Hubble condemned to slow death

[Chewbacca]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994576
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Hubble condemned to slow death


13:13 19 January 04

NewScientist.com news service

There will be no more servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA has announced, leaving one of the agency's most spectacularly successful projects to die a slow death.

The decision, announced late on Friday, is the first serious fallout from President George W Bush's new plan for the US space program. One part of this is to scrap the space shuttle fleet in 2010.

The other key factor which ended astronomers' hope of a Hubble upgrade was the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. These require that all future shuttle missions must either be within reach of the International Space Station, to provide a safe haven in an emergency, or be able to fix any damage to its insulating tiles and carbon-composite panels in orbit. It was a hole in one of the panels that caused the disintegration of Columbia during its re-entry from orbit.

The Hubble servicing mission that was scheduled for 2006 was the only shuttle mission planned not going to the ISS. NASA would therefore have had to go to the trouble and expense of developing the repair capability for just a single mission. They have now decided that does not make sense under current budget constraints.


Batteries and gyroscopes


The servicing mission was supposed to deliver new batteries and gyroscopes, considered crucial to the telescope's survival. Without them, the telescope is only given a 50 per cent chance of surviving until 2007, which is still three years shy of its expected retirement. The telescope is already down to four operational gyros out of a complement of six, and at least three are required for its ability to point at its targets.

But even more devastating to astronomers will be the loss of two new instruments that were to be installed during the service mission: a new wide-field camera and a spectrograph designed to probe the Universe's deepest regions.

New instruments added to the telescope in past missions "were so much superior to the older instruments that the results coming from these contained lots of new information," says Imke de Pater, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, who has used the Hubble.

The existing wide-field camera is "superb," she told New Scientist. "But the new wide field camera has a larger field of view, and goes to shorter and longer wavelengths. I expect that this camera would have been in high demand."

Late replacement

The second lost instrument is the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, which would particularly probe ultraviolet wavelengths. UV observations, which have provided important new insights into processes such as planet formation, are impossible from telescopes on Earth.

Hubble's planned replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, is not due to be launched until 2011 at the earliest.

But former astronaut James Grunsfeld, who himself participated in the last Hubble servicing mission, said on Friday that NASA had made the right decision, albeit a sad one. "It's one that's in the best interest of NASA," he said.

[Timber Loftis]

The decision, announced late on Friday, is the first serious fallout from President George W Bush's new plan for the US space program. One part of this is to scrap the space shuttle fleet in 2010.

It's really this simple -- fallout from Bush's Moon/Mars decision/objective. We knew R&D would fall by the wayside to some degree when Bush state $10 billion of the $111 billion project would come from other NASA programs. Time to check in with my friend who was part of the Hubble team to find out what their view is.

I will tell you that the Hubble was damaged from the outset. The telescope's mirrors had flaws that required computer programs be installed to "translate" the images. Now, from my perspective, none of that justifies ending/cutting spending on our only off-planet observatory.

[ 01-20-2004, 01:52 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[wellard]

Thanks for posting the story Chewy, I was going to but never got round to it.

Why is the space station getting the funding at the expense of Hubble? I really do not see much future in manned space flight. Maybe some expert can tell me what benifit the space station (new) is providing?

[Link]

I'm not an expert, but there seem to be a lot of people on this Earth that are dying to know whether or not we're alone in this solar system.

I can't possibly imagine there's another reason for manned spaceflight (exploration? nope... science? no way!)

[Yorick]

"Why climb Mount Everest?"

"Because It's There"
- George Leigh Mallory


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Andres Delgardo, attempting the climb in 1997 contemplates the asault on the peak:

"Sometimes in dreams I wonder how Hillary and Tenzing must have felt on that day... stepping on ground that had never been tread upon ... all the heights of the planet were below their feet, and above them, nothing but the infinite. That is what I would call a communion with the world and with existence ... to transcend, or at least to try."

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[Timber Loftis]

Just so long as one takes care not to transcend over the edge of the cliff.

[Skippy1]

Originally posted by wellard: Thanks for posting the story Chewy, I was going to but never got round to it. Why is the space station getting the funding at the expense of Hubble? I really do not see much future in manned space flight. Maybe some expert can tell me what benifit the space station (new) is providing?

Perhaps in the future we may be able to use it for Industrial purposes. It would be far easier to launch an exploration ship into the universe from. Also, had you not considered that the Moon could some day be mined? If there were eventually a manned colony on the Moon, mining the ore required to build spacecraft out there, it would solve most of the problems associated with launching a vehicle from Earth. Gravity being the biggest problem would simply fade into the background.

Having said all that though, the amounts of money we are talking about is simply obscene condsidering the poverty in the world. It's a funny old world, that's for sure.

[wellard]

Originally posted by Skippy1: quote: Originally posted by wellard: Why is the space station getting the funding at the expense of Hubble? I really do not see much future in manned space flight. Maybe some expert can tell me what benifit the space station (new) is providing?

Having said all that though, the amounts of money we are talking about is simply obscene condsidering the poverty in the world. It's a funny old world, that's for sure. [/QUOTE]I dont mind the money being spent on mars trips and Hubble, its money well spent IMO. I just think that they aint learning anything new in,and i can not see any currant reason for, the (new) space station. The sending rockets from a space station is so faaaaaarrrrrr away still and poses more problems than it raises. The easier path is to make the payload smaller (and unmanned) for future missions to the planets.

[Timber Loftis]

The space station will make future launches for further exploration much easier considering the lack of gravity or atmosphere on the moon. And, personnally, I feel machines cannot substitute for sending experienced people out as well.

I have to ask....what the F&*K is wrong with those freakin gyros? They have lost a ton of them. There has already been a couple of shuttle missions to replace gyros on this piece of crap...Im tellin you the QA team that built this baby should be taken out and shot.

Gyros on ships and planes in the US inventory can last years if not decades. The original mirror and optics was flawed.....geez. As much as it has succeeded with the fixes sent into orbit, it has been due to enourmous cost over runs in maintenance and repair it should never have needed in the first place. I think NASA needs better people running their Quality Assurance teams. How much money was spent on FIXing bugs in this thing, that should not have needed fixing?

Losing the Hubble means hey...we quit dumping money into a lousey engineering job. Lets put it toward something new and potentially more rewarding.

On top of that..if we were to actually get a Permanent moonbase, a telescope there would be a decent if not better enterprise and easier to repair for a staff already in place.

You can look at the abandoning of the Hubble as bad news if you want. But it doesn't necessarily have to be bad news.