On 25 Jan 2004 14:53:43 -0800, (MikeWise) wrote:

If I understood O'Keefe correctly, he says we should let Hubble rot
because it would be too risky to send another mission there.

More correctly that it would cost far too much to develop the unique
one time use hardware in order to service the Hubble safely.

NASA said that they would fully comply with this Columbia accident
report, including the recommended safety changes. And so it is the
Columbia accident report that has killed the Hubble servicing mission,
when NASA does not have the resources to waste in order to make the
Hubble servicing safe.

That
doesn't make sense on many levels (like past missions for example),

Past missions did not account for the fact that 1 out of every 60
Shuttle flights (roughly) would not be coming back.

Since they have to do about 30 to 35 flights to the ISS in order to
complete it from what I read, then already this number is generating a
serious risk of another accident.

The odds are on their side, but it still could happen.

but I want to discuss something else here.

Fine.

If we can ask 25 year olds to risk their life in battle (Irak or
elsewhere) for whatever reason, why can't we ask 40+ year olds to do
the same for science. Clearly they would be willing (at least some of
them, I suspect all of them).

The problem is not the crew, but the Shuttle, when NASA only has three
of their aging Shuttles left and they cannot afford to lose another
one.

Also you can rest assured if that they do lose another Shuttle and
Crew, then this Shuttle won't ever fly again. Like it or not the
Hubble mission does generate additional risks.

If America as a nation can spend dozens of billions of dollars on a
project, but can't "take risks" with peoples lives for exploration,

Serving the Hubble is not real exploration, at least in the Human
sense.

You find a way to service the Hubble without extreme costs that does
not involve the Shuttle, then NASA should listen.

then it is probably finished as far as human exploration goes.

Again, serving the Hubble is not human space exploration. And you can
rest assured that every astronaut at NASA would be only happy to risk
their life in order to do real space exploration.

They could kick one astronaut out of their moon base with the claim of
"don't come back until you have found a really interesting moon rock".

Or is it just that O'Keefe has a problem here?

He is just following the wise advice of the Columbia accident report.

And what about these human trips to Moon or Mars anyway? I bet that
they will be a lot risker then matching Hubble's Orbit and bolting a
few new pieces on to it.

True, and also not true. There will be different risks, where the
Shuttle by it's very design is not made to be a safe system.

Yes, in all odds one or more astronauts could die even in the first
"moon plan" stage of their larger "exploration plan", but although
that will be unwelcome at least they did so doing real exploration and
advancing human frontiers.

And who can say that they won't discover something very unexpected on
the Moon?

There might be other good reasons to trash Hubble, but I think the
reason O'Keefe gave is surious (to put it politely).

You need to read up on it more.

What do you think?

No Shuttle to Hubble.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk