Hubble to be abandoned

"Jorge R. Frank" writes:

I would also suggest that NASA take a chance and go ahead
and launch a Hubble mission, even if there is no backup.
The odds are very good that they will not have any problems
and the crew could be made up of volunteers. No guts, no
glory.

I agree; the degree of risk is overstated. I'd fly such a mission.

Wouldn't we all ? human is the STS component that will _not_ fail !
Seriously though, what's your take on the Hubble decommissioning mission,
Jorge ? Would you fly that one ?

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 17:24:58 +0100, Reivilo Snuved wrote:

"Jorge R. Frank" writes:

I agree; the degree of risk is overstated. I'd fly such a mission.

Wouldn't we all ? human is the STS component that will _not_ fail !
Seriously though, what's your take on the Hubble decommissioning
mission, Jorge ? Would you fly that one ?

Well John Grunsfeld, who flew on two HST servicing missions (STS-103 and
STS-109), and who is now the NASA chief scientist has said
that he wouldn't.

This is what Grunsfeld said for the record, prior to the cancellation of
the future Hubble servicing missions: "If astronauts are going to risk
their lives to service the Hubble Space Telescope, we should do it in
order to enable great science. For the upcoming SM4 mission the Astronaut
Office has signed up for and is excited about the prospects of sending a
team up to Hubble to install the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, the Wide
Field-3 Camera, and replace the gyros, batteries, and install the
Aft-shroud Cooling System. The Space Shuttle Program is aggressively
working towards improving the safety of the Shuttle system and to provide
solutions to the tile issues, brought to light by the Columbia accident,
which will enable an SM4 mission to the Hubble.

"If there were to be a mission after the SM4 for the purpose of returning
Hubble to earth in the Shuttle Payload bay, the Astronaut Office would
have reservations supporting the mission. Initial analysis shows that
perhaps four spacewalks are required, significant hardware would have to
be jettisoned, and a heavyweight return through the atmosphere would have
to be performed. In a sense this mission would be risking human lives, and
a unique national resource (the Space Shuttle), for the purpose of
disabling great science, albeit due to necessity at end-of-life. For this
reason the Astronaut Office favors the alternate approaches being
investigated by the Office of Space Science, including an autonomously
installed propulsion module mission, or a Shuttle based combined
servicing/propulsion module installation mission."

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/39/2

Jorge R. Frank wrote:



I would also suggest that NASA take a chance and go ahead
and launch a Hubble mission, even if there is no backup.
The odds are very good that they will not have any problems
and the crew could be made up of volunteers. No guts, no
glory.



I agree; the degree of risk is overstated. I'd fly such a mission.



The actual risk of something going seriously wrong on such a flight is
of course very low; but it would set the dread precedent: "We have done
this once...and nothing bad happened...so maybe we can do it again."...
and we would have taken our first step on the path toward losing crew #3.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote in
:

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

I would also suggest that NASA take a chance and go ahead
and launch a Hubble mission, even if there is no backup.
The odds are very good that they will not have any problems
and the crew could be made up of volunteers. No guts, no
glory.

I agree; the degree of risk is overstated. I'd fly such a mission.

The actual risk of something going seriously wrong on such a flight is
of course very low; but it would set the dread precedent: "We have done
this once...and nothing bad happened...so maybe we can do it again."...
and we would have taken our first step on the path toward losing crew #3.

Incorrect. What I am proposing is in full compliance with the CAIB
recommendations, and not much riskier (if at all) than an ISS mission. It
is certainly much less risky than a lunar or Mars mission. This is gut-
check time, Pat. *Anything* we do in space will be taking our first step on
the path toward losing crew #3. If we're not willing to risk servicing HST,
we have no business even thinking about the moon or Mars, and we might as
well scrap the whole program right here and now, and admit we no longer
have the courage to explore space.

--
JRF

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check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
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"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...

The actual risk of something going seriously wrong on such a flight is
of course very low; but it would set the dread precedent: "We have done
this once...and nothing bad happened...so maybe we can do it again."...
and we would have taken our first step on the path toward losing crew
#3.

Incorrect. What I am proposing is in full compliance with the CAIB
recommendations, and not much riskier (if at all) than an ISS mission. It
is certainly much less risky than a lunar or Mars mission. This is gut-
check time, Pat. *Anything* we do in space will be taking our first step
on
the path toward losing crew #3. If we're not willing to risk servicing
HST,
we have no business even thinking about the moon or Mars, and we might as
well scrap the whole program right here and now, and admit we no longer
have the courage to explore space.

