NASA Ready for Hubble Shuttle rescue mission ........then what???

Maybe I'm missing something, but as I understand it here's the
scenario.* Hubble service mission for whatever reason can't come
home.* "Rescue" Shuttle is launched, to same orbit, they slide up next
to one another.......then what???????.* Does anybody have a ref or
anything else to point to as to how NASA is planning to do this if the
unthinkable happens...................Doc

On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:21:11 -0700 (PDT), in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

Maybe I'm missing something, but as I understand it here's the
scenario.* Hubble service mission for whatever reason can't come
home.* "Rescue" Shuttle is launched, to same orbit, they slide up next
to one another.......then what???????.* Does anybody have a ref or
anything else to point to as to how NASA is planning to do this if the
unthinkable happens...................Doc

I assume that it's a small crew, all EVA certified, and they'll
transfer from one vehicle to the other using EMUs that were brought up
on the rescue ship. But I don't know if that's the plan

On Jun 17, 1:31 pm, (Rand Simberg)
wrote:

I assume that it's a small crew, all EVA certified, and they'll
transfer from one vehicle to the other using EMUs that were brought up
on the rescue ship. But I don't know if that's the plan

Or that and the zipper balls I remember reading about back in grade
school...

On Jun 17, 1:59*pm, wrote:
On Jun 17, 1:31 pm, (Rand Simberg)
wrote:

I assume that it's a small crew, all EVA certified, and they'll
transfer from one vehicle to the other using EMUs that were brought up
on the rescue ship. *But I don't know if that's the plan

Or that and the zipper balls I remember reading about back in grade
school...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxThe
zipper balls were never serious contenders for any mission. I beleive
that only two were manufactured total! One for testing and 1 for
PR. Didn't those pictures make you feel warm and fuzzy! A victim or
early Shuttle safety optimism..........Doc

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:21:11 -0700 (PDT), in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

Maybe I'm missing something, but as I understand it here's the
scenario. Hubble service mission for whatever reason can't come
home. "Rescue" Shuttle is launched, to same orbit, they slide up next
to one another.......then what???????. Does anybody have a ref or
anything else to point to as to how NASA is planning to do this if the
unthinkable happens...................Doc

The rescue orbiter first approaches and grapples the Hubble orbiter at
the OBSS forward grapple fixture.

I assume that it's a small crew, all EVA certified, and they'll
transfer from one vehicle to the other using EMUs that were brought up
on the rescue ship. But I don't know if that's the plan

More or less. Last I checked, the Hubble crew does all the EVAs; the
rescue crew simply leaves the extra EMUs in the airlock.

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...

More or less. Last I checked, the Hubble crew does all the EVAs; the
rescue crew simply leaves the extra EMUs in the airlock.

To be honest and morbid, that makes sense.

Don't risk the rescuers any more than you have to.

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

More or less. Last I checked, the Hubble crew does all the EVAs; the
rescue crew simply leaves the extra EMUs in the airlock.

It would be a very bad thing if they needed to do that...but boy, would
that make cool sci-fi movie caliber video, ala "Marooned".
Has anyone heard of any repair timelines on the 39A pad flame trench yet?
I pity the repair crew if the asbestos in the pad means all the repair
crew needs to wear some sort of protective suits while working on it in
the heat and humidity of a KLC summer.
On thing interesting though...that flame trench failed over forty years
after it was built for project Apollo...which, even in its most
optimistic form, wouldn't have gone much past 1975.
Which shows you that NASA used to build things like a brick ****house in
the old days.
39B isn't launch-capable at the moment, so the cost of the HST repair
mission has not only to be measured against the launch costs, but any
repairs and mods needed to get the two pads up to spec... it might be
smarter to just let HST die, and build a new space telescope
incorporating all the improvements in technology since its design and
launch, as well as lessons learned from the HST operations.
This could be launched on a expendable booster, and serviced via Orion
spacecraft.
Even before this, the cost of the next repair mission was comparable to
that of a new-build ST.
....and this time, they could actually grind the mirror right. :-)

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
Which shows you that NASA used to build things like a brick ****house in
the old days.
39B isn't launch-capable at the moment, so the cost of the HST repair
mission has not only to be measured against the launch costs, but any
repairs and mods needed to get the two pads up to spec... it might be
smarter to just let HST die, and build a new space telescope incorporating
all the improvements in technology since its design and launch, as well as
lessons learned from the HST operations.
This could be launched on a expendable booster, and serviced via Orion
spacecraft.
Even before this, the cost of the next repair mission was comparable to
that of a new-build ST.
...and this time, they could actually grind the mirror right. :-)

Pat


I agree technically, but not emotionally - Hubble's irreplaceable in 'our'
minds. If, however, someone decided to build a new version with better
optics and digital sensors.... WOW!

And yes, it could be launched on an ELV and serviced via Orion/Dragon.
Think of it this way - the shuttle was limited to 14.5-15 tonnes into LEO -
Delta IV Heavy can put 23.5 tonnes into LEO and Falcon 9 Heavy 29.6 tonnes -
almost twice the mass of Hubble; so the image systems would be at least
twice (4x?) as good.

On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:28:21 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

On thing interesting though...that flame trench failed over forty years
after it was built for project Apollo...which, even in its most
optimistic form, wouldn't have gone much past 1975.

....What's the number of launches compared to each pad? Wasn't 39A the
one that was used the most?

OM
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Alan Erskine wrote:

And yes, it could be launched on an ELV and serviced via Orion/Dragon.
Think of it this way - the shuttle was limited to 14.5-15 tonnes into LEO -
Delta IV Heavy can put 23.5 tonnes into LEO and Falcon 9 Heavy 29.6 tonnes -
almost twice the mass of Hubble; so the image systems would be at least
twice (4x?) as good.

And, oh, you could do a _really_ slick one now!
The Hubble technology went back to the mid 1970s, and in CCDs alone you
could give a new one a seeing ability that would make the present one
look like a piece of crap as far as resolution went.
Surface-based observatories can now equal or better HST's resolutions in
the optical frequencies, and if you take the atmospheric effects out of
that equation while using top-notch optics, and "Image Averaging" - via
overcoming any optical limits of the mirror diameter itself by a long
exposure of a particular object into a view that removes any fuzziness -
by combining several hundred images of it in a matter of a few seconds
as the ST moves...and the image then focused by the mirror from
individual parts of its surface only angstroms apart...to form a
computer-generated averaged image of damn near perfection, which cancels
out errors in the individual images due to the resolution limits of the
overall optical system.
One then could get images of planetary objects that would look like you
were in orbit around them.
Maybe even Pluto.

Pat