So *was* Hubble maintenance cancelled because of the moon plan?

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:48:15 -0800, "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion
in lieu of the frontal attack )" wrote:

Ken Arromdee wrote:

It seems that everyone's saying different things about whether it is or not.
Is there anyone who actually knows?

What does servicing Hubble even have to do with the 'moon plan'? Finding
any connection at all will be nearly impossible.

The main connection is that both were announced at nearly the same
time. There is also the little matter that President Bush said that
NASA had to find $11 billion out of it's existing budget, which can be
obtained by cutting projects... like the Hubble upgrade.

That may have been a factor, but of course the Columbia disaster was
the real reason.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk

In article ,
Stephen Souter wrote:

Hubble can also be serviced and upgraded. Meaning its capabilities could
be increased, hardware problems fixed, and its lifespan could have been
extended beyond 2010.

But each one of those servicing missions costs as much as a brand new
Hubble, or 3 or 4 WMAPs. If NASA had been willing to divert the cost of
Hubble servicing missions from the manned space program we could have
had lots of Hubbles (and/or other things). But of course that would
never happen -- at NASA the fact that Hubble required hyper-expensive
shuttle missions was considered a feature, not a bug.

As Greg wrote, it was a Faustian bargain. Astronomers got a great
telescope but in return they had to shill as Exhibit A in NASA's case
for the scientific utility of the shuttle. Now that the shuttle is
scheduled for retirement (and considered too unsafe to fly anywhere but
ISS) the bargain has broken down.

If visible light astronomy is sufficiently important (and/or popular
with the taxpayers) it should be able to compete for funds against the
other space science projects under consideration. The link to manned
space was a temporary anomaly.
--
Jim Matthews
Fetch Softworks
http://fetchsoftworks.com

Stephen Souter wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Greg Kuperberg) wrote:

In article ,
Stephen Souter wrote:
Just as it was Apollo & astronauts which largely put lunar science where
it is today, so it was the shuttle and its astronauts which now allows
you to label Hubble "one of the world's most exciting science
laboratories".

I said it was *one* of the most exciting, not *the* most exciting. It is
not currently as exciting as WMAP, for example. WMAP was a spectacular
success, mercifully unassisted by astronauts in any way, shape, or form.

That's like boasting you don't need automotive mechanics to keep your
car running.

Which would all be very well if the kind of car you preferred could only
ever be used once, had a limited range of destinations it could take you
to (the ones preset in the factory), and once it's taken you there ha to
be discarded because it could not be service or refueled (although it
might well exceed its specs and go a few miles farther before breaking
down or running out of fuel). Next time you needed a car you have to go
down to the automotive supply centre and buy a new one.

The Hubble is worse. It's unique and requires $200-500 million dollars
(the incremental cost of a shuttle mission) missions to replace parts.
I'd rather boast about a limited vehicle that doesn't need repair than
one that needs consistently hundreds of millions of dollars for repair
missions.

If you want to keep that same car going for 20 years you need a human
being or two to service it every now and again.

Yes, Hubble is a great telescope, but let's face it - it's also hyped.

*All* space programs are hyped to some extent, including WMAP. (Why else
would it need a website to boast of its achievements?)

They say that one of Hubble's big achievements was to measure the age
of the universe, I presume to within 10% or so. WMAP measured it to
within 1%:

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/mr_age.html

Hubble was launched in 1990. WMAP in 2001. Dunno about you, but I'd kind
of expect a later mission using more recent technology to be able to
deliver better value than an earlier one, especially in what I presume
to have been one of its more important scientific objectives. But to use
that to then denigrate the earlier mission's achievement...

Well, do you also propose to use WMAP's map of the cosmic microwave
background to denigrate the one drawn up from COBE's data?

WMAP was only $150 million and it slaughtered some much more expensive
competition.

You get what you pay for. WMAP is certainly cheap next to Hubble. But
then WMAP is a single-shot mission with a handful of specialist
objectives and a 4-year lifespan. Hubble is a 2.4m astronomical
telescope with a 20-year lifespan and a series of broad objectives.
Namely (drawn from "http://hubble.nasa.gov/faq.html"):

A. To determine the constitution, physical characteristics,
and dynamics of celestial bodies.

B. To determine the nature of processes which occur in the
extreme physical conditions existing in and between
astronomical objects.

