Hubble is a one billion dollar asset. To throw it away is an apalling waste.
If the article is right and its a question of servicing ISS or Hubble NASA made the right decision. If the article is wrong and both can be done as you suggest please answer my questions below:
Quote:
Originally posted by Aries 1B
N.A.S.A. might be able to pack the necessary supplies aboard an unmanned Soyuz, place it in proximity to Hubble and then send an astronaut aboard another Soyuz for a repair mission. I don't know what the costs for a Soyuz mission are, but they could send some rich tourists up to watch and to defray the costs.
Can you pack all the tools and spare parts needed for repair in one Soyuz? Can the "service" Soyuz be parked in approximity to the Hubble without anyone in the Soyuz or Hubble to do the fine tunning manually? Is there enough fuel on a Soyuz to navigate close AND precisely to Hubble? AND have enough to spare if anything went wrong? How many times have a non-Shuttle spacecraft docked with a non manouverable object in space?
Quote:
Originally posted by Aries 1B
Ideally, N.A.S.A would move Hubble (slowly, and over a period of time) to proximity with the ISS. Then the ISS program could say that they ALSO support the Hubble.
Do the ISS and Hubble share same orbit? How much fuel will it take to bring Hubble close to ISS? Do Hubble even have the fuel and burners to bring it close to ISS? What are the risks of having two very large but seperated objects parked so close to eachother in space?
I think its a bit more difficult to do the things you suggest than you make it out to be.
Do the ISS and Hubble share same orbit? How much fuel will it take to bring Hubble close to ISS?
Hubble is in a higher orbit than ISS, and at a very differerent declination. I'm not Soyuz could get all the way to Hubble, and it would be a huge problem to get Hubble near ISS. But still, you'd think the folks at NASA would make a priority out of keeping Hubble going, no matter how difficult the engineering problems.
I think that the Shuttle is necessary to catch Hubble with the arm. There is no arm with soyouz, it can be very risky to try to do some Hubble maintenace with soyouz.
I think it's just crazy that we're throwing away one of the greatest scientific research assets ever... to go BACK to the moon?
I think it would make more sense to develop agile and reuesable space vehicles that can be used to shuttle astronauts to future and present space construction projects and perform repairs on satelites like the Hubble.
If the telescope was here on earth and we had spent billions on it and have had great results with it would we just let it degrade?
what are we going to learn by going to the moon? and why is is more important than the science of hubble? yeah it's a sexy idea... but what's the science?
The shuttle is old and broken. It's my 1975 Fleetwood next to my 2003 Civic. They are never going to make a new one and I heard that with less than 3 they consider it a nonviable program. So ... let it die.
what are we going to learn by going to the moon? and why is is more important than the science of hubble?
Halliburton is running out of countries to 'reconstruct'...and the moon is perfect for a trillion dollar parking lot project. Jeez. Get with the program.
I think it's just crazy that we're throwing away one of the greatest scientific research assets ever... to go BACK to the moon?
Well, how about as part of a lunar base, we build observatories on the moon. Hubble has a 95 inch mirror. On the moon, we could have mirror apertures many times the size of the Keck telescopes (360 inches). On top of that, the moon has no atmosphere, has a rotation rate 30 times slower than the Earth's, and is geologically inactive. It would be like a Hubble telescope with a 500 inch primary mirror. Planet-finding telescopes could also be built. With a good sized population, maintenance of the facilities would be easier.
But I digress. Bush's space initiative isn't the reason for cancellation of Hubble Service Mission 4. The cancellation of the mission is the direct result of the Columbia accident. NASA considers it too unsafe to fly the shuttle without the refuge of station.
Quote:
I think it would make more sense to develop agile and reuesable space vehicles that can be used to shuttle astronauts to future and present space construction projects and perform repairs on satelites like the Hubble.
True. Reusable is debateable depending on costs, but a safer and more flexible launcher and spacecraft should have been developed to replace the shuttle a long time ago.
