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In article ,
Scott Lowther wrote: It doesn't matter *how* the servicing is done or from where using what launcher, just so's it's done economically. I mean, jeez. A Shuttle HST mission costs $500M. Remember that the shuttle cost is almost all fixed annual overhead. The cost of *adding* one more flight to existing shuttle operations is nowhere near $500M; last I heard, it was estimated at $50-100M, depending on how much custom preparation is needed. The Hubble-specific side of preparations, which isn't trivial, is the same regardless. (If it can be streamlined with another vehicle, it can be streamlined with the shuttle.) Except that lots of little bits of existing support equipment and operations procedures are shuttle-specific, and modifying or rebuilding them is an extra cost of using something else. Pushing this off the shuttle and saying "use something else" is either major false economy, or an attempt to kill the mission without actually quite saying so. It actually doesn't cost that much to use the shuttle for it; I doubt greatly that you can do it much more cheaply on something else, all other things being equal. The way I read it is that O'Keefe sees the safety argument as a great excuse to head the astronomers off at the pass, firmly eliminating any possibility that he will later be lobbied for extended Hubble operations, more servicing flights, more improvements and extensions, etc. He might have been inclined to go ahead with the one planned servicing flight... but if he permits one visit, that ruins his silver-bullet argument that reliably kills all later pleas for more money. So even that one flight has got to go; the grief he'll take over canceling it will pay off in avoiding later hassles. -- MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. | |
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On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 23:12:15 GMT, Scott Lowther
wrote: Get four hundred thousand people (worldwide) to subscribe to the HST download service at, say, ten dollars per year, then your servicing missions are paid for. ....What's ****ing ironic about this is that I read this while I'm vampiring a clipart service website, snagging all their thumbnails and small-sized samples, and along comes the first and only reason I'd ever subscribe to an image service. Not that it'll happen, mind you. It's too ****ing logical... OM -- "No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society - General George S. Patton, Jr |
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On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 17:37:41 -0700, Charles Buckley
wrote: What would it really cost to use Soyuz to boost Hubble in the 2008 timeframe? Can they service the gyro's with Soyuz, or will it require an additional launch from another source? ....Here's a question: are the current Soyuz versions EVA-capable? OM -- "No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society - General George S. Patton, Jr |
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Henry Spencer wrote:
Pushing this off the shuttle and saying "use something else" is either major false economy, or an attempt to kill the mission without actually quite saying so. But then... The way I read it is that O'Keefe sees the safety argument as a great excuse to head the astronomers off at the pass, Well, there ya go. If using the Shuttle for HST repair is an unsafe thing to do, given how creaky the shuttle system is, then Use Something Else. -- Scott Lowther, Engineer Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address |
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Henry Spencer wrote:
The cost of *adding* one more flight to existing shuttle operations is nowhere near $500M; last I heard, it was estimated at $50-100M, depending on how much custom preparation is needed. Keep in mind... this is *NASA* we're talkign about. They can take a $50M mission and turn it into a billion dollars. That's what happens when you have a government monopoly. Turn Hubble into a commercial concern, and open up servicing to competition, and you're set. The Hubble-specific side of preparations, which isn't trivial, is the same regardless. (If it can be streamlined with another vehicle, it can be streamlined with the shuttle.) If it could... would it? If somebody was watching pennies because their bonus was absed on profit, then, yes. If not, then not. -- Scott Lowther, Engineer Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address |
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Scott Lowther wrote: Oh for... see, this is what I was afraid of. Granted, something like HST cannot last forever, but it seems we're sacrificing something.... So, fly repair missions with something other than Shuttle. Okay.. what do you know that the Air Force has that _we_ don't know about? Pat |
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On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 02:32:35 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote: Scott Lowther wrote: Oh for... see, this is what I was afraid of. Granted, something like HST cannot last forever, but it seems we're sacrificing something.... So, fly repair missions with something other than Shuttle. Okay.. what do you know that the Air Force has that _we_ don't know about? No, no, think Navy: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/spauiser.htm ;-) |
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"Michael Gallagher" wrote in message ... http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/0....ap/index.html Not good news; here's hoping Bush follows through with the replacement telescope! There is no replacement telescope. NGST (James Webb Telescope) will only improve its vision in some of the infrared. It is an infrared only instrument. There is no replacement in visible light. Most importantly there is no replacement in the ultraviolet where earthbound telescopes can't see at all. They compliment each other. One does not replace the other. |
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