C. To determine the history and evolution of the universe.

D. To determine whether the laws of nature are universal in
the space-time continuum

Hubble can also be serviced and upgraded. Meaning its capabilities could
be increased, hardware problems fixed, and its lifespan could have been
extended beyond 2010.

By contrast, if WMAP had had a hardware problem of the seriousness of
Hubble's mirror there would have been no way to fix it even though the
thing might otherwise be working fine. If the science required could not
be done as a result, then if that science still needed to be done
somebody somewhere would have to find the money to build (and launch)
another one.

Let's see what's more expensive? Sending up another $150 million
mission or repairing the existing one?

These "small" projects are the unsung heroes of modern astronomy.
They are actually very large projects, they just aren't elephantine.
They are small enough that they aren't national embarrassments if they
fail disastrously (e.g. the sad fate of WIRE).

Small missions produce small results.

In any case, it's no good you singing the praises of "small"
astronomical projects when astronomers themselves are voting with their
feet by queuing up to use (not to mention asking for funding to build
more) "elephantine" optical & radio telescopes on the ground. All that
suggests is that astronomers are making do with WMAP & co in space
simply because they are *forced* to, not because that is the way they
would choose to do it had they a say in the matter (and the necessary
funding).

The very fact that they are choosing to build 8m+ optical telescopes on
the ground in ever growing numbers suggests that if they did have the
money they would prefer to put a dozen Hubbles in orbit rather than a
dozen projects like WMAP.

You neglect to mention that the cost of an 8 meter ground-based
telescope is vastly cheaper than a space-based telescope these days.
For example, the two 10 meter Keck telescopes cost around $180 million
to "develope" according to here.

http://www.noao.edu/system/tsip/keck_cost.html

OTOH, the planned James Web telescope (with a lifespan of ten years,
half that of Hubble) is projected to cost almost $825 million
according to this pdf report. It cannot be repaired.

http://www.colorado.edu/ASEN/asen5519/JWS-Telescope.pdf

The Hubble cost somewhere around $2 billion excluding the costs of the
repair missions.


Karl Hallowell

In article ,
James Matthews wrote:

In article ,
Stephen Souter wrote:

Hubble can also be serviced and upgraded. Meaning its capabilities could
be increased, hardware problems fixed, and its lifespan could have been
extended beyond 2010.

But each one of those servicing missions costs as much as a brand new
Hubble, or 3 or 4 WMAPs.

Hubble itself cost $1.5 billion (and doubtless more in today's dollars).
Does "one of those servicing missions" add up to that?

If NASA had been willing to divert the cost of
Hubble servicing missions from the manned space program we could have
had lots of Hubbles (and/or other things). But of course that would
never happen -- at NASA the fact that Hubble required hyper-expensive
shuttle missions was considered a feature, not a bug.

Why would the concept of being able to service a thing so as to extend
its lifespan or its capabilities be considered a "bug"? Don't you get
your car serviced so it last longer? If your home PC develops a fault do
you throw it away and buy a new one? If you would like a CD burner for
your PC or it needs more RAM or a larger hard drive do you upgrade your
existing PC that may only be two or three years old or buy a brand new
one?

As Greg wrote, it was a Faustian bargain. Astronomers got a great
telescope but in return they had to shill as Exhibit A in NASA's case
for the scientific utility of the shuttle. Now that the shuttle is
scheduled for retirement (and considered too unsafe to fly anywhere but
ISS) the bargain has broken down.

If visible light astronomy is sufficiently important (and/or popular
with the taxpayers) it should be able to compete for funds against the
other space science projects under consideration. The link to manned
space was a temporary anomaly.

That's like saying having service centres for PCs and automobiles is a
"temporary anomaly" and one day we'll go back to the way it *should* be
done: every time a car or PC develops a problem we go out and buy a new
one.

