Bush cancels Hubble telescope rescue mission

In article ,
OrionCA wrote:

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 09:27:57 -0600, richard schumacher
wrote:

http://www.space.com/news/hubble_budget_050121.html

"The White House has eliminated funding for a mission to service the
Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request and directed NASA to
focus solely on de-orbiting the popular spacecraft at the end of its
life, according to government and industry sources."


No surprise here. Bush gets all his science from the christian bible.

Time to write our congresspeople to direct NASA to save Hubble.

All future Shuttle missions must include the capability to reach the
ISS in case of a major emergency that precludes re-entry. Hubble is
in an orbit that the three remaining Shuttles can't attain and still
reach the ISS. Ergo, no Hubble resupply missions are planned.

That is an arbitrary choice. A Shuttle mission to Hubble is not
significantly more dangerous than to ISS; true, there's no "safe haven"
at Hubble (and as we see repeatedly ISS is not all that reliable
itself), but the Shuttle's engines have to fire longer to reach ISS. A
"safe haven" is useless if a failure leaves the Shuttle unable to reach
it. Regardless of destination the safest approach is to keep a rescue
Shuttle or Soyuz ready to fly within a week. The real reason to limit
Shuttle flights is to maximize the chances of completing US
contributions to the astronaut hotel called ISS.



Hubble was never intended as a permanent floating observatory. The
follow-on telescope is to be launched in 2010 and will greatly expand
on Hubble's capability. There's even a possibility that Hubble will
remain functional through 2010 w/o replacing the 3 remaining
operational gyro packages.

The James Webb space telescope is for IR only, not UV or visible light.
There is wide scientific agreement that Hubble should stay in use at
least until JWST is operating:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...on_050121.html

richard schumacher wrote in
:

In article ,
OrionCA wrote:

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 09:27:57 -0600, richard schumacher
wrote:

http://www.space.com/news/hubble_budget_050121.html

"The White House has eliminated funding for a mission to service the
Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request and directed
NASA to focus solely on de-orbiting the popular spacecraft at the
end of its life, according to government and industry sources."


No surprise here. Bush gets all his science from the christian
bible.

Time to write our congresspeople to direct NASA to save Hubble.

All future Shuttle missions must include the capability to reach the
ISS in case of a major emergency that precludes re-entry. Hubble is
in an orbit that the three remaining Shuttles can't attain and still
reach the ISS. Ergo, no Hubble resupply missions are planned.

That is an arbitrary choice. A Shuttle mission to Hubble is not
significantly more dangerous than to ISS; true, there's no "safe
haven" at Hubble (and as we see repeatedly ISS is not all that
reliable itself), but the Shuttle's engines have to fire longer to
reach ISS.

This is not true. Powered ascent for the space shuttle lasts about 8.5
minutes regardless of whether it's going to HST or ISS; the only difference
is that the abort boundaries are later on ISS flights due to the high
inclination. This *is* a benefit; while a main engine failure at some point
in an ISS ascent might result in a risky TAL, for the HST ascent an ATO
might be possible. On the other hand, ISS ascent is more survivable with
multiple engine failures due to higher availability of ECAL.

Furthermore, the shuttle has to burn considerably more OMS propellant to
reach HST than ISS due to the higher altitude, so an OMS failure on an HST
flight is a bigger deal than it would be on an ISS flight.

A "safe haven" is useless if a failure leaves the Shuttle
unable to reach it. Regardless of destination the safest approach is
to keep a rescue Shuttle or Soyuz ready to fly within a week.

Soyuz cannot reach HST's inclination from Baikonur, and the pad at Kourou
is not planned to have capability for the manned Soyuz spacecraft (as
opposed to the Soyuz launcher). Such capability probably could not be made
ready in time to save HST, even if it were allowed by law (and it isn't).

The
real reason to limit Shuttle flights is to maximize the chances of
completing US contributions to the astronaut hotel called ISS.

True.

--
JRF

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

One guy's opinion: As long as a significant extension of the Hubble's operating
lifetime is practical. they should use this as the opportunity to develop the
kind of sophicticated robotic systems that will be useful for on-orbit and
beyond assembly and servicing of Vision for Exploration components. That means
adding that cost to the budget and fighting for it.


