The Hubble Space Telescope...

In article ,
David A. Scott wrote:
Interesting its not worth the RISK OF LIFE to bring it back
but it is worth the RISK OF LIFE to attach a rocket to it to
up burn it up in the atmosphere.

No, the rocket attachment could be done as part of the last servicing
mission (there is at least one more planned), so it would not involve any
added risk.

I wonder if anybody has done
some sort of environmental study about the tradeoffs since the
mission itself and the rocket attached will add more pollution
to the air.

Completely insignificant compared to all the other stuff that goes into
the atmosphere.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
David A. Scott wrote:

Interesting its not worth the RISK OF LIFE to bring it back
but it is worth the RISK OF LIFE to attach a rocket to it to
up burn it up in the atmosphere.


No, the rocket attachment could be done as part of the last servicing
mission (there is at least one more planned), so it would not involve any
added risk.

More likely to be on SM-5 if the HST Program were lucky enough to get that.

I wonder if anybody has done
some sort of environmental study about the tradeoffs since the
mission itself and the rocket attached will add more pollution
to the air.


Completely insignificant compared to all the other stuff that goes into
the atmosphere.

Current plan is to launch the prop module on an ELV when HST is no
longer able to produce science.

A Hubble Hubble wrote:


Current plan is to launch the prop module on an ELV when HST is no
longer able to produce science.

We should talk to the Russians; a modified Progress could do this job at
fairly low cost.

Pat

There may be a lot of magic involved in that operation. In many ways,
the scenario is amazingly similar to the Skylab rescue plan, that
would have used a teleoperated servicer to change the orbit of Skylab.
We all know how that worked out.


Leaf Fan wrote in message ...
The current thinking is that some sort of propulsion module will be
attached to HST to provide a controlled re-entry at the end of HST's life.

(Explorer8939) wrote:

There may be a lot of magic involved in that operation. In many ways,
the scenario is amazingly similar to the Skylab rescue plan, that
would have used a teleoperated servicer to change the orbit of Skylab.
We all know how that worked out.

No, we don't know how it worked out. The plan was never carried out.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

Exactly. The plan was never carried out, and Skylab was lost.


(Derek Lyons) wrote in message ...
(Explorer8939) wrote:

There may be a lot of magic involved in that operation. In many ways,
the scenario is amazingly similar to the Skylab rescue plan, that
would have used a teleoperated servicer to change the orbit of Skylab.
We all know how that worked out.

No, we don't know how it worked out. The plan was never carried out.

In article ,
Explorer8939 wrote:
There may be a lot of magic involved in that operation. In many ways,
the scenario is amazingly similar to the Skylab rescue plan, that
would have used a teleoperated servicer to change the orbit of Skylab.
We all know how that worked out.

Uh, yes; we know that the teleoperated servicer was never built and the
scheduled reboost mission never flew.

The reason for this isn't any intrinsic flaw with the concept - there
are possible niggles, but there's plenty of time to work on them and
we've got 25 years of orbital maintenance experience to do it with - but
more the fact that Skylab turned out, er, not to be there any more.

Not the best way to demonstrate that reboost missions are in some way
known to be problematic, unless you're suggesting there's some kind of
Solar Flux Karma going on...

--
-Andrew Gray

Leaf Fan opined

Unfortunately many things changed after February 1. Even the official
position of the astronaut office at JSC is that astronaut lives will not
be risked for an HST retrieval mission, i.e. the benefit of returning
HST to Earth is not worth the risko of astronaut lives. The risk is
acceptable for servicing missions where the benefit is scientific knowledge.

The HST Program did a study to determine what would have to be done to
bring HST back to in the payload bay and while the study assumed
Columbia, i.e. no external airlock, a return mission could be performed
with an orbiter that has the external airlock, although additional work
would have to be done (servicing hardware mods for HST to fit farther
back in the bay).

The current thinking is that some sort of propulsion module will be
attached to HST to provide a controlled re-entry at the end of HST's life.

If NASA is going to delibrately change Hubbles orbit, why not do 2 burns and
boost into a 6,000km orbit and give some future generation the option of
retrieving it for the Smithsonian?

-ash
for assistance dial MYCROFTXXX

Ash Wyllie wrote:

Leaf Fan opined


Unfortunately many things changed after February 1. Even the official
position of the astronaut office at JSC is that astronaut lives will not
be risked for an HST retrieval mission, i.e. the benefit of returning
HST to Earth is not worth the risko of astronaut lives. The risk is
acceptable for servicing missions where the benefit is scientific knowledge.


The HST Program did a study to determine what would have to be done to
bring HST back to in the payload bay and while the study assumed
Columbia, i.e. no external airlock, a return mission could be performed
with an orbiter that has the external airlock, although additional work
would have to be done (servicing hardware mods for HST to fit farther
back in the bay).


The current thinking is that some sort of propulsion module will be
attached to HST to provide a controlled re-entry at the end of HST's life.


If NASA is going to delibrately change Hubbles orbit, why not do 2 burns and
boost into a 6,000km orbit and give some future generation the option of
retrieving it for the Smithsonian?

-ash
for assistance dial MYCROFTXXX


Boosting HST into a higher orbit has been discussed, but you'd have to
ask those who said "no" why they don't want to leave HST retrieval to
another generation.

Craig Fink wrote in message thlink.net...

NASA (or better yet Congress) should pull the plug on some NASA managers,
instead of the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope has
contributed so much to our the knowledge of the Universe it would be
criminal not to put it in a museum for display along with all it's
achievements.

Forget that. If you can afford a mission to retrieve Hubble, you can
afford a mission to service Hubble for several more years of service.
Much better to keep getting useful work out of Hubble than to pour all
those millions down the drain.

And if you're not going to pony up to service Hubble again because
it's too expensive, then it's too expensive to retrieve, and the money
can be better spent on other missions. One Hubble service/retrieval
mission is worth several of those better-faster-cheaper missions. It'd
be criminal to waste so money on a museum piece when it can find much
better uses.

Mike Miller, Materials Engineer