Death Sentence for the Hubble?

Henry Spencer ) wrote:
: In article ,
: Charles Buckley wrote:
: The international community relies on Hubble as well.
:
: Has the international community invested billions on building hardware
: for Hubble on the understanding that the US would launch said hardware
: and allow access to said hardware and the scientific results?

: Actually, yes. Hubble too was an international project, although less
: visibly so. I'm not sure whether there's any major international content
: in the replacement hardware grounded by the O'Keefe decision, but there
: have been international instruments in the past, and a slice of Hubble
: observing time is/was reserved as a result.

: All this was on a smaller scale than for ISS. But then, a Hubble repair
: mission will cost a whole lot less than completing ISS.

Any ratio figures on that? Is it 1/10th or closer to 1/20th? Less?

Eric

: --
: "Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
: -- George Herbert |

Rand Simberg ) wrote:
: On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 17:54:35 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
: (Eric Chomko) made the phosphor on my
: monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

: : I see Star Wars and SDI are on these people's minds more so than actual
: : spaceflight.
:
: : No, idiot. What's on the chairman's mind is CEV, and getting back to
: : the moon.
:
: Okay, smart-ass, when is CEV going to be ready?

: I don't know. It's scheduled for 2014, but if I had to bet, I'd say
: never.

Since you're usually wrong, I'd say that it'll be done before STS is
retired. You commerical guys might reach orbit by then as well.

: Or are you commercial
: space weenies trying to kill that project as well?

: CEV is irrelevant to commercial space.

Is that a fact? I'd think that a commercial company would do what they
could to create CEV. A COTS space vehicle. The fact that NASA uses it as
CEV is what is irrelevant.

Eric

Charles Buckley wrote in
:

Eric Chomko wrote:
Charles Buckley ) wrote:
: Eric Chomko wrote:
: Charles Buckley ) wrote:
: :

-snip-

: : It's a *PROJECT MANAGEMENT* decision. If you take 2 shuttles
: : (of the 2 in operation in 2007, IIRC) out of shuttle processing
: : for 2 months, then you have a 3-6 month break in ISS
: : construction as they will have to prep two shuttles for non-ISS
: : flights, then send the rescue shuttle back through processing
: : to load the payload and refly. It simply does not make sense to
: : divert resources to an ancillary task.

-snip-

: 2 mission actually.. you have to count the rescue shuttle as that
: is also one taken out of production and has all the ancillary tasks
: also assigned..

: It says a) fly through through to a given date and b) meet these
: criteria on flying. Guess what.. one of those criteria is
: seriously compromised when you throw shuttle flights to Hubble in
: addition to those already backlogged to ISS. 27 flights. Flight
: rate of 6 per year, plus a slippage of a 2 flight cycle to allow
: for repair and other supply issues will hit that 2010 date.

We're looking for one mission to Hubble! Just one! Not missions. One!


2 shuttles offline.. that is equiv to 2 mission because you have to
delay processing the rescue shuttle for any other mission. And, flying
hubble without a rescue shuttle is even more of a political dead-end.

-snip-

I'm really getting tired of people repeating this nonsense. Only the
vehicle doing the servicing of Hubble would be out of the loop. Its totally
ridiculous to say the vehicle designated as the 'Potential' rescue vehicle
(RV) must have its processing delayed or altered in any way. Actually, it
would be quite counterproductive to the ability to launch a rescue
flight... A processing delay is a processing delay, no matter where the
flight goes, very little of the processing of a Shuttle is destination
specific.

The designated RV would be whichever vehicle was being processed for the
next ISS flight, its processing would proceed like any other ISS flight...
The launch to Hubble would not happen until that vehicle was close enough
to launch that a fast tracked (3 shift) final processing & launch readiness
could get it launched in time.
When it's determined the launch to Hubble was uneventful and the vehicle is
fine, nothing changes, the RV continues its nominal processing & launches
to ISS at its normal date. If & only if, a rescue is needed, will anything
change for the RV. Besides fast tracking its final processing & launch,
there's not very many changes that need to be made to the RV, now
designated STS-300... It needs its software load changed to that used by
the vehicle sent to service Hubble and 4 seats added to the mid-deck.
Practically all cargo (ISS modules & MPLMs) gets put in the Shuttle's Cargo
Bay 'at the pad', fairly close to its scheduled launch date, so its Cargo
Bay is must likely already empty. The External AirLock & ODS, RMS, and OBSS
will already be installed, as they normally would be. Anything else needed
can easily be put in the Shuttle 'at the pad'.

So the only restriction is that the launch of the Hubble mission has to
wait until its about one to two months before the next scheduled one.
That's really not that hard to schedule, for just one flight.

And don't forget about the many things that preclude a launch to ISS
certain parts of the year. Take for instance the Daylight launch
restriction, it may be that some Daylight launch windows for Hubble can be
found for times when Daylight launch windows for ISS don't exist. That
would go a long way toward making the scheduling argument (delay of an ISS
flight) mute.