Quote:
If the telescope was here on earth and we had spent billions on it and have had great results with it would we just let it degrade?
Quite possibly yes. Anything that costs that much and is publicly funded survives at the whim of the government.
Quote:
what are we going to learn by going to the moon? and why is is more important than the science of hubble? yeah it's a sexy idea... but what's the science?
We learn how to be a space-faring species. I would value that quite a bit more than the science of Hubble. And astronomical observatories on the moon would be an order of magnitude improvement on Hubble.
what are we going to learn by going to the moon? and why is is more important than the science of hubble?
Can you imagine the types of telescopes we can build once on the moon? For god?s sake man, they?ll make the Hubble look like a $50 telescope from Toys R Us. The hubble is puny compared to ground based telescopes, but it does its job so well because there?s no atmosphere in the way. That?s exactly what the moon doesn?t have, an atmosphere. And if an industrial infrastructure was set up (with mining of course) you?d basically have all the resources needed to build structures much larger than anything you could ever hope to get into orbit. Moon based interferometer anyone?
Plus there?s the all that helium 3 just lying around. Reliable and sustained fusion anyone?
Plus you?d have a jump-off point for sending ships (or space-probes/rovers) into space at a fraction of the cost it would take to escape good ol? terra firma.
Yeah, finally getting off this little blue island of life in the middle of this turbulent universe of ours, and making baby steps towards perpetuating our modest intelligence across the cosmos is a complete wast of time. The money and effort is better spent on aging telescopes and domestic problems like fixing leaky roofs for schools that?ll be torn down in ten years time.
We can save all this space exploration stuff for our great grandchildren, seeing as there are more pressing matters at hand. They?ll be better equipped anyway, if there?s still a world for them to live in that is...
If the article is right and its a question of servicing ISS or Hubble NASA made the right decision. If the article is wrong and both can be done as you suggest please answer my questions below:
Can you pack all the tools and spare parts needed for repair in one Soyuz? Can the "service" Soyuz be parked in approximity to the Hubble without anyone in the Soyuz or Hubble to do the fine tunning manually? Is there enough fuel on a Soyuz to navigate close AND precisely to Hubble? AND have enough to spare if anything went wrong? How many times have a non-Shuttle spacecraft docked with a non manouverable object in space?
Do the ISS and Hubble share same orbit? How much fuel will it take to bring Hubble close to ISS? Do Hubble even have the fuel and burners to bring it close to ISS? What are the risks of having two very large but seperated objects parked so close to eachother in space?
I think its a bit more difficult to do the things you suggest than you make it out to be.
The USSR used to keep MIR supplied with Progess spacecraft (unmanned Soyuz ships). They used to dock the Progress ships under ground control. It has been done before, it could be done again.
Hubble has a fixture for the shuttle to attach to. Progress could be retrofitted with a mating fixture and docked to the Hubble. The Russians could boost an astronaut to the Hubble and he could perform the repairs.
Bear in mind that this is a VERY high level outline of the missions that would be required.
As for moving Hubble to ISS proximity, if Hubble is in a higher orbit than ISS, then I would try to move Hubble to a lower orbit by a VERY gradual decelleration burn vectored in such a way as to both lower and change the orbit to one that would get Hubble next to the ISS. I would then use a Soyuz to moor the Hubble to a piece of the ISS (presupposing that the necessary hardware were made available to create the link).
Difficult? Yes, but not impossible with our dwindling shuttle resources. To me, it beats just meekly folding up the tent and scurrying away.
one problem with building on the moon is also one of it's advantages = it has no atmosphere. this can be great for astronomical discoveries with nothing to distort visuals, but there is also nothing to protect us up there. small meteorites can rip up the buildings and put people up there at risk. multiple reinforcements must be considered...
but gotta love the appeal of being on the dark side of the moon during the night, with nothing to see but the night sky. what a sight that would be!!!
only downside would be not ever being able to view the earth. would get awfully lonely...
but there is also nothing to protect us up there. small meteorites can rip up the buildings and put people up there at risk. multiple reinforcements must be considered...