Matt Bille
)
OPINIONS IN ALL POSTS ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHOR

The thing is, for other sorts of in-orbit assembly we're going to be
able to customize the environment to make them amenable to robotic
vision and manipulation. Creating a robot to operate on Hubble will
actually require several things which would be significantly more
difficult than what would be faced in future in-orbit construction and
servicing.

In article ,
(MattWriter) wrote:

One guy's opinion: As long as a significant extension of the Hubble's
operating
lifetime is practical. they should use this as the opportunity to develop the
kind of sophicticated robotic systems that will be useful for on-orbit and
beyond assembly and servicing of Vision for Exploration components. That
means
adding that cost to the budget and fighting for it.

The NAS concluded that a robotic mission would be more expensive and
have a low chance of success. It would be pouring money into a hole.

"MattWriter" wrote in message
...
One guy's opinion: As long as a significant extension of the Hubble's
operating
lifetime is practical. they should use this as the opportunity to develop
the
kind of sophicticated robotic systems that will be useful for on-orbit and
beyond assembly and servicing of Vision for Exploration components. That
means
adding that cost to the budget and fighting for it.

We need a quick mission to the Hubble. With on-orbit assembly, we can take
8 years. For Lunar missions, on-orbit assembly may consist of docking two
ships together which would be totally different from fixing the Hubble.

"richard schumacher" wrote
That is an arbitrary choice. A Shuttle mission to Hubble is not
significantly more dangerous than to ISS; true, there's no "safe haven"
at Hubble (and as we see repeatedly ISS is not all that reliable
itself), but the Shuttle's engines have to fire longer to reach ISS. A
"safe haven" is useless if a failure leaves the Shuttle unable to reach
it. Regardless of destination the safest approach is to keep a rescue
Shuttle or Soyuz ready to fly within a week. The real reason to limit
Shuttle flights is to maximize the chances of completing US
contributions to the astronaut hotel called ISS.

What is the basis for this claim about the engines firing longer for ISS?

richard schumacher wrote:

In article ,
OrionCA wrote:


On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 09:27:57 -0600, richard schumacher
wrote:


http://www.space.com/news/hubble_budget_050121.html

"The White House has eliminated funding for a mission to service the
Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request and directed NASA to
focus solely on de-orbiting the popular spacecraft at the end of its
life, according to government and industry sources."


No surprise here. Bush gets all his science from the christian bible.

Time to write our congresspeople to direct NASA to save Hubble.

All future Shuttle missions must include the capability to reach the
ISS in case of a major emergency that precludes re-entry. Hubble is
in an orbit that the three remaining Shuttles can't attain and still
reach the ISS. Ergo, no Hubble resupply missions are planned.


That is an arbitrary choice. A Shuttle mission to Hubble is not
significantly more dangerous than to ISS; true, there's no "safe haven"
at Hubble (and as we see repeatedly ISS is not all that reliable
itself), but the Shuttle's engines have to fire longer to reach ISS. A
"safe haven" is useless if a failure leaves the Shuttle unable to reach
it. Regardless of destination the safest approach is to keep a rescue
Shuttle or Soyuz ready to fly within a week. The real reason to limit
Shuttle flights is to maximize the chances of completing US
contributions to the astronaut hotel called ISS.

There are only three shuttles. If you keep one on hot standby to act as
a rescue mission, then yes, the ISS cannot be maintained or completed.
But the ISS has enjoyed bipartisan support and international support.
The U.S. is constantly dissed for "acting unilaterally". The other
nations that contribute to the ISS wouldn't want to see the U.S.
arbitrarily doom it.



--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:

Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:26:42 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Steven
L." made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:


But the ISS has enjoyed bipartisan support and international support.

Yes, unfortunately.

The U.S. is constantly dissed for "acting unilaterally".

Even when it doesn't.

Rand Simberg ) wrote:
: On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:26:42 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Steven
: L." made the phosphor on my monitor
: glow in such a way as to indicate that:


: But the ISS has enjoyed bipartisan support and international support.

: Yes, unfortunately.

Why is support from various groups unforunate?

: The U.S. is constantly dissed for "acting unilaterally".

: Even when it doesn't.

Hard to do that without a shuttle these days when we must rely on Russia
for transport to and fro.

Eric