see a fire lit under the butt of the development of these modules and give it the publicity it deserves, to do a sort of life boat mission for Hubble, the greater portion of such a mission would be the method to attach the module to the station, massive external gyroscopes to support the now dead weight of the Hubble and that of the station, rockets to maintain the orbit of the station, and of course the various needs of a station itself, like the solar panels, life support, external work areas and air lock, and probably a robotic arm.

A tall order in only a few year, and all of it based on a technology that few with the money to do it are willing to spend it.

And the biggest part of any private effort would be getting to this contraption they created. At best, the winner of Americas Challenge won't be ready to go untill after 2010, and I don't think it could make it to Hubbles current orbit anyway. Granted if we managed to do all the things mentioned above, changing the orbit shouldn't be a big problem.

It would more than likely need NASA funding, and as a result the cost would more than likely top the cost of a Shuttle mission. But would it be worth it? We'd be testing a number of handy technolgies needed for the VSE, ranging from the inflatable, to Zero g grappling, to station sized electric ion engines. The Hubbles life would basically be extended indefinately, opening up as many servicing missions as we care to do. And the science would continue, limited only by the size of the mirror.

The downside is even if we managed to put it together in time, the earliest servicing mission would be after 2010 when either the Americas chanellenge winner is sent up, if it can get there, or the CEV, if the project is funded by NASA. So there will still be a gap. And if NASA were to fund such a project there'd be no chance the HOP would ever get off the ground. If the hubble itself as a design can withstand the changes needed to stay competeitive with technologies bound to come out, such as the wide angle part on the HOP is an open

GCNRevenger · 2005-05-01 00:12:33

Ummm, what? Not a chance... To go from building a space-rated fraction-scale balloon without reliable life support, docking adapters, airlock, safe power supply, waste management... To basically build a space station with maneuvering capabilities that will bolt onto Hubble, so you can save the mirror and optics?

Pu-lease, even the Hubble-Huggers are getting all geared up to throw away the current cameras on the thing, we have the new cameras and the spare mirror, and plans to build a copy of the rest of the scope'... Hubble just isn't worth saving!

I don't think you could do that in 1-2 years even with ten billion dollars. Please please, no more of this rediculous "AltSpace miracle!" nonsense. Spending the many billions of dollars to crash-course develop these technologies would be a terrible waste, since accelerating them would vastly increase their cost.

Bigelow is still entirely out of his mind even making his station at all, since he has no way to get to it. I would go so far as to state that he is a stupid man. Plus, Hubble would weigh more then the TransHAB would, you wouldn't be able to point it because there are no external structural hardpoints on the back of Hubble. So you want to go and cut big holes in the back of Hubble's armored skin to find some?

And are you meaning to move Hubble and bolt it to the side of the ISS or something? Nonsense, the vibration from all the equipment and the low accuracy that the ISS can hold its direction are no where near good enough for the telescope to function. Plus, the ISS would have a "cloud" of waste gasses around it, which would interfere with spectrographic measurments. The size of ion drive and its huge solar power array needed to move the telescope AND a Bigelow HAB to the ISS orbit would be insane too... major orbital inclination changes are very hard.

For goodness sakes, just build a new telescope!

Ad Astra · 2005-05-01 00:32:53

Although I completely agree that Hubble should be replaced, it's clear to see that several things are happening that will ultimately save Hubble.

1) Hubble has the support of the media and the astronomers. With the media pressuring the politicians, there's bound to be an order from Washington to fix it. Further, we now have a pro-Hubble guy running NASA.

2) The death of Hubble will ultimately lead to a gap in coverage until the next space telescope (whether it be JWST or HOP) comes along. This is probably the best reason I can think of for prolonging Hubble's life.

3) HOP, while a good idea, is an unsolicited proposal that will probably not be taken seriously by NASA.