What about several feet of lunar dirt? It's pretty good material to use; it's cheap, and pretty easy to find. Take base, inflate, cover in dirt. The End.
Station is at 51 deg inclination while Hubble is at 28 degrees inclination. A plane change of that magnitude would cost a whole lot more fuel than a 400 to 200 mile altitude change or a deorbit. The delta V required is orbital velocity * cos(plane change angle), aproximately 15k ft/sec or 2/5s of the fuel required to put it orbit in the first place. So a propulsion unit of considerable magnitude will have to be somehow attached to the Hubble. This really isn't a tenable option.
As of now, Progress and Soyuz can't reach the Hubble due to its launch pad being at Kazakhstan which is at 51 deg latitude. Any efforts to launch them at 28 deg or lower will be tremendously expensive due to the launch-facility specific nature of rockets. Even if they can be launched to station, they don't have the payload necessary to service Hubble anyways. Progress and Soyuz modules will actually fit inside Hubble itself.
I supposed Hubble can be robotically serviced with a service module specially designed for it. Not cheap.
The best course of action is simply to build a new 95 inch (or smaller with advance tech) space telescope and launch it on an Atlas 5 or Delta 4. It'll probably be cheaper than any of the above.
What about several feet of lunar dirt? It's pretty good material to use; it's cheap, and pretty easy to find. Take base, inflate, cover in dirt. The End.
and the telescopes? that's the most important part to the base. but yes, the rest of the base can be underground.
and the telescopes? that's the most important part to the base. but yes, the rest of the base can be underground.
I don't think micrometeorite damage will be a problem. It'll be at able the same level of risk as Hubble which has zero protection, including none for the primary mirror during operation. The benifit of a lunar observatory with people manning it is that it can be maintained pretty cheaply. A person simply goes outside and cleans it off, or repairs can be made if necessary.
Comments
Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook
When we stop dreaming we stop living.
Space may not be practical to some... but I would argue they are dead.
Live.
Fellows
You've said a lot of things I disagree with, but this is spot on.
Originally posted by bunge
You've said a lot of things I disagree with, but this is spot on.
i have to mimic bunge here. one of the few times fellows is spot on with my opinion.
Originally posted by bunge
You've said a lot of things I disagree with, but this is spot on.
You're just sucking up to our new overlords.
Cheers
Scott
Originally posted by Aries 1B
Hubble is a one billion dollar asset. To throw it away is an apalling waste.
If the article is right and its a question of servicing ISS or Hubble NASA made the right decision. If the article is wrong and both can be done as you suggest please answer my questions below:
Originally posted by Aries 1B
N.A.S.A. might be able to pack the necessary supplies aboard an unmanned Soyuz, place it in proximity to Hubble and then send an astronaut aboard another Soyuz for a repair mission. I don't know what the costs for a Soyuz mission are, but they could send some rich tourists up to watch and to defray the costs.
Can you pack all the tools and spare parts needed for repair in one Soyuz? Can the "service" Soyuz be parked in approximity to the Hubble without anyone in the Soyuz or Hubble to do the fine tunning manually? Is there enough fuel on a Soyuz to navigate close AND precisely to Hubble? AND have enough to spare if anything went wrong? How many times have a non-Shuttle spacecraft docked with a non manouverable object in space?
Originally posted by Aries 1B
Ideally, N.A.S.A would move Hubble (slowly, and over a period of time) to proximity with the ISS. Then the ISS program could say that they ALSO support the Hubble.
Do the ISS and Hubble share same orbit? How much fuel will it take to bring Hubble close to ISS? Do Hubble even have the fuel and burners to bring it close to ISS? What are the risks of having two very large but seperated objects parked so close to eachother in space?
I think its a bit more difficult to do the things you suggest than you make it out to be.
Originally posted by Anders
Do the ISS and Hubble share same orbit? How much fuel will it take to bring Hubble close to ISS?
Hubble is in a higher orbit than ISS, and at a very differerent declination. I'm not Soyuz could get all the way to Hubble, and it would be a huge problem to get Hubble near ISS. But still, you'd think the folks at NASA would make a priority out of keeping Hubble going, no matter how difficult the engineering problems.
I think it would make more sense to develop agile and reuesable space vehicles that can be used to shuttle astronauts to future and present space construction projects and perform repairs on satelites like the Hubble.
If the telescope was here on earth and we had spent billions on it and have had great results with it would we just let it degrade?
what are we going to learn by going to the moon? and why is is more important than the science of hubble? yeah it's a sexy idea... but what's the science?
edit to add
Oh! Or do you mean Hubble?
Originally posted by chu_bakka
what are we going to learn by going to the moon? and why is is more important than the science of hubble?
Halliburton is running out of countries to 'reconstruct'...and the moon is perfect for a trillion dollar parking lot project. Jeez. Get with the program.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/0....ap/index.html
Originally posted by jimmac
Well I know it was getting old but so much for this.......
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/0....ap/index.html
Sorry, it looks like Anders got here before me. oops!
"This is a sad day," said Grunsfeld, but he said the decision "is the best thing for the space community."
Let's hope he's right.
Originally posted by chu_bakka
I think it's just crazy that we're throwing away one of the greatest scientific research assets ever... to go BACK to the moon?
Well, how about as part of a lunar base, we build observatories on the moon. Hubble has a 95 inch mirror. On the moon, we could have mirror apertures many times the size of the Keck telescopes (360 inches). On top of that, the moon has no atmosphere, has a rotation rate 30 times slower than the Earth's, and is geologically inactive. It would be like a Hubble telescope with a 500 inch primary mirror. Planet-finding telescopes could also be built. With a good sized population, maintenance of the facilities would be easier.
But I digress. Bush's space initiative isn't the reason for cancellation of Hubble Service Mission 4. The cancellation of the mission is the direct result of the Columbia accident. NASA considers it too unsafe to fly the shuttle without the refuge of station.
I think it would make more sense to develop agile and reuesable space vehicles that can be used to shuttle astronauts to future and present space construction projects and perform repairs on satelites like the Hubble.
True. Reusable is debateable depending on costs, but a safer and more flexible launcher and spacecraft should have been developed to replace the shuttle a long time ago.
If the telescope was here on earth and we had spent billions on it and have had great results with it would we just let it degrade?
Quite possibly yes. Anything that costs that much and is publicly funded survives at the whim of the government.
what are we going to learn by going to the moon? and why is is more important than the science of hubble? yeah it's a sexy idea... but what's the science?
We learn how to be a space-faring species. I would value that quite a bit more than the science of Hubble. And astronomical observatories on the moon would be an order of magnitude improvement on Hubble.
Originally posted by chu_bakka
what are we going to learn by going to the moon? and why is is more important than the science of hubble?
Can you imagine the types of telescopes we can build once on the moon? For god?s sake man, they?ll make the Hubble look like a $50 telescope from Toys R Us. The hubble is puny compared to ground based telescopes, but it does its job so well because there?s no atmosphere in the way. That?s exactly what the moon doesn?t have, an atmosphere. And if an industrial infrastructure was set up (with mining of course) you?d basically have all the resources needed to build structures much larger than anything you could ever hope to get into orbit. Moon based interferometer anyone?
Plus there?s the all that helium 3 just lying around. Reliable and sustained fusion anyone?
Plus you?d have a jump-off point for sending ships (or space-probes/rovers) into space at a fraction of the cost it would take to escape good ol? terra firma.
