MSNBC (Oberg) - Robotic fix for Hubble challenged

MSNBC (Oberg) - Robotic fix for Hubble challenged

New report questions cost, timeliness of mission

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6663928/

By James Oberg, NBC News space analyst // Special to MSNBC

Updated: 10:17 p.m. ET Dec. 6, 2004

HOUSTON - When it comes to fixing up the

Hubble Space Telescope, is the best person for a job actually a robot? A
report being submitted to NASA this week casts doubt on that proposition,
contending a robotic repair mission would be costlier and riskier than the
space agency thinks.

In response, experts familiar with the Hubble rescue plan being
developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center say that the report
overestimates the obstacles. They insist that planners already have a firm
foundation in place for sending a robot to do an astronaut's job and point
out that the study assumed a mission that started from scratch, which they
are not doing.

..............

They don't really mean for the robot to do any repair, it's just to passify us,
keep us quiet about manned missions to the telescope until it's too late. The
"robot" is really only meant to lock onto the Hubble and de-orbit it in
controlled fashion.

MSu1049321 wrote:
They don't really mean for the robot to do any repair, it's just to passify us,
keep us quiet about manned missions to the telescope until it's too late. The
"robot" is really only meant to lock onto the Hubble and de-orbit it in
controlled fashion.

I think more that the "robot" is designed to serve as a
plausible excuse to allow the denial of use of the Shuttle
for a servicing mission, but is likely to be so expensive
and unworkable that it will inevitably be defunded or
scaled down (to either nothing or a simple orbit-change
mission). It's mostly political slight of hand, in my
opinion. It's too outrageously costly to be serious.

Either that or NASA is certifiably insane, which is not
entirely out of the question but somewhat the less likely
possibility.

Yes, they are running out the clock. Then later it will be:

"Oh, sorry, we REALLY tried, you know, but since the Hubble's battteries ran
down and the electronics died, we have to re-evaluate the cost-benefit equation
on saving it. Pity the telerobotic mission got delayed, but you just can't
predict these things with certainty, the contractors promised us it would be
ready in time, but...we..just...ran... out... of.......time....

Why yes, the telerobotic program WILL be transfered to SDI, why do you ask?

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 00:23:59 -0600, in a place far, far away,
"Christopher M. Jones" made the
phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

I think more that the "robot" is designed to serve as a
plausible excuse to allow the denial of use of the Shuttle
for a servicing mission, but is likely to be so expensive
and unworkable that it will inevitably be defunded or
scaled down (to either nothing or a simple orbit-change
mission). It's mostly political slight of hand, in my
opinion.

Yes, I think that was always the game ("always" meaning since all of
the unexpected public uproar over NASA's decision to abandon Hubble).