--
David,

--------------The Speed of Light---------------
---------------300,000 km/second---------------
----Its not just a good idea, it's the law!----

"N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N: dlzc1 D:cox wrote:

:To the Group:
:
:I'm wondering if you couldn't simply put up an extra Soyuz, with a little
:bit of manuvering fuel, toddle over from the ISS, and simply change the
:battery (and more?) via an EVA...

People keep suggesting this. Those people don't understand orbital
mechanics. Once you're at ISS, you can't get there from here. This
is why they won't let the SHUTTLE do it. Because if something goes
wrong it can't get from the Hubble to ISS.

:No real need in running the 18-wheeler over, if the station's tow truck is
:capable.

It's not.

:And it is nice and adviseable to have a fleet of in-orbit maintenance
:craft, makes plenty of jobs and so on, but if Hubble is still doing good
:astronomy with a small band-aid, why not?

Because you can't get there from here.

:Could a Soyuz (or a contraption) be delivered to space, and provide the
:conveyance from the ISS at an opportune time, to save the Hubble? Even if
:they towed the Hubble to the ISS, they've got a robot arm that might do the
:trick without an EVA...

Shifting orbital inclination once you're up is only somewhat less hard
than getting to the desired orbit in the first place. Again, the
difficulty of this is why they won't let the Shuttle go there in the
first place.

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Lewis Mammel wrote:

:
:
:Rand Simberg wrote:
:
: On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 22:15:52 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
: (Eric Chomko) made the phosphor on my
: monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:
:
: : IOW, ISS doesn't have a lot of support from the chairman. Of course,
: : neither does Shuttle. And he didn't mention Hubble...
:
: I see Star Wars and SDI are on these people's minds more so than actual
: spaceflight.
:
: No, idiot. What's on the chairman's mind is CEV, and getting back to
: the moon.
:
:If we were anywhere near going back to the moon, we would would have
:ten Hubbles up - we would have Hubbles orbiting the moon - we would
:have Hubbles at L5 - big Hubbles, little Hubbles, all kinds of Hubbles.

And why would that be? How many Hubbles did we have up the FIRST time
we went to the Moon?

:But we don't and we aren't.

Gee, we must not have ever gone in the first place, then....

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw

Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Charles Buckley wrote:

The international community relies on Hubble as well.

Has the international community invested billions on building hardware
for Hubble on the understanding that the US would launch said hardware
and allow access to said hardware and the scientific results?


Actually, yes. Hubble too was an international project, although less
visibly so. I'm not sure whether there's any major international content
in the replacement hardware grounded by the O'Keefe decision, but there
have been international instruments in the past, and a slice of Hubble
observing time is/was reserved as a result.

All this was on a smaller scale than for ISS. But then, a Hubble repair
mission will cost a whole lot less than completing ISS.


I think my point here is that there are a lot of partners on ISS
who have seen essentially zero ROI.

Henry Spencer wrote:
Actually, yes. Hubble too was an international project, although less
visibly so. I'm not sure whether there's any major international content
in the replacement hardware grounded by the O'Keefe decision, but there
have been international instruments in the past, and a slice of Hubble
observing time is/was reserved as a result.
[snip]

Besides which, Hubble has already completed its original
mission and is now on its nth mission extension, whereas
ISS hasn't even hit assembly complete yet.

Paul F. Dietz wrote:
The reasoning is probably: 'if we were going back to the moon, it would
mean we had much cheaper access to space, which means it would be much
easier
to launch and maintain space telescopes'.

The first part of the chain of inference is either suspect or uses a
somewhat
different definition of what 'going back to the moon' would mean than what
you or I may have thought (not Apollo redux, but a considerably larger
presence).
[snip]

My sentiments exactly. Serious space exploration is a long
term process that will inevitably rely on substantial
technological and physical infrastructure which will lower
the costs and difficulties of accessing space. As such, once
it starts in earnest it cannot, and will not, be affected by
minor things like NASA funding levels or the committment of
one or another major government.

Eric Chomko wrote:

Charles Buckley ) wrote:
[...]
: (ISS, Apollo, with Shuttle being republican.
[...]

Why is Apollo Republican? JFK and LBJ? Does Nixon get credit for Apollo,
somehow? I credit Nixon with Skylab.

Slow down. Read for comprehension, not for Evelyn Woods scorekeeping.

/dps

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 21:26:50 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Eric Chomko) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

: Or are you commercial
: space weenies trying to kill that project as well?

: CEV is irrelevant to commercial space.

Is that a fact? I'd think that a commercial company would do what they
could to create CEV.

If you'd think that, then why do you think that they would kill it?
Can't you even keep your nutty theories consistent? Or do you just
flip coins or toss dice every few minutes to determine what you
believe at any point in time?

Anyway, that's unlikely. There is no commercial market for such a
vehicle to justify its costs.