Yeah, finally getting off this little blue island of life in the middle of this turbulent universe of ours, and making baby steps towards perpetuating our modest intelligence across the cosmos is a complete wast of time. The money and effort is better spent on aging telescopes and domestic problems like fixing leaky roofs for schools that?ll be torn down in ten years time.
We can save all this space exploration stuff for our great grandchildren, seeing as there are more pressing matters at hand. They?ll be better equipped anyway, if there?s still a world for them to live in that is...
Originally posted by Anders
If the article is right and its a question of servicing ISS or Hubble NASA made the right decision. If the article is wrong and both can be done as you suggest please answer my questions below:
Can you pack all the tools and spare parts needed for repair in one Soyuz? Can the "service" Soyuz be parked in approximity to the Hubble without anyone in the Soyuz or Hubble to do the fine tunning manually? Is there enough fuel on a Soyuz to navigate close AND precisely to Hubble? AND have enough to spare if anything went wrong? How many times have a non-Shuttle spacecraft docked with a non manouverable object in space?
Do the ISS and Hubble share same orbit? How much fuel will it take to bring Hubble close to ISS? Do Hubble even have the fuel and burners to bring it close to ISS? What are the risks of having two very large but seperated objects parked so close to eachother in space?
I think its a bit more difficult to do the things you suggest than you make it out to be.
The USSR used to keep MIR supplied with Progess spacecraft (unmanned Soyuz ships). They used to dock the Progress ships under ground control. It has been done before, it could be done again.
Hubble has a fixture for the shuttle to attach to. Progress could be retrofitted with a mating fixture and docked to the Hubble. The Russians could boost an astronaut to the Hubble and he could perform the repairs.
Bear in mind that this is a VERY high level outline of the missions that would be required.
As for moving Hubble to ISS proximity, if Hubble is in a higher orbit than ISS, then I would try to move Hubble to a lower orbit by a VERY gradual decelleration burn vectored in such a way as to both lower and change the orbit to one that would get Hubble next to the ISS. I would then use a Soyuz to moor the Hubble to a piece of the ISS (presupposing that the necessary hardware were made available to create the link).
Difficult? Yes, but not impossible with our dwindling shuttle resources. To me, it beats just meekly folding up the tent and scurrying away.
Aries 1B
but gotta love the appeal of being on the dark side of the moon during the night, with nothing to see but the night sky. what a sight that would be!!!
only downside would be not ever being able to view the earth. would get awfully lonely...
Originally posted by _ alliance _
but there is also nothing to protect us up there. small meteorites can rip up the buildings and put people up there at risk. multiple reinforcements must be considered...
What about several feet of lunar dirt? It's pretty good material to use; it's cheap, and pretty easy to find.
As of now, Progress and Soyuz can't reach the Hubble due to its launch pad being at Kazakhstan which is at 51 deg latitude. Any efforts to launch them at 28 deg or lower will be tremendously expensive due to the launch-facility specific nature of rockets. Even if they can be launched to station, they don't have the payload necessary to service Hubble anyways. Progress and Soyuz modules will actually fit inside Hubble itself.
I supposed Hubble can be robotically serviced with a service module specially designed for it. Not cheap.
The best course of action is simply to build a new 95 inch (or smaller with advance tech) space telescope and launch it on an Atlas 5 or Delta 4. It'll probably be cheaper than any of the above.
Originally posted by DiscoCow
What about several feet of lunar dirt? It's pretty good material to use; it's cheap, and pretty easy to find.
and the telescopes? that's the most important part to the base. but yes, the rest of the base can be underground.
Originally posted by _ alliance _
and the telescopes? that's the most important part to the base. but yes, the rest of the base can be underground.
I don't think micrometeorite damage will be a problem. It'll be at able the same level of risk as Hubble which has zero protection, including none for the primary mirror during operation. The benifit of a lunar observatory with people manning it is that it can be maintained pretty cheaply. A person simply goes outside and cleans it off, or repairs can be made if necessary.