If human beings could roam space with more or less the same freedom (and
not much greater cost than the way) we now roam the Earth, are you
suggesting that each time a $1.5 billion space telescope broke down they
would rather go out and spend another $1.5 billion (if not more after
inflation is taken into account) to put up a replacement than to service
an existing facility?

If so, then ground-based telescopes like the Hale 200-inch reflector
would have been packed off to museums long ago.

--
Stephen Souter

http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

In article ,
Stephen Souter wrote:
Hubble itself cost $1.5 billion (and doubtless more in today's dollars).
Does "one of those servicing missions" add up to that?

And doubtless less with today's approaches. JWST is not exactly the
same telescope as Hubble, but it is a better telescope in various ways.
The projected budget is $800 million or so. That really is comparable
to the cost of a Hubble servicing mission, counting both the shuttle
time and the cost of the equipment.

Two main reasons that JWST should be cheaper: (1) they can use the
newest technology for everything, and (2) they don't have to man-rate it.

Besides, how much it costs to send astronauts to Hubble doesn't matter
any more, because it won't happen again. Personally, I'm glad that
astronauts won't soon risk life and limb just to service a telescope.
I know that they know the risks. I know that a little mortal risk is not
much compared to a billion dollars. Even so, it is unethical to risk
lives needlessly just for scientific curiosity. It's a bad precedent.

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:34:26 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Besides, how much it costs to send astronauts to Hubble doesn't matter
any more, because it won't happen again. Personally, I'm glad that
astronauts won't soon risk life and limb just to service a telescope.
I know that they know the risks. I know that a little mortal risk is not
much compared to a billion dollars. Even so, it is unethical to risk
lives needlessly just for scientific curiosity.

What does "risk lives needlessly" mean? People risk their lives
driving up to Keck to service it. Should they no longer do so?

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
What does "risk lives needlessly" mean? People risk their lives
driving up to Keck to service it. Should they no longer do so?

There is an ethical difference between the more than 1% risk of death
from servicing Hubble and the less than 0.01% risk of death from driving
up to Keck. Yes, I see that three workers died in a fire at the Subaru
telescope next to Keck. Even so, when the total risk is below 0.1%, you
can talk about safety standards. Above 1%, you can talk about safety,
but there are no standards.

In fact, the impossible combination of safety standards and extreme risk
has just killed the shuttle program.

If you want to play Evel Knievel on your own time and with your own
contraptions, then hey, it's a free country. Large organizations such
as governments and research institutes shouldn't get involved.

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:00:52 +1100, Stephen Souter
wrote:

Hubble itself cost $1.5 billion (and doubtless more in today's dollars).
Does "one of those servicing missions" add up to that?

Since that funding included research and development for Hubble, then
simply making another copy of Hubble, with adding in the new $200
million science instruments would be vastly cheaper.

And I hear that another Hubble main mirror is already to go...

A servicing mission would cost around $1.2 billion depending on flight
rate, which makes me think that a Hubble #2 could be done for much
less.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 02:28:44 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on
my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
What does "risk lives needlessly" mean? People risk their lives
driving up to Keck to service it. Should they no longer do so?

There is an ethical difference between the more than 1% risk of death
from servicing Hubble and the less than 0.01% risk of death from driving
up to Keck.

No, there's not.

Yes, I see that three workers died in a fire at the Subaru
telescope next to Keck. Even so, when the total risk is below 0.1%, you
can talk about safety standards. Above 1%, you can talk about safety,
but there are no standards.

You're just pulling arbitrary numbers out of the...air.

In fact, the impossible combination of safety standards and extreme risk
has just killed the shuttle program.

The risk isn't that extreme.

If you want to play Evel Knievel on your own time and with your own
contraptions, then hey, it's a free country.

Evil Knievel does much riskier things than a Shuttle flight.

Large organizations such
as governments and research institutes shouldn't get involved.

So, no more wars, eh?

Space flight isn't *inherently* dangerous or expensive. (though the
*shuttle* in particular, is some of both).

It's inherently dangerous in that human beings are taken to a deadly
environment where lots of engineering effort is needed to keep them alive.
It's inherently expensive in that enormous amounts of costly, complicated
equipment is needed to get there and back, and (now that Shuttle is going away)
will be thrown away after each flight.