NYT: Death Sentence for the Hubble?

rk wrote:


Sean O'Keefe, the departing administrator of the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, has yanked the agency's most important scientific
instrument off life support. His refusal to budget any funds to service and
upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope looks like the petulant final act of an
administrator who made a foolish decision and then refused to back down in the
face of withering criticism from experts.



If the repair mission costs as much as building a new telescope, then we
should build a new telescope using updated technology. This time with a
mirror that's ground correctly.
Improved ground based telescope resolution has taken away a lot of
Hubble's necessity.

Pat

In article ,
says...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/opinion/13sun2.html?

Death Sentence for the Hubble?

Sean O'Keefe, the departing administrator...

Could someone remind me of what the S in NASA stands for? Is it Shuttle?
Station?? something else???
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

The loss of the American system of checks and balances
is more of a security danger than any terrorist risk.
-- Bruce Schneier

Kevin Willoughby wrote in
:

In article ,
says...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/opinion/13sun2.html?

Death Sentence for the Hubble?

Sean O'Keefe, the departing administrator...

Could someone remind me of what the S in NASA stands for? Is it Shuttle?
Station?? something else???

Space.

--
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 Sun, 13 Feb 2005 16:46:31 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Improved ground based telescope resolution has taken away a lot of
Hubble's necessity.

....Bull****. Any time someone makes the arguement that ground-based
telescopes are better than space-based ones, you're shooting progress
in space in the foot. Hubble should be fixed *and* we should get a new
telescope. We should have out cake and eat it too, because it's far
better to put our money into such endeavors instead of inefficient and
counterproductive welfare-based handout programs.

OM

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Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Could someone remind me of what the S in NASA stands for? Is it Shuttle?
Station?? something else???



Space.



Considering how it's been run since Goldin's tenure, I was going to
suggest "Stupid".
"National Aeronautics and Stupid Administration" has a nice ring to it. ;-)
Oh well, at least the unmanned stuff seems to be working fairly well of
recent.

Pat

OM wrote:

...Bull****. Any time someone makes the arguement that ground-based
telescopes are better than space-based ones, you're shooting progress
in space in the foot. Hubble should be fixed *and* we should get a new
telescope.



I'd just build a new one, using everything we learned from Hubble as a
guide on what to do- and more importantly, what not to do (shedding
insulation blankets, floppy solar arrays, misground mirror). By putting
it in an orbit slightly out of phase with the ISS, you could even send
astronauts over to work on it from time to time as it drew near the
station via a modified Soyuz with the repair gear stowed in its orbital
module. There's a lot of new technology in regards to electronics and
computational systems that could be incorporated into a new one, as the
Hubble design's basic parts were frozen a long time ago.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

There's a lot of new technology in regards to electronics and
computational systems that could be incorporated into a new one, as the
Hubble design's basic parts were frozen a long time ago.

Out here in the real world... That's long since been done. There's
not much left (so far as electronics and computers go) of the design's
"basic parts".

The mirror was a non-issue once COSTAR was installed, and COSTAR is
slated to be removed this trip as all the instruments have corrective
optics built in.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Stupidity, I imagine.

:-)

Brian

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"Kevin Willoughby" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/opinion/13sun2.html?

Death Sentence for the Hubble?

Sean O'Keefe, the departing administrator...

Could someone remind me of what the S in NASA stands for? Is it Shuttle?
Station?? something else???
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

The loss of the American system of checks and balances
is more of a security danger than any terrorist risk.
-- Bruce Schneier

Well... If one want a regular serviceable telescop, one might as well
stuck a telescope at the I.S.S., just like Skylab.

It should be noted that a 600 km orbit is not the best orbit for a
space telescope. That's why some space telescopes are put in the
Sun-Earth L1 (for observing the sun) and L2 (for observing outerspace).



As for Hubble.

The problem lies in Hubble's re-entry back to Earth.

There are several ways on what could happen:

- Uncontrolled re-entry back to Earth.

A good way to ruin N.A.S.A.'s reputation.

And I'm affraid that this is what might happen, since that in recent
times, there are people that out there to ruin N.A.S.A.'s reputation
and also the reputation of the government of the U.S.A., either doing
it from the outside or from the inside.

- Controlled re-entry back to Earth.

Might not be so dark as the first option, but would be good enough to
ruin a reputation.

Just like what 'they' did to Mir.

- Bring it back to Earth and then put it in a museum.

A nice retirement for Hubble. I prefer it this way.

- Service the Hubble.

A waste a money, since it's much better to build a newer and much
improved space telescope.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Well... If one want a regular serviceable telescop, one might as well
stuck a telescope at the I.S.S., just like Skylab.

Doesn't work, too many vibrations due to crew movement. What might work,
however, is to have it attached via tether using the gravitational gradient
to keep it in place. Maybe.