Hubble SM4 / STS-122 looks like it's going to happen. My biggest objection is one of safety. I would hope that if NASA does choose to fly SM4, it cancels several ISS missions in exchange. That way, the chance of a loss-of-crew accident is kept constant for the remainder of the STS program.

At the same time, NASA should not spend money on "Mir-2" concepts where the shuttle would carry an independent habitation module in case the shuttle is damaged. The utility of these concepts is of questionable value and even more dubious technical merit.

GCNRevenger · 2005-05-01 08:27:29

*Grumble* They better not... Might be time to find some HOP documentation and mail it to congressmen on the science comittee(s) AND the GAO.

This is really a big test for Griffin... will he be a weak and accursed Shuttle-Hugger and succomb to the ignorant publics' demands and rush a hazardous Shuttle mission to the pad" Or, will he do the right thing for science - the reason Hubble exsists - and pull the plug on SM4. If SM4 flies, that would eat the money and take the cameras needed to build HOP.

I don't think that its a clear-cut case that Congress/Bush will order NASA to do SM4, they had already allocated a small token budget cussion for Hubble repair, BUT isn't it so that there have recently been orders issued for NASA to only consider the deorbit robot?

And what if there aren't any ISS missions to be "traded" as a safety thing? You would probobly have to sacrifice several flights to get an equal risk factor, and NASA might need them all to get ISS more-or-less done by 2010. Even if you ignore the safety issue, NASA might not even be able to spare one flight in the razor-thin margin of their launch schedule.

But the biggest reason not to go that Hubble-Hugger people seem to be blissfully ignorant of, is what happens after Hubble? Its like they believe that their telescope will go on operating forever, and aren't even considering the future. If HOP were built, it would give us at least a decade worth of operation, and keep us "in the business" much longer then Hubble, which will start to fail again in 2011-2012, perhaps much sooner from electrical failure.

Its also like the Huggers' won't believe anything negative about Hubble's condition, which isn't very good, it could fail quite soon service mission or not... What really bugs me is this talk of ANOTHER service mission following this one, like they assume Shuttle will be around forever to rescue their precious and otherwise immortal icon. The irrationality of "save Hubble!!!" hysteria is becomming vividly apparent.

Edit: Actually, it seems the HOP people have already gone to Washington once... NASA is hardly giving them token interest though, putting them "in the running" with a dozen "future concepts."

http://www.pha.jhu.edu/hop/]http://www.pha.jhu.edu/hop/
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/hop/hoptestimony … imony.html

dicktice · 2005-05-01 12:02:26

Re. retention of the Hubble Space Telescope in operation for as long as possible, I stumbled upon this item:

He (Edwin Hubble) had assisted greatly in the design of the 200-inch Hale telescope, and had served on the Mount Wilson Observatory Advisory Committee for building the Mount Palomar Observatory. "With the 200-inch," he said in a BBC broadcast in London," we may grasp what now we can scarcely brush with our fingertips." "What do you expect to find with the 200-inch?" he was asked, and he replied, "We hope to find something we hadn't expected."

That was only half a century ago, and the number of "unexpecteds" to date which the HST has provided since the mirror aberration was corrected on the first shuttle-borne service mission, must exceed all the previous "brushings with our fingertips" since astronomy began.

GCNRevenger · 2005-05-01 13:14:05

Re. retention of the Hubble Space Telescope in operation for as long as possible, I stumbled upon this item:
He (Edwin Hubble) had assisted greatly in the design of the 200-inch Hale telescope, and had served on the Mount Wilson Observatory Advisory Committee for building the Mount Palomar Observatory. "With the 200-inch," he said in a BBC broadcast in London," we may grasp what now we can scarcely brush with our fingertips." "What do you expect to find with the 200-inch?" he was asked, and he replied, "We hope to find something we hadn't expected."
That was only half a century ago, and the number of "unexpecteds" to date which the HST has provided since the mirror aberration was corrected on the first shuttle-borne service mission, must exceed all the previous "brushings with our fingertips" since astronomy began.

