Isn't Hubble in hand is worth more than a possibly lost shuttle?

If I understood O'Keefe correctly, he says we should let Hubble rot
because it would be too risky to send another mission there. That
doesn't make sense on many levels (like past missions for example),
but I want to discuss something else here.

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).

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,
then it is probably finished as far as human exploration goes. Or is
it just that O'Keefe has a problem here?

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.

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

What do you think?

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

I wasn't aware he could drop a few billion more in his purse if he really,
really just wanted to.

In article , 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. That
doesn't make sense on many levels (like past missions for example),
but I want to discuss something else here.

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).

There are plenty of forty-year-olds; finding a shuttle crew willing to
take a risky flight is not hard. Finding a good, experienced shuttle
crew willing to take a flight percieved as riskier might be trickier,
but still not difficult. (It's not really the most risk-averse segment
of the population...)

Losing a shuttle, though, and trying to keep an ISS flight rate up with
only two orbiters...

--
-Andrew Gray

Andrew Gray wrote:
In article , 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. That
doesn't make sense on many levels (like past missions for example),
but I want to discuss something else here.

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).

There are plenty of forty-year-olds; finding a shuttle crew willing to
take a risky flight is not hard. Finding a good, experienced shuttle
crew willing to take a flight percieved as riskier might be trickier,
but still not difficult. (It's not really the most risk-averse segment
of the population...)

The next generation one goes without the expectation of humans going to fix
it. Why not use Hubble for a bit of practice with robot repair technique?

Though adaptive optics have increased terrestrial scope power that must
increase further by adding in Hubble and its wider spectrum. Or is it
insignificant?

Might be good using adaptives between Hubble and the NGST.

Losing a shuttle, though, and trying to keep an ISS flight rate up with
only two orbiters...

What do the humans do that robots can't, or won't be able to?

Where are the economic studies of these trade-offs?


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In article ,
Andrew Gray wrote:

In article , 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. That
doesn't make sense on many levels (like past missions for example),
but I want to discuss something else here.

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).

There are plenty of forty-year-olds; finding a shuttle crew willing to
take a risky flight is not hard. Finding a good, experienced shuttle
crew willing to take a flight percieved as riskier might be trickier,
but still not difficult. (It's not really the most risk-averse segment
of the population...)

Losing a shuttle, though, and trying to keep an ISS flight rate up with
only two orbiters...

Yet will such a solution stop the next space disaster?

Almost certainly not.

The US has had three incidents in which astronauts have lost their lives
in a space vehicle: Apollo 1, Challenger, and now Columbia. Each
happened at a different point and (even with the two shuttle losses) in
a different way and with a different cause.

Sooner or later another vehicle and its crew will be lost. If manned
space travel and manned space exploration are to continue then next loss
is only a matter of time.

When it does happen it will probably happen in a different way yet
again, with a different cause, and in a fashion most people at the time
will least expect (but which everyone afterwards, with the wisdom of
hindsight, will say they *should* have been expecting). If it's not a
shuttle, it will be a CEV or whatever comes after the CEV.

Suppose for the sake of argument a CEV was lost. What then? Does America
stop going to the Moon or Mars as a consequence and return to pottering
around in LEO, for no better reason than because there astronauts will
be most safe and least likely to incur the risk of winding up dead, and
the least money need to be spent on ensuring such an accident does not
happen again?

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 13:13:49 +1100, in a place far, far away, Stephen
Souter made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Losing a shuttle, though, and trying to keep an ISS flight rate up with
only two orbiters...

Yet will such a solution stop the next space disaster?

Almost certainly not.

So? It's unlikely to happen again before the Shuttle retires.

In article ,
h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 13:13:49 +1100, in a place far, far away, Stephen
Souter made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Losing a shuttle, though, and trying to keep an ISS flight rate up with
only two orbiters...

Yet will such a solution stop the next space disaster?

Almost certainly not.

So? It's unlikely to happen again before the Shuttle retires.

Don't count your chickens.

NASA nearly had two Apollo calamities in less than 5 years: Apollo 1 in
1967 and Apollo 13 in 1970. If that can happen to Apollo it can happen
to the Shuttle.

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:10:19 +1100, in a place far, far away, Stephen
Souter made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 13:13:49 +1100, in a place far, far away, Stephen
Souter made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Losing a shuttle, though, and trying to keep an ISS flight rate up with
only two orbiters...

Yet will such a solution stop the next space disaster?

Almost certainly not.

So? It's unlikely to happen again before the Shuttle retires.

Don't count your chickens.

NASA nearly had two Apollo calamities in less than 5 years: Apollo 1 in
1967 and Apollo 13 in 1970. If that can happen to Apollo it can happen
to the Shuttle.

In what way is Shuttle reliability correlated with Apollo reliability?

Shuttle went five years without its first accident. It went seventeen
years without another. It's a fair bet that it won't have two more in
the next decade.

In article ,
Andrew Gray wrote:

In article , 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. That
doesn't make sense on many levels (like past missions for example),
but I want to discuss something else here.

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).

There are plenty of forty-year-olds; finding a shuttle crew willing to
take a risky flight is not hard. Finding a good, experienced shuttle
crew willing to take a flight percieved as riskier might be trickier,
but still not difficult. (It's not really the most risk-averse segment
of the population...)

Losing a shuttle, though, and trying to keep an ISS flight rate up with
only two orbiters...

Yet will a solution that only sees the Shuttle go to the ISS stop the
next space disaster?

Almost certainly not.

The US has had three incidents in which astronauts have lost their lives
in a space vehicle: Apollo 1, Challenger, and now Columbia. Each
happened at a different point and (even with the two Shuttle losses) in
a different way and with a different cause.

Sooner or later another vehicle and its crew will be lost. If manned
space travel and manned space exploration are to continue then the next
loss is only a matter of time.

When it does happen it will probably happen in a different way yet
again, with a different cause, and in a fashion most people at the time
will least expect (but which everyone afterwards, with the wisdom of
hindsight, will say they *should* have been expecting). If it's not a
Shuttle, it will be a CEV or whatever comes after the CEV.

Suppose for the sake of argument a CEV was lost on its way to the Moon
or Mars. What then? Does America stop going to the Moon or Mars as a
consequence and return to pottering around in the comparative safety of
LEO?

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

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