In article , Brian Gaff wrote:
Do you really need five to seven people on a Hubble service mission?

Quite probably.

STS-103 flew with seven; it made three two-man EVAs over three days.
STS-61 made five over five; ditto 109 and 82. (61 was planned for up to
seven...)

To do multiple EVAs, it's standard practice (AIUI, someone please
correct me) to have two pairs; group A does it one day, group B the
next, then A... remember, these are strenuous physical activities, in
some cases lasting over eight hours. Rotation is advisable.

So, you have four there. You then need people to do everything else - to
operate the Shuttle, the arm, whatever else they do (I never paid
greatly much attention g) - it's an intensive mission, they're not
just deadweight. You can make a case for that on some missions, but
historically manpower has been needed on things like HST servicing and
ISS assembly flights (witness that assembly flights occasionally get
announced as five, and then they look at th timeline and add two more).
For the ISS, it's doubly the case; you're adding a significant amount of
capacity just by having two more bodies to lug things.

I imagine it might be reconsidered if the repair ideas pan out, but that
does not help the folk making the improved hardware, as they will probably
be stopped and redeployed now.

I believe a significant amount of the hardware for Hubble is either
in the late stages of construction or, more commonly, sitting in a
cleanroom.

--
-Andrew Gray