Which is exactly why we must let Hubble go and build HOP. The new telescope will be much more powerful then Hubble is with its wide-field imager, and can do the one thing that no current space or future adaptive optics ground telescope can do.

And please, please please don't dare gloss over the unavoidable fact that HOP will get double the life of Hubble for the same money... forget all those astronomers who will have to wait a few years to use a space telescope, no, worry about all the future astronomers that won't get to use one at all because we wasted our money today for sentimentality.

dicktice · 2005-05-01 15:28:22

Yer a hard, hard man, GCNR. Obviously not an astronomer, certainly not a Hubble--you and your science per dollar arguments! Science, not sentimentality, is what's at stake here. I've yet to read in one of your posts, something I'll live to see. Go hide yer head in shame, John Dooley.

GCNRevenger · 2005-05-01 15:48:57

The question over what to do about Hubble or any large scientific investment must ultimatly be over what you get for the money. There will always be any number of places to spend our scientific dollars, and so a decision must be made over what to fund and what not to fund.

Here we have a faceoff, between excessive risk to Astronaut's lives, the political viability of NASA in the event of Columbia 2.0, the serious risk that Hubble will die soon service mission or no, which must be ready to go in about one year, even if that means screwing up the ISS...

...Versus the low risk option (proven hardware, large 30% budget margin) of building a copy of Hubble for about the same money, which will give you twice as many years of operation at least, and be able to do unique and fantastic things that no telescope (including Hubble) can (wide field). No risk to life and limb, and could be done by decades' end for only a 2-3 year coverage gap.

Therefore I conclude, that even with a modest gap in coverage between the two systems, that the better option is self-evident. Building HOP is by all measures obviously better in the literal sense of the word for the purpose that either telescope is intended. That to ignore these facts and to support Hubble anyway is thusly NOT rational.

...so, if you support fixing Hubble, you must be doing it out of sentimentality. And sentimentality has no place in deciding where $1,500,000,000 goes.

dicktice · 2005-05-01 16:37:09

It's the lack of overlapping utilization that (we Hubble-huggers) find objectionable. There's nothing sentimental about it. So, we build the replacement and place it in orbit, but without the "modest gap in coverage." When the Hubble becomes inoperable, service mission or no, no tears, just regrets--that we in the West can't seem to follow-through on anything in space more than 4-8 years into the future.
The money's no argument, either, in comparison with all that's been thrown away by past administrations and now this one. As soon as there's no budget deficit, warfare in one form or another brings it right back. So, where's your savings? Best not to bring the HST down. By the time it's ready, we'll be able to do something more creative than deep-sixing it (another costly enterprise). If we replace it, so much the better for having an even modester coverage, eh?

SpaceNut · 2005-05-01 19:31:49

Actually not hogging the space at all, just away for the day with family sports.

Would it be possible to funnel what money's that would be still unspent in Nasa directed hubble work of the deorbit booster and robotic repairs to be turned to funding the HOP instead?

Also would a HOP funding petition work to garner much in the same way as the others have to get support for hubble but in turn for HOP instead?

GCNRevenger · 2005-05-01 19:46:02

Oh really? So since when did it suddenly become your opinion that the gap in UV/Vis space astronomy is an issue? Before or after I said "gap?"

HOP can't be rushed, it takes time to build a new space telescope. Even if you threw more money at it, I doubt that you could substantially shorten the construction time without compromising the reliability of the telescope.

"The money's no argument"

Excuse me? What planet are you from again? Are you actually stating that a billion-dollar-plus investment is trivial and unimportant? I'm sorry, but here in reality, that kind of money is not to be thrown around lightly...

The fact of the matter is, NASA does not have a great deal of money to spend, and it must spend what it has wisely. At the moment and for the next few years (Hubble's last years), NASA doesn't have much extra cash laying around. Congress might be willing to fork over a few hundred million, but to pay for both HST SM4 AND HOP/deorbiter, you are talking ~$3Bn.

