A Space & astronomy forum. SpaceBanter.com

Go Back   Home » SpaceBanter.com forum » Space Science » Policy
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Death Sentence for the Hubble?



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old February 23rd 05, 07:24 PM
Andrew Nowicki
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Andrew Nowicki wrote:

PS. Imagine that hundreds of cheap telerobots have
been launched into cislunar space. High school volunteers
control them via Internet and use them to mine the
Moon and build orbital greenhouses...


Let us figure out how much it would cost.
One Dextre with the grapple arm costs $154 million
and weights about 2 tons. According to the calculator
(http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/bu2/SVLCM.html) its cost
of manufacturing is about $41 million. The cost
of launching 2 ton spacecraft is $20 million.
According to another calculator
(http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/bu2/MOCM.html) its
annual mission operations cost is about $9 million.

The total cost of building one hundred Dextre telerobots,
launching them into low Earth orbit, and using
them for one year is: $154M - $41M + (100 x ($41M + $20M + $9M)) =
$7,113 million = about $7 billion -- less than one
half of the annual NASA budget! Electrodynamic tethers
can provide cheap thrust in the low Earth orbit. There
will be additional cost of building a network of
terrestrial transponders -- perhaps $100 million.

I cannot think of a better way to spend $7 billion.
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
NYT: Death Sentence for the Hubble? Pat Flannery History 39 February 20th 05 05:59 PM
Death Sentence for the Hubble? Neil Gerace History 17 February 15th 05 02:06 PM
Congressional Resolutions on Hubble Space Telescope EFLASPO Amateur Astronomy 0 April 1st 04 03:26 PM
UFO Activities from Biblical Times (Long Text) Kazmer Ujvarosy UK Astronomy 3 December 25th 03 10:41 PM
UFO Activities from Biblical Times (LONG TEXT) Kazmer Ujvarosy SETI 2 December 25th 03 07:33 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 12:06 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2025 SpaceBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.