Incorrect. We won't fly to the moon or Mars on a shuttle with known design
flaws which have already resulted in one LOCV incident. We'll fly a totally
new design. Your comparison is totally invalid.

--
Terrell Miller


"It's one thing to burn down the **** house and another thing entirely to
install plumbing"
-PJ O'Rourke

"Terrell Miller" wrote in
:

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

The actual risk of something going seriously wrong on such a flight
is of course very low; but it would set the dread precedent: "We
have done this once...and nothing bad happened...so maybe we can do
it again."... and we would have taken our first step on the path
toward losing crew
#3.

Incorrect. What I am proposing is in full compliance with the CAIB
recommendations, and not much riskier (if at all) than an ISS
mission. It is certainly much less risky than a lunar or Mars
mission. This is gut- check time, Pat. *Anything* we do in space will
be taking our first step
on
the path toward losing crew #3. If we're not willing to risk
servicing
HST,
we have no business even thinking about the moon or Mars, and we
might as well scrap the whole program right here and now, and admit
we no longer have the courage to explore space.

Incorrect. We won't fly to the moon or Mars on a shuttle with known
design flaws which have already resulted in one LOCV incident.

If the shuttle flies another HST servicing mission, it will do so with the
ability to repair damage from the *known* design flaw. What's left will be
the *unknown* design flaws.

We'll
fly a totally new design.

And by definition, *all* its design flaws will initially be unknown. An
unknown design flaw is much more difficult to prepare for in advance.

Your comparison is totally invalid.

Nope, it's perfectly valid. A lunar/Mars mission will necessarily involve
flying *far* beyond where a rescue mission would be feasible. The risks
will be far higher than any shuttle mission, even an HST mission.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Reivilo Snuved wrote in :

"Jorge R. Frank" writes:

I would also suggest that NASA take a chance and go ahead
and launch a Hubble mission, even if there is no backup.
The odds are very good that they will not have any problems
and the crew could be made up of volunteers. No guts, no
glory.

I agree; the degree of risk is overstated. I'd fly such a mission.

Wouldn't we all ? human is the STS component that will _not_ fail !
Seriously though, what's your take on the Hubble decommissioning mission,
Jorge ? Would you fly that one ?

For the most part, I agree with Grunsfeld's opinion quoted in Rick's post.
However, I also recognize that NASA has an obligation to provide a
controlled deorbit for HST. NASA currently plans to use an unmanned deorbit
stage for that purpose, but if, for whatever reason, that doesn't work, a
shuttle mission to return HST is the only option. In that case, I'd fly
that one too.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 09:29:59 -0600, "Jorge R. Frank"
wrote:

I would also suggest that NASA take a chance and go ahead
and launch a Hubble mission, even if there is no backup.
The odds are very good that they will not have any problems
and the crew could be made up of volunteers. No guts, no
glory.

I agree; the degree of risk is overstated. I'd fly such a mission.

I'm still not convinced this isn't all a ploy to get a waiver for the
CAIB's tougher return-to-flight demands.

Brian

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 13:36:19 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

The actual risk of something going seriously wrong on such a flight is
of course very low; but it would set the dread precedent: "We have done
this once...and nothing bad happened...so maybe we can do it again."...
and we would have taken our first step on the path toward losing crew #3.


I like the "Standby Shuttle" concept, myself. Schedule SM-4 for close
to the next planned ISS mission. If the SM-4 Shuttle is crippled,
launch a rescue mission. This time, we can be prepared for on-orbit
rescue, unlike the potential-but-ignored option to save the STS-107
crew.

Brian

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Incorrect. What I am proposing is in full compliance with the CAIB
recommendations, and not much riskier (if at all) than an ISS mission.

Without the ISS to serve as a emergency lifeboat in case the Shuttle
gets damaged during ascent; the risk is going to be greater.

It
is certainly much less risky than a lunar or Mars mission. This is gut-
check time, Pat. *Anything* we do in space will be taking our first step on
the path toward losing crew #3. If we're not willing to risk servicing HST,
we have no business even thinking about the moon or Mars, and we might as
well scrap the whole program right here and now, and admit we no longer
have the courage to explore space.


I notice that air travel didn't end after the R-101 crashed and exploded
shortly after it started its journey to India, or the Hindenburg went
up in flames as it was attempting to land; they just stopped building
hydrogen-filled passenger airships; because they were very costly to
operate due to the infrastructure they required, fragile, difficult to
maintain, prone to weather delays during take-off and landing... and
tended to explode with great loss of life if everything wasn't done
exactly right.
The Shuttle is our very own hydrogen-filled passenger airship.

Pat