So, I think that it is valid to state that it is a one-or-the-other situation. Either Hubble's service mission flies, or HOP/deorbit does. Pick one... And, in light of my above summeries of fact, the rational choice is obvious.

The $1.5Bn figure for HOP includes $400M for the (probobly DART derived) deorbit vehicle. The telescope itself could cost as little as $600M including launch vehicle, but 30% margins are included in the price tag in case it turns out to be more expensive. This is a signifigant fiscal risk advantage over HST SM4.

Mad Grad Student · 2005-05-02 23:10:05

By the way, what happened to all the other? We two seem to be hogging all the space. I know and like you, after all this time, especially because we seem to compliment one another (patting my own back) so what the hell gives?

Who me? Well, last week... never mind, if I tell y'all why I haven't even logged on the internet over the course of the last seven days, it'll just incite one of those weird "my work's harder than yours!" debates. Apples to oranges stuff, really. Moving on.

I'm a card-carrying member of the Hubble hugger club, but I have to say that GCN does seem to have the upper hand here. I couldn't care less about the Hubble space telescope itself; what I do care about is access to those elucidating, insightful, and downright gorgeous visible/UV spectrum photos. It's delightfully good science, fun, and some philosophy all rolled into one. Science of course is the operative component of the equation here. No matter how you look at it, Hubble is nearing the end of its useful life, and the scientific community stands to gain much more from a brand-new telescope with its whole life ahead of it than an old one that will inevitablly break down no matter how many times it's serviced.

Unfortunately, it seems to be an either/or scinerio. Either Hubble is serviced, and five or so years of vis/UV space observations are gleaned, or a replacement can be launched with ten or more years of observation time ahead of it, with a gap of a few years in capabilities between Hubble and the replacement. Given the choice, putting those observations on hold for a few years sounds like the better option considering that a telescope such as HOP will allow astronomers a fresh start with plenty of years of good scope time ahead of them. That can't be said for Hubble. Overall, replacing rather than servicing Hubble appears to be a far better option.

GraemeSkinner · 2005-05-06 00:20:59

from Houston Chronicle

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has asked agency experts to take a fresh look at an astronaut mission to extend the life of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Griffin has directed NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to begin planning for a mission that could launch by mid-2007 and extend the life of the observatory by five years. He was careful not to promise the mission is a go.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mp … 79]Article link

A launch by mid-2007 if delayed may not be soon enough as its expected to expire late-2007.

I did not like the articles following quote...

Columbia was downed by damage caused when foam insulation from the fuel tank fell off and struck the left wing at launch. Discovery's mission is being delayed to give shuttle engineers more time to reduce such hazards.
Discovery's crew would take refuge on the space station if damage occurred again, an option not available to astronauts headed for Hubble.

It makes it sound as if every mission into space should head for a safe haven - we'll never get to Mars with that attitude!

Graeme

SpaceNut · 2005-05-06 07:03:27

Or haul its own safe haven with it on each flight. How hard would it be to design a bale out surviability capsule? Even if it were very cramp just to come down and nothing fancy or special.

He may want to do this just to stop all the risk assements of using the shuttle.

So far all ships that will leave Earth orbit for future CEV have no safe haven or return capability if apollo 13 style damage does occur. So unless that is a creteria of design then the risk is what it is and we must live with it and not in fear of it.

Palomar · 2005-05-06 07:25:00

Which is exactly why we must let Hubble go and build HOP. The new telescope will be much more powerful then Hubble is with its wide-field imager, and can do the one thing that no current space or future adaptive optics ground telescope can do.

*I certainly look forward to the utilization of adaptive optics. It (and its potential) is one of the very few issues within the entire Hubble debate which fosters a sense of optimism.

Last year I read and posted an article about Palomar and adaptive optics (Science & Technology folder). Haven't yet seen an update as to how that is progressing.

Of course, Hubble won't last forever anyway. Here's to adaptive optics ::Toast!::

--Cindy

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