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.
How much would it cost to send up smaller, more specialized telescopes on simple rockets?
I can't help but think that God has great plans for this universe. I hope we survive to participate.
The current astronaut group,
should be replaced with Marines,
...
that would solve the 'timidity' issue.
The problem with the Hubble is that it has achieved iconic stature. Rather than being seen as a wonderful instrument that has achieved remarkable results, but is nearing the end of its useful life, it is viewed as an end in itself. It's as if John Harrison's first clock were kept alive for 200 years and prevented the adoption of atomic time standards.
We know that the optics on the Hubble never achieved their full potential, because of a manufacturing error and a managerial decision to shortcut testing. Why not put some of the money intended to keep Hubble alive into the next generation of space instruments? Maybe someday, a descendant of the space shuttle will retrieve Hubble and it can be placed in the Smithsonian, where it belongs.
It is going to burn up in the atmospere as its orbit deteriorates.
When is it predicted to de-orbit, if left alone? It's about 562 km in altitude, which is pretty high, but it won't stay up forever due to slight atmospheric drag and radiation pressure.
High is relative to the atmosphere, which is the great eater of orbits. An orbit 250 km above the Moon would persist for thousands and thousands of years. Objects in low Earth orbit are affected by atmospheric drag and slow down a little bit on each revolution. Ol' 5398 ("RIGIDSPHERE 2") has been up there since 1971, and is currently 600 km in altitude.
The "super Hubble" project is already in progress.
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/webb_ngst_030108.html
I don't know how much it would cost to park it let's say at an L2 orbit but imagine the priceless exhibits and the space tourist value if we could someday have had the MIR, SKYLAB and Hubble to exhibit or just use for salvage purposes. My 2 cents...
More accurate would be 25,000 mi circumference and 8000 mi diameter.
A lot. L1/L2/L3 (LaGrange points) are unstable orbits, only L4/L5 are stable, but they do not offer any advantage (and lots of disadvantages) over a conventional Low Earth Orbit.
Besides, the energy required to achieve an initial LaGrange point orbit would be very costly, and you'd need tons and tons of fuel to maintain the orbit.
See my #35. The James Web Space Telescope is to Hubble as Pentium4 is to 8086.
The Earth is not 22,000 miles wide. That number is closer to the circumference, which is 24,902 miles.
The diameter of the Earth is 7,926 miles.
http://www.lyberty.com/encyc/articles/earth.html
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