Why not bring the Hubble back to Earth?

Yes, it is like all missions, dangerous, but it would be good to have
one of the most productive pieces of scientific gear back, in a museum
once it is decommissioned rather than burned up and dumped into the
Pacific ocean. It is certainly a far more important (for history)
task than sending countless missions to the money-sucking, "results
not-oriented" ISS.

On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:46:13 -0800 (PST), Rich
wrote:

Yes, it is like all missions, dangerous, but it would be good to have
one of the most productive pieces of scientific gear back, in a museum
once it is decommissioned rather than burned up and dumped into the
Pacific ocean. It is certainly a far more important (for history)
task than sending countless missions to the money-sucking, "results
not-oriented" ISS.

Sure it would be "nice". But getting it back would be really expensive,
it would be dangerous, and would provide nothing but sentimental value.
It makes no sense.
_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On Nov 22, 7:01*pm, Chris L Peterson wrote:

Sure it would be "nice". But getting it back would be really expensive,
it would be dangerous, and would provide nothing but sentimental value.
It makes no sense.

Yes, bringing it back to Earth is little better than letting it burn
up on re-entry. Now, if a small rocket booster could be dispatched to
it, to bring it to dock with the ISS, then it would at least still be
in orbit, and later it could be put to good use again.

John Savard

Ya. picture that... the ISS with it's own observatory.


"Quadibloc" wrote in message
...
On Nov 22, 7:01 pm, Chris L Peterson wrote:

Sure it would be "nice". But getting it back would be really expensive,
it would be dangerous, and would provide nothing but sentimental value.
It makes no sense.

Yes, bringing it back to Earth is little better than letting it burn
up on re-entry. Now, if a small rocket booster could be dispatched to
it, to bring it to dock with the ISS, then it would at least still be
in orbit, and later it could be put to good use again.

John Savard

Rich wrote:
Yes, it is like all missions, dangerous, but it would be good to have
one of the most productive pieces of scientific gear back, in a museum
once it is decommissioned rather than burned up and dumped into the
Pacific ocean. It is certainly a far more important (for history)
task than sending countless missions to the money-sucking, "results
not-oriented" ISS.

While the Hubble was launched by the shuttle and fits in the bay, the
dynamic loads on re-entry are undoubtedly different than launch loads.
I'd be very surprised if the shuttle could safely re-enter and land with
the Hubble aboard.

Anyway, if the intention is to preserve the Hubble as a science museum,
it's current environment is far superior.

On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:22:16 -0800, lal_truckee
wrote:

While the Hubble was launched by the shuttle and fits in the bay, the
dynamic loads on re-entry are undoubtedly different than launch loads.
I'd be very surprised if the shuttle could safely re-enter and land with
the Hubble aboard.

That was my first thought, as well. A little research revealed that
while the payload would be above the preferred landing weight, it isn't
above the design limit. The shuttle never takes more up than it can land
with, because it needs to be able to abort in an emergency.
_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Bob Lablaw wrote:
Ya. picture that... the ISS with it's own observatory.

Part of the reason the ISS is useless for astronomical imaging is that
it flexes too much and the space around it is fairly dirty.


"Quadibloc" wrote in message
...
On Nov 22, 7:01 pm, Chris L Peterson wrote:

Sure it would be "nice". But getting it back would be really expensive,
it would be dangerous, and would provide nothing but sentimental value.
It makes no sense.

Yes, bringing it back to Earth is little better than letting it burn
up on re-entry. Now, if a small rocket booster could be dispatched to
it, to bring it to dock with the ISS, then it would at least still be
in orbit, and later it could be put to good use again.

I think it will basically have run out of things to do and any new scope
would be designed differently to allow robotic maintenance.

There is presently a NASA competition running to redesign astronauts
gloves to permit better fine motor control. Humans are not that great
when working in a clumsy pressure suit.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On Nov 22, 10:22*pm, lal_truckee wrote:

While the Hubble was launched by the shuttle and fits in the bay, the
dynamic loads on re-entry are undoubtedly different than launch loads.
I'd be very surprised if the shuttle could safely re-enter and land with
the Hubble aboard.

It's true that the Hubble is heavier than the LDEF, for example, but
if that was an issue, Spacelab would have been a problem as well, I
would think.

John Savard

lal_truckee wrote:
Rich wrote:
Yes, it is like all missions, dangerous, but it would be good to have
one of the most productive pieces of scientific gear back, in a museum
once it is decommissioned rather than burned up and dumped into the
Pacific ocean. It is certainly a far more important (for history)
task than sending countless missions to the money-sucking, "results
not-oriented" ISS.

While the Hubble was launched by the shuttle and fits in the bay, the
dynamic loads on re-entry are undoubtedly different than launch loads.
I'd be very surprised if the shuttle could safely re-enter and land with
the Hubble aboard.

Anyway, if the intention is to preserve the Hubble as a science museum,
it's current environment is far superior.
Ah.. no
With no maintenance burnup will occur automatically because of
atmospheric drag.
That even goes for the ISS, which gets an occasional boost from a
visiting craft, so even keeping hubble at the ISS will need
occasional fuel.

On Nov 23, 2:12*pm, Sjouke Burry
wrote:

With no maintenance burnup will occur automatically because of
atmospheric drag.

True, they would have to boost it into a higher orbit for it to be
safely in space permanently.

John Savard