Posted on 12/12/2004 7:52:14 AM PST by snopercod
Rescue missions expensive, ineffective.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Trying to save the famed Hubble Space Telescope with a robot would cost $2 billion with just a 50-50 chance of success, an aerospace research group is advising NASA in the coming days.
And that thumbs-down is likely to be preceded by another potentially negative finding from the National Academy of Sciences, due to report on Wednesday.
Both reports could spell doom for the popular, aging Hubble, whose fans have heavily lobbied to get it repaired to prolong its life and continue its stream of stunning and revealing pictures from space.
NASA requested the reviews of the National Academy and the Aerospace Corp., a California-based not-for-profit research group, in hopes that a robotic repair could be made.
An Aerospace Corp. summary provided to the academy estimates a robotic Hubble mission would cost $2 billion and would take at least five years to be ready for launch. By then there would be a less than 40 percent chance Hubble still would be functioning.
Less than three years would be needed to launch a shuttle mission to Hubble, for no more money and with the usual medium risk of mission success, the company said.
The full 100-page report is expected to come out this week or next, a company spokesman said.
In an interim report over the summer, a National Academy panel of scientists, aerospace experts and astronauts who have worked in orbit with Hubble urged NASA to keep its options open for one last service call by space shuttle astronauts. The panel did not rule out a robotic mission but noted its complexity and the technical challenges.
But NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe has stuck by his guns that regardless of what the academy or the Aerospace Corp. says, no people will risk their lives to fix Hubble.
On Wednesday, the National Academy of Sciences will issue its final report on the subject.
"These reviews have tended to reinforce NASA’s sense that although" a robotic mission "is feasible, it will be extremely challenging and will require very disciplined management," the space agency said in a statement Tuesday.
NASA will spend the coming year evaluating the robotic rescue plan and decide next summer whether to proceed. If nothing else, the space agency promises to launch a deorbit tug to guide Hubble down over the ocean - and not over populated areas - well before it would tumble in on its own during the next decade.
Indeed. Sigh.
"Getting it there would be a trick. Also the attitude control system would not work at geo."
I'm not so much worried about attitude control, just in preserving it for posterity. I don't know the specs on Hubble, so I have no idea what it would take in the way of a booster, but I doubt it is that much bigger than a DSCS II or III comm satellite. If so, should be possible.
with fingers in ears.... I'M NOT LISTENING!!! ;)
No, the term has been kidnapped by metonymysts. Sound science is physics and only physics. All the rest is soft science, and the next step down is liberal arts such as English Lit and Political Science.
If the use of the word has changed then the word no longer means the same thing.
No, and it never did. We don't communicate with words but with metaphors, and the metaphors change, change, change. What do you suppose the Liberals are doing but changing the metaphors all the time to suit their own ideology as they develop that ideology. What is Rush doing but pointing this out?
Every Astronaut NASA has signed a petition voluntering to go on a Hubble mission. Astronauts are not the problem.
Incorrect, Hubble was DESIGNED to be serviced, NASA just doesn't have the balls to fly manned mission to space.
I have worked on the project for servicing Hubble. It was not designed for EVA operations at all. The fasters that hold the panels in place are not captive. The internal connection are standard coax wich requires a special tool during EVA ops. The list of non-EVA interfaces is endless, and each one requires a special tool. Spend the $2bil on a new telescope.
Hubble was DESIGNED to be serviced by manned missions and has been serviced three times already. That is why it flys in low earth orbit, so the shuttle can service it.
Send up a bigger and better model, version 2.0.
" In regards to the maintenance and upgrading of the space telescope, plans were made to conduct servicing missions in orbit versus returning the telescope to Earth and refurbishing it on the ground. It was an innovative concept that would be even easier on a budget. In the midst of this spirit of renovation, the Space Telescope was renamed the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). By 1985, the telescope was assembled and ready for launch."
The plans were made after Hubble was in orbit. It was not designed for EVA servicing, your assertion to the contrary not withstanding.
Hubble's orbit was dictated by the maximum altitude of the Shuttle, not by a servicing requirement.
Pie are round not square.
Hubble is a late '70's design that needs to be scrapped. We can do better for the money required to service the telescope, and in fact funding for a second better telescope is already in place.
Not a bad idea at all!
And replaced with what? You are willing to throw away mankinds finest telescope in the hope that sometime in the future NASA might, if congress funds it, if the launch is successful, if the robot telescope works as exactly as designed then maybe mankind might again have as capable a telescope as Hubble. Webb by the way does not "see" in visable light, it is an IR telescope. So a replacement for Hubble is not even on the NASA's drawing board. Now the Chineese will be launching a lessor space telescope about the same time Hubble is burning up in the atmosphere. I think the world will certainly take note of that fact. It appears the Chinesse have taken the lead in exploration of space and manned space missions. The Chinesse it appears still have the national will to send men into space while the US will not risk a manned mission, not even to save one of NASA's finest achievements.
It is really sad to see the once great NASA, reduced to such a sorry state.
That's what I was thinking. It could be preserved until there is competent management for the space program. They better boost it real high.
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